Strong Like Rick

Dear Friends and Family,

We appreciate your care and concern for our family.  We thought it would be a good idea to make a blog for our dad Rick Wheadon to update you on his health.  I'm Maddie, his youngest daughter and I will be updating it for the next little while.  

We are learning more everyday and we feel God's direction in our lives as we go through this journey together.  

Here's what we know so far:

Rick has been diagnosed with Stage IV Pancreatic Cancer.  He started feeling some minor upper abdomen discomfort about a month ago.  The discomfort increased moderately and about two weeks ago he made appointments with his primary care doctor and gastroenterologist.  Those appointments were scheduled for last week.  As the pain intensified, and as he was able to sleep less each night, he went to Instacare where a doctor suggested that he had gastritis (thinning of the stomach lining) and prescribed pain and stomach acid reduction meds.  

After several more days of little sleep and increasing pain, he went to the ER at Utah Valley Regional Hospital.  After a number of tests and a CT scan they found a spot on his pancreas and two spots on his liver. We feel very blessed that he went from detection to full diagnosis including a biopsy and a PET scan in less than a week--the doctors consider that a miracle in and of itself.

 We met with an oncologist on Friday April 1st, where we received the official diagnosis.  The oncologist suggested six months of bi-weekly chemotherapy treatments.  We are in the process of evaluating other treatment options and clinical trials including: The Huntsman Cancer Center in SLC, Mass General in Boston, and MD Anderson in Houston. We anticipate starting treatment within the next two weeks.

While our hearts are broken over the news, we have great family support, as well as support from Rick's Carollo Engineers Family, our ward, and our friends & neighbors.  We are buoyed up by the faith and prayers of many -- we feel that love and support everyday.  We are up for the fight ahead and we look forward to a positive outcome. 

As a family, we have been amazed by the strength of our dad over the last few weeks.  He has great faith that this is the Lord's plan and he strengthens each of us every day.  We love him so much.  That's why our little slogan for this journey is "Strong Like Rick."

We will keep you updated as things progress.  Thank you so much for your support and prayers!

FYI: This Sunday, April 10th, our ward in Alpine is holding a fast for Rick, if any of you are interested in joining us in fasting & prayers.