The Maires Are Back In Town
One of our favorite movies to watch as a family while I was growing up was A Knights Tale (2001), starring Heath Ledger. One of the coolest things about that movie is how they take more modern music and set it to jousts and other medieval tomfoolery.
This is the scene that I associate my parents arrival to Pittsburgh with today.
It's set to the 1976 single, "The Boys are Back in Town" by Thin Lizzy. Whenever I hear that song, I think of the movie. I was born in 1992, so my frame of reference isn't the best.
But, the Maires are officially back in town. As of dinnertime today, they were in Pittsburgh sharing a Perogi appetizer, checked into their hotel located across the street from the hospital that my dad is having his operation at. Their total stay will last until late November.
Last week, my dad came down with a very painful case of gout. Usually gout happens to older men, not spry young 44 year olds like Matt. His tumor is affecting his thyroid, which is preventing his body from correctly filing away all of the minerals he's consuming. They've become like a sand made of uric acid and have settled out in his joints. Since my dad teaches middle school, he's on his feet a lot, so that's where the gout settled.
Tuesday morning he was unable to walk and used the crutches that I used when broke my foot in the fifth grade to get to the ER. They diagnosed him with gout, and got him set up on a regimen of steroids and pain killers. None of this will affect the surgery date. Everything will continue as planned. Pray against pain and inflammation in his foot as this busy week presses on.
Tuesday will be filled all day with doctors appointments and pre-op things. Lots of tests, checks, pokes, and jabs.
On Wednesday the All-Star Cast of Maire Family Supporters will be rolling in, including myself, two of my mom's closest friends, my aunt, uncle, and grandfather. I am so thankful for each of these people and the richness of love, faith, and laughter that each will uniquely bring to the team. Please be in prayer for travel mercies for all of us. Rainy days are forecasted for me in both Dallas and College Station.
The surgery will be taking place on Thursday. We don't know the time yet, and will be sure to post when we find it out. The procedure itself will take anywhere from 4-8 hours, and we'll have doctors updating us on how he's doing the whole time.
I'll be live tweeting @EmilyMaireHairz.
Pray specifically for the tumor to be removed completely. As I've mentioned in previous blogs, my dad has had this tumor for a while. A lot of it has "calcified" which means its kind of "sticky," the stickier parts are harder to remove. There's a 50% chance that the tumor will be removed completely, but our God is not bound to numbers, numbers are bound to Him.
Following the procedure we don't really know what's ahead. I'll be in Pittsburgh through Monday, and really that's all I know. I'm taking this whole thing one day at at time, as are my parents. Begin lifting up my mom and dad for the time after all of the supporters leave, pray for wisdom and discernment for my mom as she makes decisions and reaches out to the parts of Team Maire stationed in Flower Mound at that time.
The support that we've gotten from people that know my family has been overwhelming. My mom and I were both a mess on at church on Sunday. I think I've lost count of the times that I've sobbed through singing along with Kris Melvin while he leads worship on guitar, but this past Sunday all of the thoughts and emotions whirring through my head decided to escape through my eyes and nose and were successful.
Kris Melvin leads worship at the church where my parents and I grew to know the Lord. He was my youth pastor, and gave me the guitar that I still play today. He's also my dad's best friend in the whole wide world (next to my mom and I of course). I am so thankful for how instrumental (pun unashamedly intended) he has been in my life and in the life of my family. Listening to him sing about Jesus on Sunday morning did me in.
After an emotional communion that included my parents serving the bread and juice, the service ended, we did our best to get ourselves back together, and headed to my parents Sunday School classroom.
It was like a family reunion. People from all different seasons of my parents time at Trietsch made their way into the room to pray over my dad and encourage him with us. There are some moments in life that can't be described apart from the presence of God. Without the Sprit of the living God in that church basement, it was just a circle of grown adults holding hands around a man seated in a chair elevating one foot filled with gout. God's Spirit changes lives and situations. The gospel is in everything. He took that circle of middle aged adults and made it something that I can't even figure out how to put into words, which is a challenge for me.
After that sweet time of prayer we all sat back down, and shared laughs about our favorite memories with my dad, and some of our favorite halloween costumes of his over the years, I think the one mentioned the most was "The Most Interesting Man in the World." I'd argue that he probably didn't even need to dress up.
Someone else mentioned one of my favorite things about my dad, FROG. There are a lot of things that Matt Maire loves. He's just a lover. He loves my mom, me, our dog Pete, to a lesser extent our dog Paul, pretzel snacks covered in cheese sauce, and frogs. The "theme" of his classrooms for the past four years has just been "frogs." He always wears one of those WWJD-esque bracelets that says F.R.O.G. on it. I'm usually not one for cliche Christian acronyms, but for my dad I'll let this one go. Frog stands for "Fully Rely On God." Decorating his rooms with these creatures is his way of secretly sticking it to the man and bringing God into his classroom.
Coming off of a weekend like this last one is emotional, but good. My mom articulated it well when she explained that it's not the procedure that we're worried about, it's just the process. What he has is so rare that there's not much of a "protocol" for what to do after the surgery. In the surgery, they're actually going be removing the whole pituitary gland. The recovery time from the surgery itself shouldn't be more than 4 days, but he'll be staying so that he can start getting his hormones recalibrated and back on track. Hormones are a tricky thing. Be in prayer for his "ologists" about that.
This is my dad's surgeon talking about the kind surgery he will be performing.
I plan on updating every day this week. It's an ambitious plan.
Love.
This is the scene that I associate my parents arrival to Pittsburgh with today.
It's set to the 1976 single, "The Boys are Back in Town" by Thin Lizzy. Whenever I hear that song, I think of the movie. I was born in 1992, so my frame of reference isn't the best.
But, the Maires are officially back in town. As of dinnertime today, they were in Pittsburgh sharing a Perogi appetizer, checked into their hotel located across the street from the hospital that my dad is having his operation at. Their total stay will last until late November.
Last week, my dad came down with a very painful case of gout. Usually gout happens to older men, not spry young 44 year olds like Matt. His tumor is affecting his thyroid, which is preventing his body from correctly filing away all of the minerals he's consuming. They've become like a sand made of uric acid and have settled out in his joints. Since my dad teaches middle school, he's on his feet a lot, so that's where the gout settled.
Tuesday morning he was unable to walk and used the crutches that I used when broke my foot in the fifth grade to get to the ER. They diagnosed him with gout, and got him set up on a regimen of steroids and pain killers. None of this will affect the surgery date. Everything will continue as planned. Pray against pain and inflammation in his foot as this busy week presses on.
Tuesday will be filled all day with doctors appointments and pre-op things. Lots of tests, checks, pokes, and jabs.
On Wednesday the All-Star Cast of Maire Family Supporters will be rolling in, including myself, two of my mom's closest friends, my aunt, uncle, and grandfather. I am so thankful for each of these people and the richness of love, faith, and laughter that each will uniquely bring to the team. Please be in prayer for travel mercies for all of us. Rainy days are forecasted for me in both Dallas and College Station.
The surgery will be taking place on Thursday. We don't know the time yet, and will be sure to post when we find it out. The procedure itself will take anywhere from 4-8 hours, and we'll have doctors updating us on how he's doing the whole time.
I'll be live tweeting @EmilyMaireHairz.
Pray specifically for the tumor to be removed completely. As I've mentioned in previous blogs, my dad has had this tumor for a while. A lot of it has "calcified" which means its kind of "sticky," the stickier parts are harder to remove. There's a 50% chance that the tumor will be removed completely, but our God is not bound to numbers, numbers are bound to Him.
Following the procedure we don't really know what's ahead. I'll be in Pittsburgh through Monday, and really that's all I know. I'm taking this whole thing one day at at time, as are my parents. Begin lifting up my mom and dad for the time after all of the supporters leave, pray for wisdom and discernment for my mom as she makes decisions and reaches out to the parts of Team Maire stationed in Flower Mound at that time.
The support that we've gotten from people that know my family has been overwhelming. My mom and I were both a mess on at church on Sunday. I think I've lost count of the times that I've sobbed through singing along with Kris Melvin while he leads worship on guitar, but this past Sunday all of the thoughts and emotions whirring through my head decided to escape through my eyes and nose and were successful.
Kris Melvin leads worship at the church where my parents and I grew to know the Lord. He was my youth pastor, and gave me the guitar that I still play today. He's also my dad's best friend in the whole wide world (next to my mom and I of course). I am so thankful for how instrumental (pun unashamedly intended) he has been in my life and in the life of my family. Listening to him sing about Jesus on Sunday morning did me in.
After an emotional communion that included my parents serving the bread and juice, the service ended, we did our best to get ourselves back together, and headed to my parents Sunday School classroom.
It was like a family reunion. People from all different seasons of my parents time at Trietsch made their way into the room to pray over my dad and encourage him with us. There are some moments in life that can't be described apart from the presence of God. Without the Sprit of the living God in that church basement, it was just a circle of grown adults holding hands around a man seated in a chair elevating one foot filled with gout. God's Spirit changes lives and situations. The gospel is in everything. He took that circle of middle aged adults and made it something that I can't even figure out how to put into words, which is a challenge for me.
After that sweet time of prayer we all sat back down, and shared laughs about our favorite memories with my dad, and some of our favorite halloween costumes of his over the years, I think the one mentioned the most was "The Most Interesting Man in the World." I'd argue that he probably didn't even need to dress up.
Someone else mentioned one of my favorite things about my dad, FROG. There are a lot of things that Matt Maire loves. He's just a lover. He loves my mom, me, our dog Pete, to a lesser extent our dog Paul, pretzel snacks covered in cheese sauce, and frogs. The "theme" of his classrooms for the past four years has just been "frogs." He always wears one of those WWJD-esque bracelets that says F.R.O.G. on it. I'm usually not one for cliche Christian acronyms, but for my dad I'll let this one go. Frog stands for "Fully Rely On God." Decorating his rooms with these creatures is his way of secretly sticking it to the man and bringing God into his classroom.
Coming off of a weekend like this last one is emotional, but good. My mom articulated it well when she explained that it's not the procedure that we're worried about, it's just the process. What he has is so rare that there's not much of a "protocol" for what to do after the surgery. In the surgery, they're actually going be removing the whole pituitary gland. The recovery time from the surgery itself shouldn't be more than 4 days, but he'll be staying so that he can start getting his hormones recalibrated and back on track. Hormones are a tricky thing. Be in prayer for his "ologists" about that.
This is my dad's surgeon talking about the kind surgery he will be performing.
I plan on updating every day this week. It's an ambitious plan.
Love.
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