The Bend in the Road

So I thought I'd start with some background information.  Many of you know that Derek lost his job last May, as a result of some small town politics.  We felt that in many ways it was a great blessing.  He received a severance amount that would meet our needs for a year, then Derek began immediately to apply for other City Management positions.  He was very successful in nearly every position he applied for!  Every time he would get to the final step of the recruitment process, we would pray that if the new location was right for our family he would get the job.  If it was not right, that he would not get the job.  Repeatedly, Derek appeared to be the best man for the position, only to realize that it was not the right place for our family at that time.  We have always known, with each of these close calls, that Heavenly Father had intervened and had something else in mind for us.  We enjoyed a summer filled with family time, some travel, and many activities with the kids.  Derek loved the fact that he was available to attend girls camp, youth conference, and the high adventure trip as a chaperone.

The first week of August was the 50 mile hike.  Derek and Tanner and Matthew hiked through some beautiful rocky mountain country for 6 days.  When they returned Derek started to notice that he was having some tummy trouble.  In October he finally went to a doctor to see if maybe he had contracted something weird from the water they had pumped and filtered on the hike.  That was not the case.  His discomfort increased over time, to the point that he was hardly able to sleep at night.  Finally he went back to the doctor and insisted on a colonoscopy.  The doctor tried to talk him out of it, sure that it would reveal nothing, but on January 2nd, Derek went in for that procedure.  The Gastroenterologist originally gave a Chron's Disease Diagnosis, but called us back on January 5th to tell us that tissue samples had returned showing that Derek had Colon Cancer.