A letter from Coach Dad

So it may just be completely mental...but I'm feeling awesome these day! I think it has to do with no more treatments, but also with the fact that I live in Ohio where the weather is crazy and I had cancellation and delays this week! We had Monday off, went to work Tuesday, Wednesday was another snow/ice day, Thursday I worked, and today was a 2 hr delay. I feel so rested!! It feels wonderful!
So the plan is this. Monday, February 7 I have to go in to get my blood work done, and then I have my appointment at Cancer Care (back to my chemo and oncologist office) February 8. At that time, we will review my blood work and my current side effects and symptoms and then schedule my scan to hopefully show no more cancerous activity in my body. Then, I go back to my radiation oncologist February 18 to check in with them on my radiation side effects. My swallowing has actually gotten much better! Not much holds me back anymore besides breads and carbs. Still a little hard to swallow those. My chest isn't as red as it was, and like I said, with all these delays/cancellations and no more radiation, I feel so much more rested! Life is good!

Last weekend, my dad wrote this to me and I wanted to share it. I'm so humbled by his words and how he feels...he makes me feel like my Pursuit was worth more than just a journal for me and place to let you know the latest...he's a great dad. And who knows, maybe he's right... :)

A Look Back at This Season and Forward to the Future – by Coach Dad


Hello Me Lorla,

I have timed this letter to coincide with your treatments being over and we await hearing the test results showing that your cancer is in remission. I have two areas I want to share with you at this time.
The first is that I cannot find the right words to express what your blog has meant to me and what I believe it has meant to you and to others. It was a perfect answer for all of us in so many common ways and diverse ways at the same time. You have taken a gift from the Giver and made the most of it.
Your blog title “The Pursuit” I waited until now to look up in the dictionary for the complete definition and it just told me: 1. act of following 2. carrying out 3. an occupation. I want to share my quick take on each of those. “Act of following” to me means you stayed the course and followed God talking to you throughout this. “Carrying out” to me means you kept the blog going with your spiritual, emotional, and personal insights as if it were your mission. “An occupation” to me means about the only way to fulfill this is to begin looking into avenues of utilizing this gift of communication you have with your writings. I believe the signs are really here for you to be thinking about this.


The second area is maybe hard for you to get your mind around but it goes like this. In my iTunes Library I have my 180 favorite songs like we all do but I have always used song titles to get points across or to make jokes with. Not only song titles but sometimes song lyrics I also use. About two weeks ago I was simply looking at my list and all of a sudden all of my thoughts turned to you (like usual these past months) and how the song titles (or sometimes the song’s lyrics) in some way reflected your thoughts, your feelings, yes - your blogs! Some of these listed below I smiled at, some I laughed out loud at, and sometimes they almost brought tears to my eyes but it was like the names of these songs (again, sometimes the lyrics I knew to them) were indicative of what has happened to you, and all of us, since this cancer fight started.

Here are the artists and song titles (okay-okay- I know they are dated ) as I thought about “The Pursuit” and the path you have been on these past months. They are in no particular order except they are the song titles that really caught my attention for different reasons at different times. So, a season in review:
ABBA: Knowing Me-Knowing You, Foreigner: I Want to Know What Love Is, Hugo Montenegro: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, Willie Nelson: Always on My Mind, America: Lonely People, Bee Gees: Stayin Alive, The Moody Blues: I Know You’re Out There Somewhere, Bruce Springsteen: Glory Days, The Brother’s Four: Nobody Knows, Josh Groban: You Raise Me Up, Diana Ross and the Supremes: Reflections, Aretha Franklin: Think Elton John: Candle in the Wind, Elvis Presley: You’ll Never Walk Alone, Four Tops: Reach Out and I’ll Be There, Elvis Presley: Can’t Help Falling in Love, Rod Stewart: Find a Reason to Believe, Whitney Houston: I Will Always Love You, Kool and the Gang: Celebration, Glen Campbell: The Impossible Dream, The Lettermen: I’ve Had the Time of My Life, Joe Cocker: With a Little Help from My Friends, Billy Joel: The Longest Time, Journey: Don’t Stop Believin’, Louis Armstrong: What a Wonderful World, Simon and Garfunkel: Sounds of Silence, The Chiffons: One Fine Day, Neil Young: Heart of Gold, U.S.A. for Africa: We Are the World, Cindy Lauper: Time after Time, Jim Croce: Time in a Bottle, The Grass Roots: Let’s Live for Today, Ben E. King: Stand By Me, Bon Jovi: Livin’ On a Prayer, and last two are very fittingly from Jefferson Airplane: Miracles, and Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now.


So, “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now’ is what I think our bracelet’s “Never Give In” is all about. I remember in your blogs and at our kitchen table discussions over these past months we talked about how we truly believe that attitude and Faith play such a monumentally significant role in sickness and in health. That leads me to the next part now.
In closing, I was trying to think of how to finish this letter to you and well, you know how these things work I think, all of a sudden I had a memory of something that gave me an insight on how to close this.
A few years ago something was very clear to me after some 30 years. When we lived on Richie Ave. down three houses from us were two pretty old brothers living together in their twilight years and the one was a retired preacher. In the neighborhood we called them the “Baker Brothers” because that was their last name and they were always together sitting on the porch, riding in the car, or taking walks. On several occasions when we were talking I remembered the preacher saying to me, “Never forget: What the mind can conceive, and believe, it can achieve” and then he always smiled as if everything is that simple. From that time forward I had always looked at it as a “power of positive thinking” example and then I realized it may be something else sometimes so let me explain...
Like I said, I finally got it a few years ago but all of a sudden right now this all flashed back to me. To me it meant that what a mind oftentimes can “conceive” is really the voice of God talking to you. When it says to “believe” it is because of your confidence due to your deeper Faith in God that keeps everything on track to be accomplished by “following and carrying out” the mission you heard. And when it says you can then “achieve” it is that part of the definition of pursuit where it says “an occupation” and people have been God’s disciple throughout this whole mission. Now, look back at the last two sentences of the 3rd paragraph of this letter. My feelings then were that you have a gift of writing and how it is even clearer to me now that there is more reason for you to think and pray that although this part of cancer may be over, your mission to write may not be.

That is the part Laura that is clear to me now. I believe that with your Faith and your talents, God has opened channels for you to share His Gospel and Your Life with your testimony in ways that reach others now and forever. Serving God is an honor, and those that do that in special ways like you do can also say it is a privilege.

Love Ya Forever Me Lorla,
Coach Dad