Update

With Five Doctors and Three trips to the doctor this week, I choose to live in AWE, JOY, even ECSTASY

Go Fund Me Update

Hello, My Friends,

I can’t say it enough. Thank You! For all your prayers, calls, visits, emails, texts, and support. Not only having Brain Cancer with Brain Surgery, but having three Cancers in a row makes me realize that God’s kept me alive for a reason, and that reason is you. I literally couldn’t do this without you. I am eternally grateful to have you in my life. With my wife, Elizabeth, who set up this Go Fund Me, passing from Cancer, my son Michael’s death, my loss of Contemplative Monk on Facebook, to my website being taken down as I sat with Elizabeth in Hospice, you have no idea what a difference you make to me.. You have literally been like a cup of cold water, even the breath beneath my wings. Facing death every day puts everything in focus about what really matters in life.

I thought I was good to go, having beaten Kidney Cancer and Stage 4 Lung Cancer. I removed my cancer port at the end of January. I thought I was good to go, but in the latter part of February, I started having problems with no apparent cause. I even did a couple of faceplants, passing out, which the Emergency Room missed, and I was sent home.

So, now I’m on my third round with Brain Cancer, starting all over again. I’m slowly recovering from the removal of a brain tumor, a little bit larger than a golf ball, in the back of my brain. It was pushing the left and right hemispheres of my brain apart, messing up my vision, memory, and balance. I was missing my doctor’s appointments and couldn’t understand why, because I was in heavenly presence most of the time, so it had to be pushing on my logical left brain lobe. So I’ve had the tumor removed, which was a miracle, I’ve had Radiation treatment, and I’m going in next week for an MRI to see if I need Chemo.

My Wim Hof breathing and cold plunges weren’t working, and I couldn’t figure out why. I knew something was seriously wrong, so I made an appointment with my doctor, and I was on my way when this lady hit me head-on. I woke up with the steering bag in my face, tasting the acid and watching the dust and pieces fall in slow motion. I looked around. There were no cars around me. It had knocked me into a gas station parking lot. The highway patrol came up and asked me if I needed to go to the hospital, and I said yes. I was OK after the accident, but I knew something was seriously wrong. I asked how the lady who hit me was, and he replied she and her daughter were OK and that she was charged. I was so relieved they were both alright.

At Sacred Heart Hospital, they scanned me from head to toe and said I had a brain tumor and needed immediate surgery. I was to learn that the Brain Surgeon invented the procedure to remove my golfball-sized cancer. One person mentioned it was smaller than the size of a baseball. That shocked me. There’s no room in the brain for something like that.

The surgeon and her assistant came in when I woke up, both looking exhausted, grinning like Cheshire cats. They were stoked. She said, “The surgery was successful, and ‘We Got It All!” I couldn’t have gotten a better team if I tried. She told my main Cancer Doctor that it wasn’t my fault for missing my appointments. It was the cancer. I’ve got five doctors right now.

My daughter, Kathryne, and my two sons, Ben and Daniel, were there to encourage me. That evening when prayers came over the intercom, I cried like a child being held in the arms of God. Even though it was a mess, I felt like I was walking in the Choreography of God the whole time.

Then Rehab and now I’m home, carless and not able to drive yet.

Again, I can’t thank you enough for walking with me through this dark but luminous night of the soul. It’s been said, “We’re just walking each other home,” and it’s true; we belong to each other.

Finally, Please, please pray for me as I pray for you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Bob Holmes, i.e., The Contemplative Monk