When last I left you, I had just finished a rousing game of “guess what kind of meningitis you have” and finished a home IV antibiotics treatment. After that, there were about two weeks where things were touch and go. Specifically, the doctor would touch my bulging noggin’ and go “Hmmm.” Over that same time, I continued to develop leaks from my incision, and we would monitor the situation, keep my head wrapped tighter than Tut, and then wait for the next one. Finally, my local doctor (the fantastic Dr. David Hauge) consulted with my surgeons in Nashville, and the decision was made that we would re-open the incision at the base, drain the fluid (really hope no one’s trying to eat while reading this), and sew it back up nice and tight. We set the surgery date for the next day (maybe it was a couple days…it’s February now so you’ll have to forgive the shaky details) and resigned ourselves to another stint in the hospital.

The day of the surgery came, and by this time I was ready to move on with my life. We were having some issues with my disability insurance payments being made, and I really needed to get back in the ol’ work saddle. Dr. Hauge did his thing, and I was in and out of surgery in no time flat. It seemed to be a success, and I was unbelievably relieved to have a normal head again.

And then I woke up.

The next morning, that is. I woke up, and the right side of my head was swollen right back to where it was before I had the surgery. We played the wait and see game, but at this point my local Doc felt he had exhausted the limits of what he felt comfortable doing, and off to Nashville we went. My first appointment was with Dr. Haynes, the Otolaryngology specialist (hearing/balance doctor). I was really afraid of going back in the hospital at this point, but I just knew that he was going to recommend opening the incision back up and repacking the fat graft to seal the leak. From all the research, this was a big deal. Going back in brings significant risks and I was, frankly, not ready to spend ANOTHER six weeks recovering. Much to my delight, he told me that he thought we could treat this medically, and without a stay in the hospital. He was my new best friend.

And then my neurosurgeon came by to consult. (Are you catching this trend of ups and downs?) He thought the best solution was to put me in the hospital THAT DAY. This was the Monday of Thanksgiving week, and we had dropped ALL of the Comer brood off at a dear friend’s house for the day. What about the turkey and the sweet potato casserole? What about that poor, unsuspecting woman who so sweetly promised to watch our kids for the DAY? “How long will this take?” I ask, hoping for an outpatient type procedure. The answer? Three days. Maybe four.

Sigh.

Our dear, dear friend was more than accommodating when we called to discuss it with her, and so off we went to the hospital.

Let me pause here for a moment to clarify a spiritual principle. See, It had been easy for me up to this point, even with the meningitis and all the leaks and issues that kept popping up to say that I had faith. But can I admit something? I wasn’t feeling particularly strong in this particular moment. I was starting to cave in to those thoughts of, “Lord, I don’t understand. You didn’t heal the tumor. Cool…fine…I can handle that. But why am I going back in the hospital for a fourth time, ESPECIALLY when you know our resources are nearly gone?” I was discouraged. I was physically and spiritually weak. But then I felt that still small Voice speak. Not audibly, mind you – but clearly. It was God calling my bluff. Stripping me bare of all my planning, and all the walls I had built, and all the “faith” I had previously displayed. You see, it was easy for me to have faith that God was going to take care of my family financially when I knew that my employer was going to keep sending checks. It was easy to have faith and be strong before the surgery when I knew the risk of complications was small (HA!). But now. See, NOW God had me where He could show me that He is firmly in control. I felt him speak. But again, if I’m being honest, I wasn’t ready to hear it in that moment.

Back at the hospital, the plan was simple. We were going to insert a small catheter in through the base of my spine to help drain the excess cerebrospinal fluid and, hopefully, it would act like a straw and a juice box. The fluid would drain, and the swollen portion of my head would collapse back into place. I’ll skip some hospital details here, except to say that spinal taps are really uncomfortable. And when the surgical student (ahem) hits a nerve with the giant needle inserted into your spine, that kinda hurts. But amusingly enough, also made my leg kick involuntarily. Weird feeling. Long story, short, the procedure worked, but took an extra day.

Here’s a God thing for you, and the conclusion of the earlier paragraph. Brooke and I did our best to plan for this and save accordingly. We try, as a matter of course, to not be foolish with our money. We saved, we had health insurance, we had disability insurance – we did all the right things. And yet, there we were in Nashville and we realize that our planning had still fallen short. Even with good health insurance, this has been an expensive endeavor. I had planned on being back at work on Tuesday, but here we were still in Nashville on Friday. In addition to the issues I was having with my employer and my disability insurance paying me, I was fighting a losing battle on my business front. I have a design company, Frontlines Creative, that I operate in addition to my day job. I had enough invoices out (people who owed me money) to take care of our need and much more, and yet they weren’t paying. I just couldn’t understand it.

I’m in the bed, literally flat on my back and unable to do ANYTHING to help our situation. So we humbly approached God right there in the hospital room. There was no wailing. No sobbing. No shouting. We spoke simple prayers to an understanding God. “Jesus, no one knows our situation better than You do. We’ve done everything we could do, and we need You to step in. We can’t fix this, but we know You can. Lord, You’ve brought us to this point to show us that You’re in control, and we’re trusting You to take care of us.”

I may be off by a couple of words, but that’s pretty close. We thanked God, and decided that I needed to take a walk. Me, Brooke, and my IV and back drain pump took a lap around the hospital floor. When we got back around to the door of my room, there was a friend of ours and his family. They visited for a few minutes and then handed us two cards – one from them, and one from someone else. We said our goodbyes, and Brooke and I opened the two envelopes. In addition to the beautiful sentiments and thoughts for my quick recovery was the EXACT amount we needed. It was the most humbling example of God’s provision I’ve ever experienced. The range of emotions I felt is hard to explain – relief, joy, thankfulness, and also the overwhelming feeling that I’m so unworthy of such a tremendous blessing. It was a landmark moment that changed me – hopefully forever.

We arrived at Vanderbilt on Monday, and checked out on Saturday.

After that, I was placed on a bevy of medications. A super-heavy-duty diuretic to keep CSF levels down to normal, an extreme dosage of steroids (I had strange cravings to watch baseball games), and a couple other assorted pills thrown in for color and texture. I’ve since tapered off of everything except the diuretic. I’ll be on this medication twice a day until June, which wasn’t such a bad thing until we discovered that it has one really, really nasty side effect – kidney stones.

As if I were on some twisted version of “Candid Camera” I gave birth to a beautiful little pebble named Goliath on a Sunday night/Monday morning at 5 AM. I’ll leave the details out, except to say that there is absolutely no way to ever in a million years exaggerate how painful those things are. Imagine your kidneys exploding while simultaneously being punched by Mike Tyson. Who then bites their ears off (I know kidneys don’t have ears…stay with me). I learned two things that night. First, whatever that drug was they gave me is really, really, really effective. And second, I was reminded that people go through more pain in one night than I’ve gone through during this whole ordeal – perspective is everything.

And there you have it. This blog existed before my brain tumor, and it will exist after this post. I may not even ever mention it again. Except on anniversaries, or the tumor’s birthday. He gets emotional if I forget. In the meantime, I hope you’ve learned something, and hope you’ll continue to stop in every now and then.

God bless!

On Friday, October 30 I went in to my local doc to have my staples removed. When the nurse (my super-awesome Mom) took out the second staple a bit of CSF (Cerebrospinal Fluid) leaked out from the incision. This is somewhat normal (from what I understand), and after having the nurse practitioner check it out, we thought all was well. I was feeling fine at this point and as I left I was told to monitor the area for any more leaks and to let them know if I experienced an extremely painful headache. This was the first time Brooke and I had really been out since well before the surgery, so we decided we would stop by the mall for a few minutes and then get some lunch. This was around 9:30 AM.

Once in the mall, Brooke noticed that I had a little more fluid leaking out, although just a very little amount. I had already had a light headache before heading to the doctor, but it was growing a little stronger at this point. Long story short, by 11:00 AM this headache was intense. We called the doctor and we were told to try to get some caffeine in my system to see if it makes any difference. A trip to Starbucks later and I was feeling a bit better, but not great. We decided to forgo lunch and just get home so I could lie down.

By the time I got home, I was pretty much out of my head in pain. By far the worst I’ve felt during this whole ordeal, and, not to be dramatic, probably the most intense pain I’ve felt in my life. I took my heavy duty pain pill and it did nothing to help. The next couple hours are kind of a blur for me, so I can’t tell you a whole lot about what happened. I know that the doctor ordered another high power pain pill for me and it had no effect either. By 4:30 or so I was in the ER.

The on-call neurosurgeon for my group, Dr. Sanders (phenomenal!) and another doctor whose name I can’t remember checked me out and decided to do a spinal tap to collect fluid and try to determine what exactly was going on. The assumption on all parts was that I had meningitis, but they needed to know if it was chemical, viral, or bacterial. The spinal tap was a tad surreal and less than comfortable. The fact that my head felt like it was in a vice was actually a welcome distraction.

The spinal tap results proved to be inconclusive, so they started me on some intense broad-based antibiotics via IV. I stayed in the CCU/ICU the first two days, and I experienced Morphine for the first time. I absolutely hate any drug that impairs my ability to think or communicate, but eventually it gave me relief from the pain (after the first night…that first night there was nothing to be done) so I’m thankful for that.

A few days later they still weren’t getting definitive results from the spinal tap, but it was apparent that I was responding to the antibiotics so the “call” was made that it was bacterial meningitis. The way the infectious disease doctor explained what happened was interesting. He said that meningitis bacteria double every 20 minutes. So in the two hours from when I left the doctor on Friday, and when I started feeling the effects, the bacteria had already multiplied 64 fold. So you can only imagine how much it had increased from 11:00 to 4:30 when I went to the ER. And I pause here to thank my awesome, amazing, and careful wife who really pushed me into finally going to the ER. I was so out of my head that I really wasn’t thinking clearly, and stubborn about going to the hospital. Frankly, people die from bacterial meningitis all the time, and it was her caring persistence (and the hand of God) that I believe saved my life. I’m so grateful. God has been better to me than I deserve, keeping me through a dangerous surgery with very little deficit, and then bringing me through another potentially life-threatening complication. I’m amazed by His goodness.

So I was in the hospital for a week, and then sent home on IV antibiotics for another week. I’ll write about that another time (it’s VERY cool how the home IV works). Brooke was trained on how to administer the IV and take care of the saline “flushes” and the other medicines they have me on. She has to drop everything six times a day (6 AM, 7 AM, 12 PM, 6 PM, 7 PM, and midnight) to take care of me, not to mention dressing my head wound and the million other ways she’s taking care of me. (If you haven’t caught on, Brooke’s an amazing woman.) I’ve got a doctor’s appointment today to check and see how things are progressing and to find out if I have to go back in the hospital to get rid of some swelling I have on the right side of my head. (Hopefully not.) I’ll post more information as I get it, and as always I thank you for your prayers and thoughts towards me and my family.

First of all, the surgery went fantastic (as we’ve written) and though the docs were hesitant to say it, actually did say that it was a best case scenario. Those are words you’re glad to hear when a team of surgeons has drilled through your skull. And probably the only time those words will be spoken regarding anything to do with my brain ever again. :) It’s to the credit of the excellent team at Vandy that I was up and walking around within hours of my surgery, and of course, God played no small role, either. He effectively guided their hands, tools, and minds…amazing. The rest of the stay at the hospital was a blur for me as I spent most of my time sleeping, and getting shots and having blood drawn. This wasn’t fun but it also wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. I normally hate needles but being sleepy somehow made it more tolerable. Strange, I know.

Life at home has been pretty normal. I have a couple of lovely incision wounds (obviously on my cranium, and I also have an abdominal incision from my lipo fat graft) that I have to keep up, and which still have staples in them. These present some curious situations as I can’t get the staples wet, making showering…difficult. Luckily those come out this Friday courtesy of nurse Mom. Aside from not being able to get them wet, the incisions haven’t really bothered me. Only the abdominal one has ever been anything close to uncomfortable, but even that would be an overstatement.

In fact, I can say that so far I’ve had almost zero pain. I think I took half of a pain pill when I first got home, but that was it. Whatever headaches and light pain I’ve had are easily remedied with Tylenol, and I’m so thankful for that. I’m told this could change once I finish a line of steroids I’m on to keep the swelling in my head down (I need those all the time, right?). We’ll see what happens.

This whole thing seems to be a series of small adjustments, some of which are only just starting to make themselves known.

Hearing: I had expected complete, beautiful silence on the right side after surgery as I was told that 100% hearing loss on that side was guaranteed. And while it’s true that I can’t hear out of it, I do have a persistent and, sometimes, annoying ringing. Sometimes it’s really loud and makes it hard to concentrate, other times I don’t notice it all. My local doctor says that this may or may not go away, but over time I’ll probably just get used to it. We journeyed out for a field trip the other day and went to a restaurant to eat, which has been my first hearing test in real world conditions. It was difficult to understand the server, but he was also a soft spoken Russian guy. I seem to be keenly aware of ambient noise now and find that any kind of directional hearing I had is mostly gone. I’m sure this will get better over time, however.

My beautiful face: The type of tumor I had was a social one with many friends in my brain – mostly nerves. There was some risk that I could have some partial facial paralysis, and there was some concern over whether or not this would be permanent. The way it looks after the surgery is that this won’t be a permanent problem. I do have some minor, minor paralysis right now that is most obvious when I smile (right side is weak). It’s also a laugh riot trying to spit after brushing my teeth. My pucker is deflated on the right, so while my brain is saying “spit”, what I get from my mouth is a confused, twisted, drool of toothpaste. I’m told this will improve as all the nerves kind of work their way back into place, the swelling goes down, etc. I’m not really all that worried about it. The only other physical adjustment is that my right ear seems to stick out more now. Of course, when you see the pictures (working on it) you’ll see that they basically peeled my ear back to get to the skully goodness underneath and then stapled it back in place. It’s also numb and rubbery and fun to poke around at.

Singing: I’m a little anxious about this one. I’m a worship leader at my church, and they’ve been super accommodating through all the issues I’ve had both with my hearing, and more recently with my voice. For the past few months, whatever weakness I had on my right side was making itself mostly known through my vocal chords. My voice went out quickly, certain notes would just disappear, and I was generally fatigued after a worship set. I haven’t really pushed my voice in the past two weeks since surgery, so I’m not sure what’s going to happen. It could be that I regain all those things as the area heals up, and we’re back in business. It could be that I’m just not able to do that again. I’m hoping that’s not the case, but I’m encouraged by the fact that God has supplied a more than able worship leader that’s already doing a great job in my absence. Change can be a good thing, and I’d sure hate to miss what God has for me in a season of change by being overly distracted and emotional by what He moves out.

Energy level: This has been the biggest adjustment for me personally. My energy level is whackadoo right now. Yesterday I went for a big walk and was feeling like King of the World. Energy was high, my heart was racing along, and then Biff the Narcolepsy Fairy smacked me upside the head, because I slept four hours without really even remembering getting in bed. This is frustrating for me because I hate down time. Brooke, (The Ever Patient™) keeps reminding me I just had brain surgery. That this is recovery time, and it’s not a waste to rest, but I struggle with feeling lazy when I’m not producing something or contributing something. Brooke is right, however, and I’m trying (not always succeeding) to listen and heed good advice.

My first post-op with my surgeons comes on November 10, so we’ll see what progress we make on all these fronts between now and then. As always, thank you for all the prayers, notes, meals, emails, and warm thoughts you’ve sent our way. I’m humbled by your support, and our entire family thanks you from the bottom of our collective heart for all your kindness. God bless, and I’ll update again soon.

First of all, none of this is possible without God. He’s been so good to me, and I could spend this post and the next thousand trying to capture it and wordsmith it and craft it just right, and still come up short. But God has been faithful and has shielded me and blessed me beyond what I deserve and I’m thankful. He knows my heart.

I also need to thank my beautiful, loving, tending…insert a million adjectives…wife, Brooke. She easily had the hardest job of all in this. I was able to slip off to sleep and a few yawns later mutter, “did it work?”. For her it was whirlwind of planning and preparations beforehand, met with the brutal realities of a day of waiting in a surgery waiting room designed for surgeries that take no where near as long as this one turned out to be. She never complained or whimpered, and she carried that burden beautifully and readily and I love her for it. And not only did she carry it just for me, and for our kids, and for our family, but for everyone. If your read an update or saw a post it was probably written by Brooke in the handful of times they came down to give updates, while she was I’m sure struggling with every other emotion on the planet. Brooke, you’re amazing and there’s absolutely no way I could thank you for all you’ve done. That won’t stop me from trying, though. I promise.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the rest of my family that were on hand to be a support. My mother has been integral through all this as she works a neurosurgeon’s nurse and has helped us make our way though some of the jargon, and what we could expect next. She came down with me and Brooke the night before surgery, and was the perfect mom throughout. There was a moment where it came down to where only one could go back with me pre-op and my mother so sweetly and graciously sent Brooke in. Thank you, Mom for being there and for calling people, and all you did (and continue to do…amazing).

My sister Terina, husband Danny, and my niece and nephew were all on hand, too. Taking care of the family and entertaining one another through all the waiting and watching. How those two kids stayed so quite for so long in a hospital is amazing! And I can’t say enough how much I appreciate my Godfather and mother Boyd and Jeanette Sexton for coming down and staying throughout the surgery. They didn’t leave until I was awake and alert the next morning, and it meant so much to see their faces. Thank you – I love you.

I’m going to wreck this horribly, because there were SO many people that showed up, but I have to stop now and thank my pastor and his wife. Bro. & Sis. Triplett, who basically stopped their lives while I stopped mine, and prayed for me, fasted for me, and looked after my family. I don’t know what to say other than I’m humbled to have such an excellent picture of what it means to be a shepherd, and so blessed to have the Tripletts as part of my family. Thank you.

Then there are my amazing in-laws the Hildrebrands. I am in awe. My in-laws pastor a fantastic church up north is Wausau, WI, a “quick” 14-hour trip away from our home in Knoxville, and still another 3 from the surgery destination in Nashville. They arrived late Monday night, helped get us packed up and ready to roll, and then we were on our way. My brave father-in-law made the trip back to WI after the surgery to hold down the fort and lent me and my wife and our four children the use of their “Oma” until November. There’s just no way to express how much of a help it is to know that the kiddos are being taken care of while I heal up. And the kids LOVE having Oma around, of course.

And that brings me to another four-billion thanks. Sis. Brenda Stewart – you’re the third parent in the Comer-trinity. :) Thank you for always making yourself available to us and being so sweetly sensitive to our needs. The same goes for so many others in our church family that came to visit me in the hospital, take care of our kids, mow our lawn (!), cook us meals…and your kindness keeps coming. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Then last, but certainly not least, I thank the courteous and professional staff of the Vanderbilt Medical Center for their excellent care and treatment throughout all this. My surgeons, Dr. David Haynes and Dr. Reid Thompson were absolutely second to none and gave me no reason for worry, doubt, or hesitation. I felt safe and secure in their care, and would highly recommend that anyone facing this type of surgery make their services available if it’s an option.

It is now Friday afternoon (1pm), about 36 hours post-op. Wes is doing well and is able to talk, eat, and use all his extremities. He is experiencing virtually no dizziness, and is in very little pain. His head surgeons, Drs Reid Thompson and David Haynes, are very pleased with his progress.

He is still sporting a fashionable headdress, which is complemented by a lovely abdominal drain at the incision site where fat was harvested to ‘plug the hole’ in his skull where the operation took place.  Wearing scrub pants in addition to his hospital gown has preserved his dignity.

A few fun facts:

• This is one of the longest surgeries that occur regularly at Vanderbilt.

The family and friends that gathered to ‘wait it out’ on Wednesday arrived at 6am for pre-op, and waited until 11pm, when the surgery was completed. I (Brooke) got to see him in the holding room before surgery, where I noted a nice black dot on his right earlobe to indicate the correct side. I was the only one allowed to see him at that point. We had about thirty minutes together as numerous members of the OR team came by to introduce themselves. They were all very kind. Wes was very calm through all this, and neither displayed nor felt any unsteadiness in his faith and trust in God, who we know has orchestrated every detail from the beginning. (He’s not just God on the platform, but also in the OR, folks!)

When they were ready to take him into the OR, I went (a little unsteadily) back down to the waiting room. And so we waited.

• It is painstaking work to drill through bone.

It took from 8am (official start of surgery) to 1:45pm just to drill through the skull (Just the thought of that sends a shiver down the spine). We received a call around 11am in the waiting room that his vital signs were great, he was proceeding just fine. At 1:45pm, another call from the team came, saying that they had finished drilling through the bone and were ready to go into the brain.

This was where reality was a little difficult for me. The thought that my husband’s brain was exposed at that very moment, and that his life was so vulnerable, was surreal and unnerving. Yet I knew that God was in control. I just needed to turn the knob a bit on my emotional pressure valve. A few moments in the chapel helped. :)

• Tumors are sticky creatures.

At about 5:45pm, half the tumor had been removed, and the intensive work of ‘teasing’ the tumor away from the facial nerve began. This is very meticulous work, and proved to be a laborious, time-consuming process for the surgeons.

• There is no such thing as too much communication.

At 8:15, we were informed that the main waiting room would close at 9pm, and we were directed to the second floor waiting room for the rest of the surgery. A message was relayed through the waiting room receptionist that the OR would call in about 15 minutes, and that it would be a while before they were ready to begin closing the incision.

Not having received another call by 9, we moved upstairs and continued to wait. All the other families in the waiting room had come and gone, for the most part, and most other surgeries had begun and ended.

By 10:30pm, I was on pins and needles and needing to hear something from the OR. The upstairs waiting room was unstaffed, and we were answering the phone ourselves. I had heard nothing more at that point since 5:45, so I called the hospital operator and asked for her to contact the OR for an update. Within a few minutes, we were told that one of the surgeons would be out to talk to us, and that the surgery was almost completed.

• Waiting on brain surgery isn’t easy, but it’s worth it.

Dr Haynes came out first and told us the news: all the tumor had been removed (praise God!), and that he was pleasantly surprised at the condition and function of the facial nerve. He said that usually you can expect a delay for that nerve to regain its integrity, since the tumor presses into it as it grows, stretching it out, often causing irreparable damage. He said in this case, though Wes’s tumor had been very large, the response of that nerve was excellent, it was completely intact, and we could expect its immediate function. The brain stem had been preserved, and he had endured the surgery well. All vital signs were great throughout the duration of the surgery.

You can imagine the great load lifted from the shoulders of those who waited with me that night. I told Dr Haynes I wanted to hug him. :)

Dr Thompson came out, shook everyone’s hand warmly, and reiterated the same information, obviously very pleased with the outcome of the surgery.

An hour later, I went with Wes’ mom to the ICU, where he had been taken after surgery. He was pale and feeling a little sick from the anesthesia, but I’ve never seen anything more wonderful in my life. He was really drowsy from all the medicine, but recognized us and was able to say hello and answer basic questions. Dizzy with gratitude, I thanked God many times for preserving the life of my husband.

He spent the night in the ICU, and his mom stayed with him overnight while I went to get some rest at the hotel. The ICU staff checked on him every hour, making sure his pain and vitals were all under control. By morning, he was sitting up in a chair by the bed, had walked a lap around the ICU floor, and though still groggy, was progressing well in his recovery.

The following morning, twelve hours after surgery, he was stable enough to be transported to a regular room. From then until now, he has remained in his room on the sixth floor, taking an occasional walk around the room or down the hallway, eating a little, and sleeping a lot.

The doctors are now saying he should be well enough to go home tomorrow (Saturday), though the final word has not yet been given. I will do my best to keep everyone informed via Facebook/Twitter as to when we actually leave.

To all who have prayed, fasted, called, texted, emailed, facebooked, and twittered, we thank you! God is faithful and has heard your prayers, and we are unspeakably grateful for His mercy.

This is no small thing that we have come through. It has not been easy, and there are surely some curves in the road ahead, but we have felt the hand of God directing our path the whole time. He may not prevent every storm, but He carries us through it every time. To God be all the glory.

*Just an added note: Wes is not able to read your emails, texts, or comments at this time. (He is also too wiped out to be taking phone calls). As is typical of this kind of operation, he has yet to regain the visual strength enough to focus on words. I’m told it will be several weeks before this is possible. So please know we appreciate every comment and note sent to us–he is getting the messages as quickly as I can relay them. If you don’t receive a direct response, please accept our apology and know that we appreciate each and every word!*

“…I have worked much harder, been in prison more frequently, been flogged more severely, and been exposed to death again and again. Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my own countrymen, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false brothers. I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked. Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches.” – 2 Corinthians 11:23b – 28 (NIV)

Wow. Perspective is a powerful thing.

I woke up this morning to find that a friend had created a Facebook “cause” to pray and fast for me on October 14 – the date of my surgery. To know that there are people that have lives, busy ones full of jobs and school and kids and ministries, that are stopping and pausing to pray, think, and fast for me is unbelievably humbling. Thank you, Jen, for starting this group. I appreciate and love you. I’m overwhelmed by the blessings of God.

I sometimes pass a little church between Knoxville and Clinton that has a sign that they sometimes don’t change for a while. The message for the past several weeks has been, “To love and be loved is to feel the sun from both sides.” Two weeks ago today marked my ninth wedding anniversary. I’m insanely in love with that girl I met at Bible college, and it’s amazing to me that all these years later Brooke still loves me, too. We have four beautiful, healthy children that I love. Wildly. And they love me, too. They run up and throw their little arms around me, and jump up and down when I get home, and squeal when we have tickle fights, and make the same silly faces as their mentally unstable father. I feel the sun all around me. I’m overwhelmed by the blessings of God.

I’m honored to be part of the leadership team for the greatest church on the planet. To know that there’s a group of people that allow me the opportunity to speak into their lives is an amazing award of trust. I’m overwhelmed by the blessings of God.

Those are some big things, but over the past few days I’ve been thinking about the little things, too. Things that I probably haven’t appreciated enough in the moment:

• Experiencing fall in East Tennessee.
• Grilling out hamburgers, and steaks, and whatever else I can get my hands on with my kids playing in the back yard.
• Comfy and thick white athletic socks, pulled on for the first time.
• Finding a My Little Pony crammed in my briefcase when I get to work.
• Tiramisu.
• The Melting Pot.
• The crisp morning air and a warm cup of coffee.
• Democracy.
• Lazy Saturdays at home playing Scrabble.
• Sweater vests.
• Our nightly ritual with the kids (pajamas, brush teeth, read, go to bed, sing, and end with tickles and kisses…every night the same, each time more precious than the one before it).
• Fresh towels in that basket thing that holds the towels…

I could go on and on. I just want you to know, and God to know, that I’m overwhelmed by His blessings. I’ve been blessed more than I deserve, and beyond my ability to repay. I’m overwhelmed by the blessings of God.

I have a brain tumor. But what’s that in the face of all the thousands of blessings I’ve had in my 31 years? Even if my situation were terminal, and my days were few or none at all…I’m overwhelmed by the blessings of God.

“Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted in me? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him for the help of his countenance.” – Psalm 42:5

Make it your goal today to stop and identify the blessings around you, even if things in your life aren’t perfect. I promise you that you’ll find them if you’ll look. And if you do, I’m sure you’ll end your day saying “I’m overwhelmed by the blessings of God”.

1. I’m held accountable (now that I’ve admitted to the great cosmos that is the internet that I’m working on this, the inevitable “when’s it going to be ready?” will be bandied about and I’ll feel the required pressure to actually finish it)
2. So I can remember how I did all this for the next time, since I’m learning as I go, and
3. So I can maybe help others that are out there hoping to develop games for the iPhone.

Here’s the progress I’ve made so far. If you’re not interested in this stuff, feel free to skip this whole post, ’cause it’s about to get geeky up in here.

DAY ONE

I’ve discovered that there’s an astonishing lack of cohesive information when it comes to iPhone programming. Specifically where it pertains to gaming. That said, it’s a bit like saying that there are no good recipes for food. If you Google “how to make food” the results won’t be nearly as specific as “how to make meatloaf”. Games and applications are so unique and varied, that it’s difficult to say “THIS is how you make a game” because “game” can mean a lot of different things. What kind of game? Is it 2D or 3D? Puzzle based or side scroller? The kind of physics involved? And the list goes on and on.

So when I say “day one”, I should probably admit that I’ve spent time over the past couple of months trying to figure out the best path forward, and started this day with a bit of an advantage. That said, it wasn’t much.

Alright, so day one consisted of some decisions and a little action. First, the decisions. I know that my game will be a 2D (flat artwork) based game that requires minimal or no physics. That means that I can exclude some of the WYSIWYG type editors that are available for iPhone such as Unity (used primarily for 3D). This stinks because I don’t know how to code outside of the web-based stuff that I do normally. There is a 2D game engine called iTorque or iTGB (depending on the day you check their website…the name seems to change) but it doesn’t seem quite ready for prime time (if you dig a little in their forums there are a number of posts that talk about the fact that games still require heavy hand coding after using the editor to get the game up and running and approved). For a price tag of $1,250, that won’t do.

So that basically leaves me with the task of learning C, Objective-C, and then the other graphics languages and coding practices for things like OpenGL, Cocoa, and Quartz. Or does it? Enter Cocos2D. I had downloaded this some time ago, but didn’t know how to use it properly and assumed it was junk since it was a little-known open source project. However, when you do any amount of research at all on iPhone game dev, you’ll see Cocos2D pop up over and over again. In a nutshell it’s a 2D gaming engine for iPhone games that takes some of the bend out of the learning curve. There’s no visual editor (yet), but it’s a pretty straightforward and semi-well-documented language.

The problem is that Cocos2d is easy if you know a flavor of C, but still a tough cookie to break if you don’t have a programming background. So there are two books that I’ve armed myself with as I begin this journey. First is “Learn C on the Mac” by Dave Mark, and second is “Learn Objective-C on the Mac” by Mark Dalrymple and Scott Knaster. These are not fun books, but they are great for their purposes. I haven’t finished these books, but plan to utilize them as I try to figure out how to program my game from the few tutorials and resources available out there on the web.

I decided to start out with what I know – the graphics. I created a menu screen, a test game screen, and a few little characters that I want to be the baddies. (This isn’t a small step, and if you don’t have experience in creating graphics, this will be a big hurdle to overcome with your game. I suggest you find someone that offers their graphic services and knows something about the iPhone platform.)

After finishing the graphics, I decided I needed a small victory on the programming front before I became overwhelmed with the whole prospect. (And it IS overwhelming when you start to do the research.) I stumbled onto this great tutorial from Monocle Studios that shows how to use and install Cocos2d with XCode (this is now outdated with the newest edition) and then add a menu, a game scene, and the ability to jump back and forth between them. This was just the right thing to do since I had my graphics, and I have to say that I was super pumped after I finished the tutorial. The program compiled and worked like a champ in the iPhone simulator. Time to call it a day.

Day one recap

Learned I’ll need the following tools to complete my game: a Mac, XCode , Cocos2D, great looking graphics, and a subscription to the Apple iPhone Developer Program (so I can test the app on my phone). I ended the day by paying my $99 fee to Apple and waiting for approval to join.

DAY TWO

I experienced what I’m sure will be my greatest frustration with the whole process – version control. I had just updated my laptop to Snow Leopard, so I had the newest version of XCode. Unfortunately, I only had the iPhone 3.0 SDK from Apple since I had been a non-paying member to this point, and needed 3.1 in order to test my app on my phone. Once I received my email of approval that morning, I went to download the newest SDK and then waited (for a loooong while) for the 2.2GB download to complete.

Once I did, however, it worked perfectly on the phone. There’s something special about going from knowing almost nothing 24 hours ago, to having screens and a menu you can touch on your phone. That said, I know I’m still a LONG way from having a game at this point.

As I was researching my next step on the Cocos2D website, I realized that I was using an older version of the engine. The Monocle Studios tutorial calls for version 0.7.2, and the newest version was 0.8.1. I downloaded the new version because it comes with a lot of great improvements. Namely, you don’t have to import Cocos2D into each project. You can run an installer script and then choose “Create New Cocos2D Project” from the XCode menu.

Here’s where it went south. After copying my game files over from the 0.7.2 version to the 0.8.1 version, the game wouldn’t load. It crashed on launch, and so the remainder of day two was spent trying to chase down the problem. End result? I never figured it out, and resigned myself to finishing the game with 0.7.2 so as not to slow myself down.

DAY THREE

After a good night’s sleep, I decided to just start from scratch and redo everything in the new 0.8.1 engine. After all, if I’m going to do this, I need to do it right. After a few hours of working I had it figured out and everything was running smoothly. I now had a main menu with a “start game” link, and the game scene that loads when you press the button.

The 0.81. version of Cocos2D added in a REALLY nice looking logo screen featuring the new Cocos2D logo from Michael Heald. The previous Cocos2D logo was horrible, and frankly one of the reasons that I thought the project originally was unprofessional. As a graphic designer, I fell in love with the new coconut character that Michael had designed.

The only problem that I had was that the logo screen was vertical, whereas my game screen is horizontal. To change the screen I had to use one of the provided horizontal logo screens and rotate it in Photoshop. I’ll explain this in a later post.

I finished out day three by figuring out how to layer the components of my game scene (so the bad guys could come from behind an object, but on top of the background) and add in a bad guy. He doesn’t do anything yet, but he’s on the screen and that’s good enough for me. Time to call it a day.

So there you have it. I’m on my way to making a ridiculous game that will hopefully help to offset any of the extra expenses associated with my upcoming surgery.

GAME PREMISE

Finally, I thought I’d share with you what I’m up to. The game is “Tumerz:Rise of Neuroma” (yes, I’m going for the stupidly overdramatic approach). With all the talk of brain tumors and surgery and options and blah blah blah, I came up with a simple game concept. There are tumors (or tumerz, if you will) of different sizes and color trying to reach the game’s brain. You have controls at the bottom of the screen that zap the tumor of the same color. So to destroy the blue tumor, you press the blue pill, green tumor, green pill, etc. The tumors will come from the top of the screen in “heats” of 15-20 per round, and your goal is to keep them from reaching the brain. Each round gains speed, and increases the number of tumors coming down. The game will (hopefully) feature local scoring so you can compete against your own best score, and global scoring where you can compare your score to others playing the game around the world.

It should be great fun, and I look forward to sharing my progress with you as I go. More soon…