A Prayer Request

Tomorrow (Friday 1/20) is a big day for us.  Tomorrow, Daniel will have another bone marrow aspiration & biopsy that will be our first and perhaps most important "window" into whether the chemotherapy (and/or our trip to see Mr. Wickey) is having any effect on the cancer.  This is huge.  Even though it won't have any immediate effect on his treatment schedule, it will almost certainly tell us with certainty whether we can expect success or failure from the course that we're on.  Up until now, it's been a matter of statistics and probabilities based on OTHER people's cases.  Whether we were faced with 90% vs 10% or 60% vs 40%, all our information was based in probabilities.  Tomorrow, we'll find out whether we're in the 90% or the 10% and begin having conversations about what happens after the end of the first 29 days.  Will we be continuing with chemotherapy, or will we start talking about stem-cell therapy and bone marrow transplants?

It's already been a very long week with hour-by-hour, sometimes moment-by-moment struggles to "take every thought captive" and continue to keep my faith and trust where it belongs.  As I said in my earlier post titled "Trusting God in the Hard Times", I know what the ideal is, I just don't always have the discipline to keep myself there.  This week has been a real exercise in that regard.

So our requests are these:
Please pray that ...

1. Daniel's test results will show dramatic, positive results of the therapy so far.  If it's been working, there should be very low percentage of cancerous cells present in the marrow.  NONE would be ideal.  That is the goal for the next test two weeks after tomorrow anyway.

2. If it's possible by ANY of these tests to indicate that something has happened beyond even the ability of chemotherapy to produce (in other words, that he has been healed supernaturally), that these indications would be clear to all of us and bring glory directly to God.

3. Regardless of the results and their implications, that Daniel, Andrea, and I would remain focused on God's providence and trust in Him for the future.

4. We will be able to provide for all Daniel's needs during this time - including:

• Finishing the enormous amount of work that still needs to be done on the house in the next few days,
• Keeping up with financial impacts of all that's happened and all that is yet to come
• Keeping him protected from other diseases & infections during this time of extremely impaired immune system

Thank you all so very, very much for your prayers, your support, your words, and your many acts of kindness to our family over these past couple of weeks.  We can't imagine going through this without you.

- Tim -
 
P.S. I'm sorry I haven't posted more about how Daniel is doing.  He's actually doing pretty well.  His biggest complaint is backaches which we've been dealing with since the start of the osteoporosis. He still has frequent headaches, but they haven't been as bad.  He's very anemic and so tires easily but the steroids have increased his appetite 10-fold.  We're glad to see him eating again of course, but are now struggling a bit with keeping it healthy, and actually, keeping him from hurting himself!  He and Andrea are still at my folks' place as I try hard to get the house clean and back in order for us to return home ... hopefully this weekend (??)