After two hard fought years, my beautiful, courageous, wonderful wife lost her battle with cancer. Jessica passed away around 9:40 a.m. on Friday, January 8th. Her mother and I were with her when she passed on. Harper was able to spend some special time with her mother Thursday evening and several family members and friends were able to say their good-byes. Jessica died knowing she was well loved.

In lieu of flowers, feel free to make donations in Jessica's name to either of the following organizations:

Fremont County Orchard of Hope

111 Orchard Ave

Cañon City, CO 81212

Sangre de Cristo Hospice West

Cañon City Main Office

601 Greenwood Avenue

Cañon City, CO 81212

We will also be setting up a college savings account for Harper and will post that information once it is organized.

On behalf of the Evans and Bunt families, thanks for all the love and support that you showed us.

The Latest

Updated by Matt:

We first wanted to thank all of you for the love, support, gifts, etc. that you have sent our way. We're very fortunate to have people like you in our lives.

Jessica's been in the hospital since New Year's Eve due to decreased kidney and liver functioning. She was pretty disoriented, weak, and her eyes had turned a little yellow when I took her in. The've been rehydrating her to help flush the toxins out of her body. She also received blood platelets and a blood transfusion. Her oncologist wants to start her on a new chemotherapy treatment, but her counts are still too low. Hopefully, she'll be able to start in a day or two and that this will be the chemo that works. The doctor thinks that she'll probably need to stay in the hospital until Thursday.

Oh, I almost forgot...Disneyland was great! Harper had a terrific time and Jessica showed a lot of heart by gathering up all the strength she could each morning so that we could share that time as a family. It was great having our friends Tim, Kara, Ellie, and Andy there with us.

Thanks again for all your support. Jessica or I will try to update soon.

It's been awhile

After almost finishing up the Xeloda oral chemo I had a CT scan to see if the cancer had spread and what was going on. It turns out that the Xeloda had not been working. The cancer has spread throughout my liver some more and some spots are bigger and also the same with my lungs. So it is good news that it has not spread to any other organs or bones but not so good that we lost those 12 weeks or so trying the Xeloda.

So on Monday I started two new kinds of chemo IV that I can't remember the names to. They are making me so tired. I am just exhausted and can barely get out of bed. But the pain is lessening which is a good sign (they said the pain would go away when the tumors shrank) but it does seem a bit quick acting but I'll take what I can get.

Wow, thank you

To whoever sent the "Birthday Card" to us today we were so suprised and so happy. Thank you so much. I wish I knew who it was so we could thank you in person.

Jessica

Radiation

Radiation starts on Monday. They are going to do my mapping (where I get the radiation) and also my first treatment on the same day which is great. Usually it is two appts but they will combine into one since I have to drive an hour each way.

So after 10 to 14 days of radiation (every day but Saturday and Sunday) I will hopefully not have as much pain. And I am still on the chemo so that should also help.

All the news...

Well, I guess it has been awhile since I have posted on here but wanted to bring everyone up to date. It has been a bit crazy around here.
So after having some pain in my side for a couple of days I went to my regular doctor and he sent me to the hospital for a CT scan thinking that my gallbladder needed to come out. But it turned out that it was actually cancer on my liver that hadn't shown up on any other scans. That sucked.
Then met with oncologist and he said the oral chemo should shrink that as well and I wouldn't be in so much pain. But that didn't seem to happen so I mentioned to him when I saw him next (this past Monday) that it still hurt pretty bad. So he called the radiation oncologist and I got an appt. the next day.
Radiation oncologist (let's call him McDreamy) said that he was really excited to be able to use the "Triolgy" on me which is radiosurgery and he has never been able to do it on a liver but I looked like a good candidate. So two days later I went back for a scan to see if I was a candidate for this. If not then I would be treated with regular radiation.
The techs said everything looked good. They thought it would all work out.

Friday at lunch, McDreamy called me and said, not only can I not do the radiosurgery (which would have killed the cancer on my liver) my liver is covered with more than 30 cancerous lesions. So that really sucks. They don't really know what is going on at this point other than it is a pretty nasty cancer I have. (does cancer take on your personality? I'm pretty stuborn, so is this cancer. Discuss).

So on either Tuesday or Wednesday I will start conventional radiation for 10ish treatments to shink the tumors and then hopefully I will not have the pain. I am also back on the oral chemo. Typically when you do radiation you don't do chemo at the same time but McDreamy wants to fight this from all angles. I'm all for that.

So keep your fingers crossed for me. We're looking at some other options (other doctors, etc) just to make sure all bases are covered.

Lots new

I'm pretty tired tonight so I am going to post tomorrow but there have been some major changes and again, they aren't good.

The main thing is it looks like my liver has cancer all over it and they are going to do radiation starting on Tuesday or Wednesday. Back on the oral chemo.
More tomorrow.