6/10/06

6/10/06

Hey everyone-

I think we finally got the pain meds right tonight and I am doing OK for the moment. I will be able to sleep tonight! This will be short- for me anyway.

Surgery started about 3:30 and I was aware of the time at about 6:00 p.m.. I had to have general anesthesia. The port I wanted is in, and that is no small thing. Apparently because of my reconstruction from 6 1/2 years ago, there was a possibility that it wouldn't have worked. But it did. Please pray that it would heal well with no complications. There are several things that could go wrong, so this is a critical time to pray for it to heal well. I go to the oncology nurse Monday for her to flush it or something like that. I was foggy and didn't catch it all.

The surgeon took out a lot on my left chest wall, and I have a drain. She said this cancer loots like fat, so she took what looked questionable. The drain should be in for around 5 days or until the amount draining goes down to a certain level. I am not discerning any noticeable nerve damage which is a huge praise. So far my left arm has no extra swelling. More praise!

I am in a lot of pain, and it is worse at the port (upper right chest) site than my left side. I feel like I was hit by 2 Mac trucks. I will be resting a lot but will get the family to help me send out updates so you won't need to wonder how I am doing.

Thank you for praying. I felt the Lord's presence in a huge way. We should get the pathology report early next week, and I will let you know.

I need to heal for at least 2 weeks before starting chemo and my oncologist will be back on the 19th. The surgeon gave us the written PET scan results and said nothing showed up to cause concern. Something 3 mm's (so tiny it is like the tip of a pen) showed in my right lung, but is miniscule and may be the nodule I know I have somewhere in my lungs that is not cancer. We discovered one 7 years ago that hasn't grown or changed. I will get more details from my oncologist when he gets back. My cancer sight showed up, but that could have been due to the fact that I just had surgery there. So, very good news on that front.

I'm fading. The girls are getting Jesse ready to leave for a church student ministry trip to Canada early in the morning. They have been especially helpful and loving today.

By the way, I am finally able to announce that Caleb Project has officially merged with another ministry called ACMC. So, as you can imagine, Greg has a LOT on his heart and mind these days. Please pray for him as he leads us all through this lengthy merger process, which is just one of the things he is dealing with. He is excited about the merger.

I will sign off for now and thank you again for praying. You mean so much to us! May God be glorified through this situation!
God bless you,
Nancy