A message from Brooke
My fiancee Brooke and myself just ended my Game 30 spending the last several days in Mexico with my new Game 31 partner Jon. Brooke wrote at the website about the experience and has the courage to face some emotions that I am having difficulty expressing. So here it is in her words:
John says that his throat cancer is from years of holding back pain…he said, “you know when things hurt and you get that lump in your throat…I ignored that lump and fought back tears so many times that it manifested as a lump I would have to face” As you all know, one of my game goals is to raise $21K for John to receive the treatment necessary to heal his throat cancer. This last week Sarano and I took him and his wife down to a holistic, cutting edge medical facility in Baja, Mexico.
John and Robin have been married for 10yrs and have a 7year old son, Hunter and a 3 year old son, Ben. Being there with them was more than life changing or soul searching…it completely changed my relationship to God, to any and all of the goodness that is my life, to my health, to
all the love that I have been blessed to have in my life, and most difficult to say…my relationship to people in my life that might leave… We spent 4 days together…Sanoviv is a very unique enviroment…all raw food, completely organic enviroment from the clothes that you are required to wear to even the fact that they do not have flourescent lighting because it is too abrasive. Over our 4 days we shared every meal together and we all actually stayed together and told stories during some of John’s treatments. You would be amazed by his resilliance and spirit…because of his throat cancer and the pain meds that he is on he had the hiccups the entire time we were together and his throat was so raw that he could barely eat the food that is so important for his bodies healing right now…none of the circumstances kept him from making friends with the older ladies that were there (mostly as a last effort before their own death), laughing and making jokes when he had his oxygen mask on and several IV’s in his body, or simply reaching out to tell his wife, “it will be ok, we have too many memories to make”…he even wrote out his game with us…he plans to learn how to play the guitar, learn to meditate, and deepen his relationship with God as well as Robin…these are not the words of a man who plans to die despite the fact that just hours before he was told that he had one of the single fastest growing forms of cancer the medical world has seen…still he plans to learn to play the guitar over the next 90 days so that he can play for his family at their upcoming weekly family nights…he also has big plans to wrestle with his son Hunter when he returns to Michigan after his treatments in Mexico. In the last 7 mos John has lost about 55lbs due to his cancer and rather than lament the change in his body he has decided that now is a good time to get “washboard abs”…the stories around his positive outlook are endless despite the medical reality that his days are numbered. . . and if you met him…which I pray you will all have the ability to do…you would know that this is not a man in denial just a man with a will.
Even as I write this I feel there is no way to convey to each of you all the moments we shared…how do you recap precious moments when they are just so tender…sometimes I think I fight with my memory…I knew that when they were happening that I wanted to remember them in detail with perfect clarity and yet because there are moments that I fear he may leave this place I think I choose to keep them hidden…somewhere in my heart but not in my mind because it is just to hard for me to accept that Hunter, Ben and Robin might be John-less in a few months. It is just too hard because I also fell in love with Robin. I saw her fight to hold his hand and be with him every moment and yet tell herself what is the big deal, why am I acting this way i know that he will not die…he can’t die. By the way she also created a game for herself…she recognizes that as she left Mexico this morning with us to return to her boys at home while John is still in Baja for another 2 weeks that SHE TOO NEEDS TO HEAL…it is so interesting how when someone you love is suffering from something it is often necessary to also heal yourself as they heal what to the world appears to be more obvious.
Robin must go home to her boys and be both mother and father…hopefully also find time to be just Woman…seems like that might be a longshot…but access to that femininity may also help bring her strength…I know that i have completely digressed from sharing about our time and i feel that i have done a poor job of recounting…i trust that each of you get the essence and maybe can recall a time in your life when “WORDS” are simply not the access to the essence of a moment…some things are just God’s gift to our soul,I think…they cannot be recounted just felt! Thanks for letting me share…it hurts to even think about…and yet I do believe that he is in the most capable hands and that despite any prognosis…a person’s WILL is the greatest predictor of outcome.
87 comments April 17th, 2006 Sarano Kelley