It has been a while....but here is an update

It has been a rough few weeks.  I have had seizures on a consistent basis.  On average one every other day, but sometimes it has been one a day or sometimes two a day.  It doesn’t hurt, and I can typically feel them coming, it is just so darn frustrating, especially when it is multiple in one day.  I really can’t figure out why they have increased so much.  I am not doing anything different and most of the time I can’t associate them with stress.  Maybe God is trying to tell me to slow it down some.  I know I haven’t written lately, but for some reason I keep getting busier and busier.  Also, Kara has been doing quite a few races over the last few months.  I have been so proud of her, she is accomplishing a lot that most of us would not even attempt.  She ran a Marathon in January in Charleston SC, she has run a few 5Ks over the last few months, but the proudest I have been of her is the fact that she did two half marathons in two days.  After the first one in Greensboro on a Saturday, we went to Raleigh that afternoon and spent the night due to the Raleigh Rocks ½ was starting at 7:30 Sunday morning.  That night she was tired and achy because of the run that morning and she was scared that she might not finish.  I told her that she will feel better in the morning and will do fine.  Well, not only did she do fine but she set a new Personal Record for a 1/2 marathon (13.1 miles to us that do not run) and came in 3^rd place for her age group.  When she crossed the finish line, she hugged me and said that she does this because she believes that every mile she runs will in turn add another year to my life.  So as many miles as she does run, I will outlive pretty much all of you combined. 

This weekend is going to be an exciting weekend for my family.  We will be attending for the first time the Angels among Us walk/run.  This is put on every year to raise money for the Preston R Tisch Brain Tumor Clinic at Duke Hospital where I go for treatment.  What is especially good news is that the money that is raised goes to research at the facility to find new ways to treat Brain Tumors.  So basically the money goes to find new ways to stop or eliminate tumors such as the one I have.  They will have a group of survivors (Ones that have not yet died from a brain tumor ….such as me) that will be recognized.  Also, there will be some researchers that will speak and update everyone on the upcoming treatments that they and others are working on to fight the battle against brain tumors.  I am so happy that I will have a fellow survivor Jennifer Hutchens to walk with me.  She was diagnosed last year with a Brain tumor and had it removed.  This was our first year raising money for the event and I set a goal of $10,000 dollars.  Right now we have just over $3000.00 I would love for you to join with me and fight my killer by giving money to research.  It is a tax-deductible contribution and you will receive an email you can use when you file your taxes next year.  The deadline for online contributions I believe is by the end of day Wednesday.  If you can only give $5.00 then please just do that.  If you are blessed enough to be able to give $5000.00 then I pray you will do that.  You would not be helping just me, and I would not be asking for you to do it if it were just me.  You will be helping thousands of people each year that are diagnosed with this deadly killer. 

You can donate by clicking on this link:

https://secure3.convio.net/dccc/site/Donation2?idb=104682054&1880.donation=form1&df_id=1880&FR_ID=1150&PROXY_ID=9771&PROXY_TYPE=22&JServSessionIdr004=z4kwdekhg4.app333b

Thank you! 

Anniversary

It is very hard to write something for the blog this month.  This month is the anniversary of the start of this new path in life that the Lord has given me.  February 17 is the first anniversary, this is the first day last year that I started having symptoms, February 24 is the next anniversary, it is the day that my life changed forever.  February 24 I was given the diagnosis of having a brain tumor.   With that in mind this month has started out horribly.  I have had some of the same feelings that I had back then already this month.  There have been the panic attacks, and nights where the sun setting has made me cry.  There are times in the morning and coming home from work where I have cried in both directions, listening to the songs that I listened to last year to get me through those times.  These are things I would have never expected to happen this year.  It is just like finding out again.  I can only take this as a reminder that the same God that got me through that dark time, will get me through this one.

                Looking back over this past year, I have had some really great friends to be there for my family and I really appreciate them taking the time to do so.  I have sat down and shared supper with them, I have sat down and have them pray for me, and then just have them come up and hug me and tell me they love me at just the right time.  Thank you so much.  Funny thing is, these are not even the people that I thought would be the ones to do that.   The ones I would have thought would be there were not found.  That has been hard to deal with. 

                The Lord has also given me a view of my life in a way I did not like.  I was a bench sitter for so long in sharing His son with others.  He showed me that and now I take every opportunity I can to share the love of Christ.  As I have said so many times here, I hope that you learn from what He has done in my life to make sure  you are where you are supposed to be in your walk with the Lord, and doing the things for Him that really matter.  We are not placed here to seek things for self for your entire life then die and that is it.  There is so much more to life if you allow the Lord to open your eyes to it.

                Finally, I want to thank each person that has prayed for my family and me.  There are many times that I could literally feel that I was being prayed for.  We recently had a lesson in our community group on praying for others.  Our society will say “I’m praying for you” just like you say “How are you doing?” we need to just not say these things, but follow up with what we say.  We committed to pray for another couple in our community group for at least a month.  This was a verbal commitment to the other couple while looking at them in the eyes and after talking with each other about things that need prayer.   We also were to contact each other over the course of the month and to let them know we are praying for their specific needs.  The reason I shared this is that when we pray for others, especially those that have a terminal illness, we also should contact them and let them know we are praying for them.  Better yet, go to their house and pray with them, or at least do it on the phone.  People need the touch of others, and prayer together is a great way to do this. 

                I want anyone that reads this to know….I love you.  The Lord also loves you.  If I can ever pray with you, please let me know.  If you have questions about the Lord, or what being a Christian is about, I would love to talk to you about this.  I can tell you this…..if it were not for my faith in the Lord, my life would have ended on February 24, 2012.  Instead, my life amazingly got better.  Yes I have bad days, so does everyone….yes I fail every day at trying to live like Christ…..but so do all Christians.  It is not the works that make us Christians,  being a Christian makes us want to do the works.

You can always contact me at gregelmore1212 at gmail.com.  Let me show you how you can have the hope that I have….even in a hopeless position.

Compliments go a long way

Thursday night on the way home from Band practice an interesting thing popped into my mind.  It was totally off the wall and I really don’t know what made me think of it, other than God wanting to show me something.  So anyway Kara was not at home when I got home, I got on Facebook and posted that “the next 10 people to private message me will get something for free from me” Well who doesn’t want something for free?  If I saw that I would be the first to jump in. I thought it was going to backfire because it took a little while before someone finally bit.  Guess what the free thing was….a compliment.  Yes, kind of goofy I know.  The thing about it though was that the more I did it, the more I wanted to do it.  Not only the responses much better than I thought they would be, my response (Which I had not considered) was unbelievable.  I am more of a realist I believe, than a pessimist or optimist.  But lately I have been depressed because I have felt alone and down.  Here almost a year later after diagnosis, the rush of people to console the family and to bring meals have waned.  Life has become fairly normal since there has no news, good or bad, in my fight against brain cancer.  The thing about doing this though, it made ME feel better about things, even though I was complimenting others.  Funny how God works things out.  Some of the things that just came out of the first batch of compliments……I got to tell my brother I love him (Probably the first time ever)  I got to connect with old friends and talk about things we did at School and previous Churches we attended, I got to pray for some people for things I had no clue about before this.  And that was only the first batch of people.  So I posted again and got even more people to give in to their curiosity.  Both the recipient of the compliment and I were truly blessed just from the simple act of telling them something positive.  I am now hooked.  I have had even more send me messages today just to say hey and ask if all the “free” stuff is gone.  Nope, I have all the free compliments you could ask for. 

I blogged about this today, after a long time of not blogging, because God has found yet another way  to change my life just by complimenting someone on a strength they have, or something they did for you in the past. We as humans, and especially Americans, have come to the point where everything we hear is negative, the news, the newspaper, even on Yahoo.com.  News has become the most negative outlet we are bombarded with constantly.  I challenge you to do something similar to what I have done, get people to talk to you and then compliment them.  If it takes doing something like I did and build up enough curiosity in people to contact you, then do it.  If it is telling someone you have known forever that you really appreciated that thing they did 20 years ago for you, tell them.   It will open things up between you  to talk about, and hopefully become involved in their lives again.  I am addicted, if you want a compliment, send me a text, private message in facebook, or just email me at gregelmore1212 at gmail.com  I would love to tell you what you mean to me.  Will you do the same for others?

Dark Room

The last couple of days have been strange for me.  This feeling I have gotten once or twice before has come back and it is really indescribable.  I wonder if this is what it feels like to have no hope, or if it is what it feels like to be apathetic.  Is it a feeling that makes you want to say…”I am here, but why?”  It really weighted me down this morning going to work.  It is like being in a large pitch black room by yourself.   I wish I knew why I feel this way, or at least had a clue.  It affects my wife and my two boys; they can tell when something is going on with me even though my personality can change in an instant.   I wish they did not have to go through all of this with me.  I wish they would have a normal life, instead of the roller coaster that we are on.  I know God’s timing is perfect.  I wish though that He would show me why my life is headed in the direction it is sooner than when I get to that point.  I pray O Lord that You guide me to do only Your will in my life, no matter what it is.  I still pray for that amazing God given miracle in my life, no matter what the actual miracle is, as long as it points to you.

I am Yours God.

My Favorite Meal ever

Today my pastor's lesson was on the Lord's Supper.  He spoke on the importance of eating in the bible, and how the Lord used meals as a time to teach us more about Him and bring us together and learn more about each other.  One meal in the bible that really had new light shed on it was the Passover.  I have heard about the Passover feast many times on my almost 44 years, but I had never realized that the Passover itself was God revealing what he was going to do for us in Jesus.  The blood of the Lamb without blemish (Jesus) was spread over the door post (Cross) to keep those inside from suffering from death.  Wow!  What an amazing foreshadowing of what was to come for all of us. God is amazing in using everything in His book to point to Himself and to also show us that He loves us.
The funny thing was that Pastor Dean asked us to think of the best meal we have ever had.  Most would think of the famous restaurant they have ate at...or the most expensive. Funny thing was that what popped into my mind wasn't any of those.  It was a meal that I had with my community group at Sir Pizza in Randleman when we had pretty much everyone there.  I remember standing at one end of the room we were in and looking at everyone interact.  It was a surreal feeling, like I wasn't there and watching everyone talk to each other.  But, I was there of course and enjoyed every minute of it.  Yes, this past Thursday, I ate Thanksgiving with my family and parents and was a great time, but my favorite meal so far in life was eating pizza with the rest of my family at Sir Pizza.

Amazing things God has done

It has been a few weeks since I have wrote anything in the blog so I thought I would share a few things that have happened.   Just to back track, I went for my latest 2 month check up and found that the tumor had slightly grown.  Also, they were concerned about an area inside the tumor enough to where they wanted me to start Chemotherapy.  As soon as the doctor told me this, I said I did not want to do that.  She asked me why and I said that I had already set out a timeline in which this didn’t fall into.  In my mind I did not think I would start any kind of treatment for another 4-5 years.  So for her to tell me that I needed to do this now, well, was unacceptable.  It took 45 minutes of arguing with her before she convinced me that I needed to start it now.  As of this Wednesday, I will have been on it for one month.  So far I have not had any bad side effects from the treatment.  The treatment is actually in Pill form and I take it every night before going to bed. I will have to do this a year total. 

 There have been some good and bad things that have happened because of this.  The bad…..I now spend $500.00 a month out of pocket for the Chemo medicine and the other medicines that I have been taking.  This is exactly $500.00 more than I have a month extra to spend.  But God has already started to show me that He will provide for me.  A few weeks ago a friend of mine called to talk because we don’t get to talk often and to see how I was doing.  We talked for a while when he asked what could he do to help me.  I told him that I was ok and there was really nothing he could help me with.  We started talking about other things and he asked again what he could do to help me.  I said everything is fine except the amount of money that I have to pay out of pocket for the medicine.  He told me he wanted to help me with that and two days later he deposited money in my bank account that equaled two months cost of medicine…..God is so awesome.  Another time a few days later I went to blow the leaves off of my lawn.  Already my riding mower and push mower had stopped working around August or September.  Now my blower would not start.  I posted on a group I started on facebook called “Buy Local” wanting to know if anyone knew of a good local lawn care company that could come out and remove leaves and mow the grass one more time.  The next day, my wife texted me and said a guy just knocked on the door and asked if this was the Elmore’s house.  Kara said yes and he said he was sent over to get my leaves up.  He did a great job and it took a little while to find out how he got there…a guy who I had not met, but was going to my church, found out that I needed lawn care service and sent his guy over to do it and paid for it.  I still have yet to meet him in person, but this was just another way God showed me that He is going to take care of me and my family. 

I don’t like to be the recipient of things like this, because I have always believed in paying my own way.  It is hard to accept….it feels like I am letting my family down.  However, God is showing me how he takes care of his Children.  As we have talked about at our church this weekend and in our building program we are currently going through, God doesn’t need our money to work, and besides that it is all his money anyway.  My family is going to follow Him in faith in our church’s building program…even though we know we do not have the money that we have committed to give to the program; we know that He will provide it to us just as He has over the last few weeks.  So if you are having problems with your finances, give it to the Lord with your whole heart and watch what He does.  It may not always be easy  but as long as you are doing it for His glory, in the long run it will be better.

Time is not your friend

Some of you have asked when I was going to update my blog again.  Well, I have finally decided to sit down and write.  Believe it or not, ever since I was diagnosed with a brain tumor in February, Kara and I have been the busiest we have ever been in our lives.  We used to be the boring people that sat together every night and watched TV.  Now we have something to do most every night and it has gotten to the point that we don’t have very much free time.  In fact I came home from work on Monday and put my pajamas on at 5:30. Kara asked what I was doing, I said I am going to go get in the bed and sit there till we go to sleep, and I did.   But during all of this hustle and bustle, both Kara and I have had time to talk to others about their lives, serve the Lord in ways we had never thought of before, and been able to get to know each other more. 

There is this thing that has been on my mind for several days that I thought I would share with you.  It is an analogy that hopefully will not be a wasted one and one that you cannot relate to so forgive me in advance if it does not make sense.  I was thinking about my life the other day and basically the time it has taken to get to this point.  So many days have passed since being born and so many memories formed some good and some bad.  I will be 44 on December 12, and looking back I see the biggest mistake is a pre-conceived notion of how long I have left in life.  I liken it to a gas gauge in a car.  We start out at full when we are born, then we base life choices on where that needle is on the gauge.  In our twenties, we look at the gauge and it may be around ¾ a tank.  So we say,” hey I can live like a college student for a while more.”  Then we get to around my age, in our forties, and see that the gauge is around ½ a tank.  We start worrying about having enough money to retire on, how to pay for our kids college (For those of us that had our children in our thirties) and we start looking at our life more seriously and wonder what life is really about.  If we are Christians, a lot of us start looking at maybe we should start taking our Christian life serious.  Start praying more, start serving more, and so many more things that we have probably only half-way did because we still had half a tank to go.  I know I have done this, and I regret it.  Know why?  Because the bottom half of the tank isn’t the same as the top half.  I have had many cars in my life, way too many.  But one thing I have noticed is how the gauge in the cars have all been different.  But one thing I have found on those cars is that the “top” half of the tank is never the same as the “bottom” half.  Most of mine had a larger top half than a bottom half.  This is true about life. Just because you are at ¾ or ½ don’t expect that to be a true indicator of how long you have left.  My father has become the oldest Elmore to live in our family lineage.  His father and grandfather both died in their 50s and 60s.  My father is now 79.  I have always kind of lined up his life with mine and thought I would follow right along behind him into my 80s.  This year I have found that out the hard way.  Where I thought I was at mid-life, I could actually be at end-life.  Those plans of serving God that I had for the future, when I had more time, could be wiped out.  The time I have spent to get to this point was more bench sitting than serving God.  Yes I am a Christian, but I did not serve as I should have.   Don’t let the needle be your guide, it is not correct.  You may or may not have the time you think you have.  Spend more time serving our Lord now, not later.  Spend more time with your family now, not later.  Pray more now, share your testimony now, visit your neighbors now……time is not on your side.