Again?

Greetings All! After quite an absence, I am back at this blogging business. Some have asked why I did not continue; I guess since there was nothing going on with the carcinoid cancer stuff, I did not have much to say.

Well, those of you who know me know that statement is blatantly false! I ALWAYS have plenty to say! However, most of my musings have been on my FB page, and any time you want to know about my theological rants, my political observations, movie recommendations (go see True Grit - now!), just check me out there.

However, we have reached a point where it is time to once again travel back to Mayo Clinic, so Dee Dee asked that I fire the ol' blog back up. We thought about using FB for this as well, but this format seemed a bit more private, more like family. Dunno, maybe we're a bit nuts, but it's our thing to deal with, so there. (Kidding!)

We fly to Rochester Minnesota one week from today. I am painfully aware that Minnesota is not exactly tropical this time of year. Please, don't remind me. Please. I am slightly in denial at this point! However, the docs wanted to move things up a few months, we felt that it fit life schedule chaos issues better, so we are just going to brave the frozen plains of Minnesota in February. (THIS, by the way, would be prayer request number 1!) One day a week or so ago, the high in Rochester was 2 degrees F; the low was -21. That is MINUS 21 degrees. That, friends and neighbors, is stupid. I know, I'm not supposed to use the "S" word, but c'mon. I still, for the life of me, do not know why reasonable people choose to live in such a place. Other than ice fisherman, every other job there can be done in places where you don't run the risk of death just by going to the mailbox. And in fact, every downtown building is connected by underground tunnel, just to lower the demands on the E.R. at Mayo Hospitals.

So, we fly up on Monday, the day after the Steelers win yet another Super Bowl. That will be number 7!!!!!!! (Count 'em - that's 7 exclamation points; I may have been away for a while, but this is not my first rodeo!) Her testing starts Tuesday morning bright and early. She was originally scheduled for Monday, but that would have had us in a hotel in MN during the Super Bowl, which would just be wrong. I made that decision before the playoffs even began, just on the hunch that the Steelers would be playing. Whew!

Testing will take place basically all day Tuesday, Wednesday, and half of Thursday. Most of the morning tests require 12 hours of fasting, so she will basically eat after lunch every day, and stop by 7:00 p.m. Most of the tests are basically horrible, with lots of injections of vile substances that make her quite ill, nuclear medicines, etc. Another prayer request here! Pray that she has little nausea, and that when she is given the opportunity to eat, she is actually able to do so. Pray that the tests gather all needed information as well.

If everything goes well, we will be back in NC very late Thursday night. If history is a judge, she'll be pretty wiped out for a few days after. We are supposed to do some things with a marriage conference at church that weekend, so pray that we are able to do and to enjoy those events.

Also, our prayer is that if the cancer is not miraculously cured, that at least it is stable. She has had 22-25 tumors in her stomach when viewed in the past, all fairly small. Our prayer is that neither the number of tumors nor the size of any individual tumor will have grown since last evaluation. We pray that there are no tumors of any description anywhere else in her body. And, we pray that no other cancers have "piggy-backed" onto her existing condition. This is actually the greatest risk, according to the Mayo docs.

Mostly, pray that we would learn anew the goodness of our great God, and the fullness of His mercy. Pray that He would be sufficient. Pray that Christ would be our aim, our fervor, our goal; not health nor long life, but the cross. We pray for long life, but pray that we would do so as grateful servants who desire to serve Him here longer.

Thanks, and we'll keep in touch!

Tony