Mike Update

I have three brothers. Two older and one younger. My younger brother, Mike, is by far my favorite. We've beaten each other up when we were younger, and been each others best friend. Bailed one another out of predicaments. Came up with many stupid ideas that could have gotten us permanently dead, like toboggan adventures with winding trails and steep jumps, jumping off the house or trees, allowing our other crazy brothers to blow us up in the air, higher than the roof on Bentonite bags, just to come flailing back to earth and slamming into the hard ground or sidewalk. Learned to ski on the same hill the same day, well, one of us learned better than the other. We have been on a wild, sponaneous, plane ride across the country to recover his stolen vehicle, what an adventure. We have even been on extremely fun Disney vacations together. But this cancer, by far, is Mike's biggest trial. I thought I would post a before and after photo:

This picture on the left is of Mike, the youngest of all the cousins and our oldest cousin on his left, John Oleson. This was taken last July after my aunt Vi's funeral. The family got together in the Greybull community hall, where, Mike and I used to roller skate. I'm thinking I was better than him at roller skating. But not much else. He was usually on the honor roll and getting perfect attendance every time you turned around. Ha Ha.

The picture on the right is after cancer treatment. He began radiation treatment for two weeks on November 13th, and seemed to get through that pretty good. His chemo started after that. They gave day one through IV and the next two days were pills. The pills and or the Chemo, gave him really bad mouth sores and he couldn't even drink water without being in excruciating pain. Needless to say, he lost way too much weight and ended up back in the hospital within days after his first round of Chemo. Joelle shaved the rest of the fuzz off his head and sent me the picture. The second round of Chemo went better, he had the entire round through IV (NO PILLS) He didn't get nearly as sick, but just as tired. Of course it can't help that he lost sooooo much weight. But he says he is working on putting it back on. He can actually taste food. And, now wants to plan a trip to Hawaii. I just hope I can make it across the ocean!!! Maybe I'll have to take a ship to Hawaii, I think they do that, don't they? Please pray for my little brother, every little bit helps.