Intro and a quick update from Sherry-

We hope you all had a very Merry Christmas. Ours was spent in the quiet of our apartment, just the two of us with our small “gratitude tree” sparkling with the white lights and star on top overlooking the city lights of Houston. I prepared a traditional holiday meal on Christmas Eve. Rex could only eat a few bites, but I was thrilled to see him eating at all!

As most of you already know, we are now in in-home hospice care here in Houston. That means we are no longer under the supervision of MD Anderson. Houston Hospice is here to provide all the support, equipment, and medicine needed to keep Rex comfortable. Pain management has always been our number one concern, and so far, they have met that need perfectly. The nurse stops in once or twice a week, but they are always accessible and have someone on call 24/7 if an emergency arises.

We have had a few bumps in the road recently with internal bleeding and swelling in his right leg. We feared another blood clot, but the blood thinner was stopped because of the internal bleeding. He is sleeping a lot and eating/drinking very little. He is experiencing some cognitive issues (mostly train of thought and forgetfulness) and audible hallucinations from the medication, but overall, he is somewhat stable. 

Dr. Wolff came to our apartment on Sunday afternoon and again today to check in on Rex. We are so thankful for him. Once we were referred to hospice, Dr. Wolff was no longer in charge of his care, but he wanted to still be involved and, as he stated, "had no plan of abandoning us" after the hospice transition occurred. He and Rex have a special bond and share a similar gift of humor (they both have terrible jokes). It gave me a tremendous amount of reassurance knowing Dr. Wolff is in agreement with hospice and the direction they are going with medication and care. He plans on stopping in regularly and encouraged us to call or text with questions or if we needed anything. 

Below you will find a CaringBridge entry written by Rex. He had started this months ago, but things took a turn, and he never quite finished it all until last month. He is now ready to share it. This was quite a labor of love for him, and I think he did a remarkable job on it! I am so proud of him! -Sherry

 

Be sure to click on the gallery for more images related to this entry! CaringBridge only allows me to attach 5 per entry, but I had more to share!  Also, if you have pictures of Rex, please forward them to me at sherryrust@me.com. I would love to see them! Thank you so much! 

____________________________________________________________________________

From Rex…

 

I absolutely LOVE my wife!!! And her unbelievable servant heart! I knew it was big before we started on this cancer journey. But the selfless love and support Sherry has displayed every day during the past 11 months has vaulted my appreciation to a whole new level. It has not only been fun sharing life with her; it has been fun discovering on a daily basis the many wonderful ways God has wired her up. She will never cease to amaze me! I am blessed!

Sherry’s dedication to writing these CaringBridge posts is just one example of how she has blessed me, and I believe, many others (I will talk some more about this later). But I also know these updates take time and effort. So, as an expression of my gratitude and love for her, I thought I would make my own contribution to the effort this time! Plus, it also gives me the opportunity to tell each of you how much I love and appreciate you as well. Every message, text, phone call, social media post, gift, and card I have received has been an awesome blessing (the embraces received during my Birthday weekend alone were absolutely AWESOME)! And they have often come at the most precise time needed (yet more examples of God’s presence and answers to prayers). Thank you again, everyone!

While our journey has been difficult, the “God stories” we have experienced along the way have been breathtaking! Whether our good Father has chosen to express His love in subtle ways throughout each day, or He has made His presence known in a more grand and obvious ways throughout our journey, Sherry and I have been constantly blanketed by His presence.

Therefore, I am going to take a different approach with this post (your grace would be appreciated). Instead of discussing the medical minutia associated with my health condition (especially considering the last stage of my progression), I am going to instead focus on highlighting just one of the many breathtaking “God Stories” that Sherry and I have experienced along the way. I do hope my story will provide a strong representation of the powerful and countless ways (with so many beyond our witness and/or imagination) that God has specifically embraced us with His presence, whether in a specific event(s) or cumulatively throughout our journey.

Heads up. My particular “God Story” below resembles a winding road, so please bear with me. If you feel yourself saying “are we there yet” one too many times, or you find reading about someone’s glory days in sports from years ago to be boring, please feel free to skip to the last two paragraphs where I talk about my wife (who I want to make sure I honor in front of as many people as possible). However, if you stay with me throughout, I hope you will see how each turn in the story was needed to reach my “God Story” destination. But isn’t that how God sometimes works? We may not understand various progressions in our life until we see those events as a whole in our rear-view mirror. And even then, we will never fully know or even imagine the multitude of ways God is moving all around us and especially inside our hearts. Of course, with omnipotence according to His perfect plan.

Here we go……..

Turn #1

After my chemo treatment on Sunday, August 23rd (the same day Sherry made a CaringBridge post), I experienced a really rough five-day stretch of fatigue, nausea, and pain. With levels more intense than anything I’ve experienced during my previous nine months of treatments. During this same exact five-day stretch, I found myself thinking A LOT about the many memories I have from playing competitive sports growing up. And how those experiences have played a crucial role in helping me develop the necessary grit, courage, and perseverance needed in life, especially during the journey Sherry and I now find ourselves on. I’m not quite sure why I was consumed by these particular sports memories. Maybe because a new football season (one of my favorite times of the year) had just begun. More likely, I think, it was because of the overwhelming barrage of texts, messages, and phone calls I received from many of my former teammates during that same five-day stretch. It was actually a little freaky how these messages all came at the same time. Was Sherry’s most recent CaringBridge reference to funeral arrangements the catalyst behind these messages? Or was there a “ring leader” behind the scenes rallying the troops? Either way, I have no doubt God was ultimately the one drawing the X’s and O’s on the chalkboard (whether the various players knew it or not).  

Most of the messages came from my high school teammates during the years I attended Deerfield Academy in Western Massachusetts (I was captain of our football, basketball, and baseball teams my senior year). But there were also some teammates from my Cape American Legion and Harvard baseball days who “reached out” to me as well (which partially eliminates my “ring-leader” hypothesis). Yes, Dick Steele, they actually “reached out” (sorry, inside joke). One text, in particular, hit me hard. It was from Oscar Anderson, a former DA football teammate who would later become a fellow classmate and “Finals Club” fraternity brother of mine at Harvard. The fact that Oscar and I lost contact with each other after we graduated from college in 1992 (our 30threunion is actually coming up this June) makes his effort and gesture of love that much more powerful. His text, which read… ”Rex – I was digging through some boxes and found this gem. You were our leader that year. Do it again. Love to you and Sherry – Oscar” was heart-tugging! But the exclamation of tears came when he included a screenshot of the letter our head football coach Jim Smith, one of the great influences in my life, wrote to our team after we won our league’s New England Prep School Championship my senior year. As Coach Smith writes (the full letter is attached), “The last two games insured your place in Deerfield football history. One of the finest team accomplishments we will ever witness. Congratulations, Champs!” It was fun thinking about our championship win. However, I know it was “the rest of the story” behind this accomplishment that God wanted to place in my mind and especially my heart at that time.

To explain. My senior year football team was a crazy, rag-tag, band-of-brothers. And unlike any team I’ve ever played on, which made serving as one of its two Captains an unbelievable honor. I played running back on offense, cornerback on defense, and even handled the punting duties. But my favorite thing to do was returning kicks and punts (scoring four return touchdowns my senior year). The other Co-Captain, Brett Gewanter, a strong as an ox local farm boy who had hands the size of oven mitts, also played on both sides of the ball. Center on offense. Nose guard on defense. Brett was a man of few words. But his presence was felt at all times. In fact, our entire roster was filled with unique stories, special talents, and larger-than-life personalities across the scale.

We weren’t much of a team in the beginning. We started the season with one win and three losses. Our 3rd non-conference loss, a 50-17 smack down from Worcester Academy, was especially ugly and definitely nothing to write home about. However, that game was the prologue our team needed to write “the rest of the story.” The day after the Worcester loss, we called a “come to Jesus team meeting,” snapped on our chin straps and proceeded to run the table undefeated the rest of the way. Our final win, and championship, was especially sweet because it not only came against Choate, our arch-rival (who was undefeated at the time), but we had to come back from an early 12-point deficit to do so. 

God knew I needed to hear that message at a time Sherry and I were stumbling through an especially dark valley. Don’t quit, Rust! I am with you! Your wife is with you! A great team of family and friends are with you!

While I continued to think about so many other great sports experiences and teammate relationships, whether developed on a bantamweight flag football field during my pee wee years or on a bunch of bar stools during my “robust” 16-inch softball days in Chicago (that was for you Mark McManus), I began to think about a more broad circle of teams in my life. A group of 6 Men’s Fraternity brothers who I would travel with once a week to meet with inmates at the Charleston, MO, maximum security prison. A group of 25 analysts I trained with and worked alongside (many all-nighters) during my first job on Wall Street. A group of strangers who would have to come together, communicate, and act quickly to save someone’s life. Or a group of two, my wife and I (Bean and Big), my favorite team and teammate, to share this life journey with. And, of course, my ultimate teammate has been Jesus Christ. He has been with me ALWAYS (even during some of my knucklehead moments in life).

I realize that my teammates in life have extended far beyond those I have had on the court or playing field. I am incredibly grateful for every one of them (no matter the arena we have shared)! Of course, this includes all of you who have been on Sherry and my team for the past 11 months. Each gesture of love, support, encouragement, and every single prayer has served as an awesome “come to Jesus” meeting for Sherry and me!!! Thank you! We love you all!

 

Turn #2

With all of these sports memories swirling in my head, I was excited to set aside time to watch a live stream of Henry Oliver’s first high school varsity football game on Friday night, August 27th, despite it starting well past Sherry and my bedtime (we usually eat “Linner” around 3 or 4pm). But it helped that I was just starting to come out of the post-chemo funk following the previous Monday’s treatment. And Sherry and I love Henry’s parents, Jack and Rachel Oliver, who sent us the live stream invitation when they learned Henry would suit up for St. Louis MICDS for the first time as a freshman. 

What I didn’t expect was how moving it was for me to watch Henry’s game (in a good way). Probably because it made me think about all the emotions that I experienced during my very first football game, “under the lights.” And more specifically, it made me think a lot about my coach at the time, Terry Kitchen, who was the greatest influence in my life during those early Junior and High School days (other than my father, Gary Rust). Coach Kitchen was my first football coach when I started playing in 9th grade and my varsity baseball coach throughout my time at Cape Central. 

I was excited to start as left cornerback during my very first football game in 9th grade under Coach Kitchen’s tutelage. But I was also a bag of butterflies, considering I hadn’t played any tackle football during my first eligible season to play in 8th grade. And it showed. With only about 2 minutes into the first quarter, our Charleston opponent called a reverse. And there I was all alone in my cornerback position (160lbs dripping wet) on the weak side formation facing a blocker (who looked at least 10 ft tall to me at the time) and his even bigger running back buddy in tow behind him, barreling my way. Well, I remember “meeting” the blocker. But I didn’t get a chance to say hello to the running back. I did, however, get to see part of him run to the end zone while I lay on my back, looking through the small earhole in the side of my helmet.

Who was the first person to “greet me” when I returned gingerly to the sideline? It was Coach. And let’s just say he wasn’t looking to exchange recipes. He did, however, throw a lot of protein in our “discussion” every time he called me a “Meathead”!!! But it gets worse. Just a little later in the game, Charleston called another reverse and…..here we go again. One lead blocker. One running back. One cornerback “in the way.” Well, the good news is that I was able to introduce myself to the running back this time. The bad news? I wasn’t able to watch his touchdown run this time because my helmet was turned so far on my head that I no longer had an earhole to see through. Ugh! And then I looked to our sideline. Double Ugh! There he was, Coach, locked and loaded. I tried to hide myself behind some teammates as I ran to a yardage marker as far away from Coach as possible. But he just jogged along the sidelines in his snazzy tiger print cleats and mirrored my zig-zag route, so he could be the first person to “welcome” me back. And let me know some additional names he had for me (“Loggerhead,” “Saphead,” “Hoghead,” etc., etc.), which I had no problem hearing since he held a death grip on my face mask up against his mouth. Then right when I thought Coach’s “crucial conversation” was about to end, he would pause and tell me, “don’t eyeball me, boy!” So I looked away. And he continued his “discussion.” Until he paused again and now told me, “look at me, boy!” And back and forth he went. Look at me, boy! Don’t look at me, boy! Look at me, boy! Don’t look at me, boy! It was rather disorienting (to say the least). However, after the game was over, and while I sat on the floor (the visiting team locker rooms had no chairs or benches), wondering if this football gig was for me. Coach came over to me. Grabbed my hand. Pulled me up to a standing position. And said… “Son, the day I stop yelling at you is the day you should be worried!” That was it. And he walked away. Well, I have carried those words with me every day for the rest of my life. Along with so many other words he spoke to me over the years.

I loved telling Sherry about my many Coach stories. Unfortunately, Coach died of pancreatic cancer on February 4, 2019. And I have thought a lot about him since, especially over the past 11 months. I will be forever grateful that he never stopped “yelling” at me every chance he could get until the day he died. So…..no, Coach, I am not worried.

In fact, Coach was just one of many of the incredible mentors in my life along the way! Teachers, coaches, bosses, pastors, authors, etc. Each of them have had a huge impact on my life and shaped me into the person I am today. And for that, I will be “forever” (literally) grateful! We love you all!!!!!

Turn #3

On Saturday, August 28th, I woke up feeling good enough for Sherry and me to join John Kinder (my life-long childhood friend) and his beautiful wife, Stacy, for breakfast. It is always great to see friends and family in person, but especially those brothers and sisters in Christ who have walked alongside of us during so many trials and tribulations over the years. And the breakfast did not disappoint. A lot of laughter. Some tears. And a lot more laughter. Afterwards, we all took a “crazy shot” picture, hugged each other goodbye, and Sherry and I went back upstairs to our apartment carrying a gift bag the Kinder’s had delivered to us on behalf of another Cape family. After Sherry and I got back to the apartment and flopped on the couch, we opened up the gift and……… what should we find?!?!?

The actual baseball hat worn by Coach Kitchen during his days at Cape Central. Wow! How cool is that? Especially since I had just told dozens of Coach stories to my wife while watching Henry’s game just the night before!!! And now, whenever I look at Coach’s hat, I realize that he is STILL “yelling” at me, even from Heaven. So…. no Coach. I am definitely not worried! And for those wondering, Coach’s hat fit me perfectly, and I wore it to every Chemo treatment from that day forward. 

 

Not long after, we arranged a phone call with Barbara Kitchen, Coach’s wonderful wife. It was incredible reminiscing with her about other Coach stories (particularly if they were stories that the other person did not know about). And I especially appreciated Barbara having the willingness, courage, and vulnerability to share the specific details, whether physical or emotional, behind Coach and her own personal pancreatic cancer journey right up until the very end. Sherry and I appreciate Barbara (and the whole Kitchen family) for being a part of this amazing gift of love!

Wow!!! How awesome is that “God Story”?!? I still get chills every time I talk or think about it!!! Sherry and I love Christ beyond measure!!!

And now, as promised in the beginning, I want to conclude this post by lifting up and affirming my beautiful wife. I have to admit, when Sherry told me back in January that she wanted to share our journey on a public forum, I vehemently resisted. I have always preferred to stay “below the radar,” especially when dealing with personal and emotional challenges. And I knew our upcoming battle against an unpredictable and, in my case, hyperactive disease would not be without deeply personal and emotional issues. However, once Sherry W….. WO…. WON (there, I said it) the argument (not surprised based on my track record with her over the past 23 years). And especially once she started to share stories about my “wayward ways in the water closet.” I realized that I not only needed to accept that this was going to happen, but I better blow up my comfort zone and fully embrace it. God and Sherry were having some serious conversations at the time, and who was I to get in the way of those? Of course, Sherry still buckled me up three times over and turned on the child safety lock just in case I started kicking and screaming again.

And, now that I look back over the last 11 months, I realize Sherry was absolutely RRRRRR….. RIG….. RIGHHHH…..RIGHT as well (man, this is getting exhausting)!!! Her steadfast obedience has opened up a flood of indescribable blessings on our lives (especially mine) during this journey! Her posts have not only been a great way to keep family and friends updated and help reconnect us to so many wonderful people/relationships/memories that have helped shape us over the past 50+ years; her posts have allowed us to witness and experience the unbelievable power of prayer that has come from so many people (both known and unknown) on our behalf. How else can we account for the overwhelming peace that has blanketed us every day? Or the added doses of courage and perseverance Sherry and I receive at the most perfect/precise time needed with each of your messages, texts, calls, visits, or surprises sent to our mailbox).  

I thank my beautiful Bean for all the time, talent, and effort she poured into these CaringBridge posts! I love you, Sherry!

I thank all of you for embracing and loving on Sherry and me throughout this journey.

And, of course, I give the BIGGEST THANKS to our good, faithful, and always present God! Sherry and I know YOUR plan is perfect!

And while I wouldn’t wish this crazy journey on anyone, I do hope and pray that everyone will experience the depth of intimacy like Sherry and I have been able to experience. While both of us accepted Christ into our lives years ago. The more we have learned to let go, the greater we have been able to Love God and Love Others. The two greatest commandments I wish I would have embraced much earlier in life. But I am beyond blessed for every day; God continues to give me the opportunity to do more of now.

Sherry and I are truly blessed! We love you all!!!  God is good!