Off the Beaten Path Texas

I'm Brad, and I roam around Texas. Sometimes I have a camera with me. Most of the pics are from my travels in Texas, although occasionally there will be photos from other places I've wandered.  Unless otherwise stated, All the pictures on this blog are mine. This is my personal/side blog.

[offthebeatenpathtexas]

Bullhead, Channel Cat, and Bluegill as part of our catch this morning. Overcast skies and a breeze helped with the heat. Nice way to spend an hour with my Best Girl on a Saturday morning 😊

[offthebeatenpathtexas]

View from the 11th floor of the hospital at UT Southwestern Medical Center this past Friday while I was waiting for an elevator. That's downtown Dallas on the horizon.

This is a cancer update, for the long time followers who have been with me on this ride...

My Colon cancer is now established in my Liver in addition to my Lungs. The last regular chemo treatments did not stop progression and neither did a research trial drug that I did for a couple of months.

However, this week I started a new research study that looks promising. It's a Phase 1 trial, which means that the medicine hasn't been tried in people before. In fact, I believe that I am the 4th person to use this medication delivered in this manner. Basically, they use a CT scanning machine to insert a long 17 Gauge needle into two of my liver tumors. The research drug is injected into one of the tumors with a smaller 18 guage needle and biopsies are taken through the needles as well while they have them in there.

If this sounds unpleasant, it is 😄😄. But they give me a local anesthetic (it's never enough!) and once they withdraw the guide needles the pain subsides.

After my first treatment I am tolerating the drug really well. We do this weekly for a month and then every other week for another month and then we'll do a scan and look for signs of improvement or at least the halting of progression.

I am 100% confident that God has me in His hand. Whether I am "cured", or not, doesn't change that. Honestly, my level of Joy and Happiness and Calm has been higher for the past couple of years than they ever were before. I owe all that to Him. Cancer has taken a lot from me, but it doesn't compare a bit to what I have gotten from the experience.

Don't get me wrong... I really want to be healed. To be able to face the future without having the constant spector of cancer looming over my shoulder. But my Plan may not be the best plan. His plan is.

I know this with no reservations:

God doesn't promise you a life of ease with no pain. Just that he will be there with you through it all if you let him. And he is never wasteful of your hurts. None of it is in vain.

I'll let y'all know how I'm doing down the road a little bit 😊

[offthebeatenpathtexas]

The wet Spring this year is making a really good corn crop. From a few minutes on the backroads around Trenton, Texas. Summer 2021.

If you're ever around Trenton, Texas on the weekend check out The Fish Fry food truck. Awesome fried catfish!

[offthebeatenpathtexas]

Fort Kickass garden, 2021. We got the windmill at tractor supply and I repainted it to suit our taste. The Wife is going to design some graphics for the tail vane like they had on the old windmills.

[offthebeatenpathtexas]

Trenton, Texas. 2021

[offthebeatenpathtexas]

Abandoned gas station. Indiahoma, Oklahoma. 2021

[offthebeatenpathtexas]

Mount Scott, at Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge, Oklahoma. 2021

[offthebeatenpathtexas]

My favorite "find" on a recent roadtrip to Oklahoma.

This is the remains of the First Baptist Church, Colored, of Anadarko, Oklahoma. Built in 1910. I don't know how long she has been abandoned.

I assumed that the interior would have been long ago emptied out, or that it would be filled with trash, but as the video and picture above attest, she has some treasures within, still. I count three pianos, if you look closely amid the many church pews and othe pieces of furniture.

I had a flash in my mind when I first saw her. It came to me all at once just as vivid as if it were real... If my circumstances were different, I would love to buy her and pull her back from the edge of destruction. Add on a period looking kitchen area in back and convert the church itself into a warm and welcoming dining area. I'd open Friday and Saturday evenings with a limited, but well done, Southern menu.

The Church is in a hard scrabble economically depressed area a couple of blocks from thriving downtown Anadarko. You know the kind of place. It's where people get shuffled away and forgotten..

The Wife had an awesome idea when I told her about my thoughts of renovating the old building: On Sunday evenings we would have "Sunday Dinner", where we would serve a different main course with sides and dessert for free to anyone who lives in the neighborhood surrounding the Church. No paying customers. Just a way to reach out to the surrounding people and let them know we see them. That they matter.

Man... that's a dream that I would surely love to see come true.

Now, if I could figure out a way to have a little less Cancer and a little more money I would jump in with both feet and make it happen 😊

[offthebeatenpathtexas]

The "baked goods" section at Reeves Farm farmers market. Princeton, Texas. Opening weekend for this season. We stop by here almost every weekend unless our plans take us in another direction. Great place run by great people.. We bought some sandwich rolls, a cinnamon roll to share, and some tomatoes.

[offthebeatenpathtexas]

Near Trenton, Texas. 2021

[offthebeatenpathtexas]

The Girls took their sweet time starting to lay, but they ain't messing around now!

[offthebeatenpathtexas]

Finally had time (and energy) to explore Mt Carmel Cemetery in Wolfe City, Texas. This is an old cemetery, for Texas, dating from the mid 1800s.

[offthebeatenpathtexas]

I'm still alive 😊.

Cancer still suucks.

The arrival of another Spring helps mitigate that a little bit, though. My little buddy Cooper does too ❤

[offthebeatenpathtexas]

[offthebeatenpathtexas]

Snow Day!

[offthebeatenpathtexas]

Too dramatic?....

BUT IT'S THEIR FIRST EGG!!! 😄

[offthebeatenpathtexas]

This little quilt was hanging in the exam room where I was waiting to do the paperwork, bloodwork, and EKG, to see if I qualify for an experimental drug study..

I know cancer can take a lot from people. So much of it seems totally out of your control, and a lot of it is. I have been fighting this fight going on 5 years now, so believe me I know. It's very important to remember that there are a lot of really wonderful things that cancer can't take from you, unless you let it.

Tomorrow is brain mri and CT scan day. And then it will just be a matter of waiting to hear if I am an acceptable guinea pig 😄.

Bonus pic of Cooper, cuz he's so danged CUTE!