Jaw surgery tomorrow! 1-18-07

Dear friends, I thank you for your communication with me/us. We have received many calls, cards and letters from friends reaffirming your love and confidence in us and in God that He will bring us through this time. I went to Bible study at church yesterday morning and our lesson was about John 10. That chapter talks about Jesus being the shepherd and us being the sheep. It tells that His sheep know His voice and the shepherd intimately knows and loves His sheep. One illustration really stuck out to me. Our teacher referred to a book that explains the sheep/shepherd relationship. I had read that book a long time ago, but forgotten. If a sheep falls and ends up on its back, it is unable to get itself up. It would lie there and die from being attacked by another animal or from starvation unless the shepherd sought it out and righted it. And then, its legs would be numb from being in that position for a while. The sheperd would set it back on its feet, and then gently massage the legs to get the blood circulating again. I guess I have been feeling like that upsidedown sheep. My shepherd wants to help me get back on my feet. I know He is near, but I haven't thought of letting Him minister to my heart and comfort me. What a novel idea! No matter what has been taken away from Greg and me, He is still our constant. He is loving and promises to be with us in the hard times. He never promises to keep the hard times away, but He does promise to go through them with us. I think I need to let Him do some massaging of my heart to heal the hurts. I know I can trust Him to do that. JAW NEWS I saw the Kaiser jaw surgeon yesterday. He was very nice and knows the doctor who did my jaw surgery last year. He agreed with Dr. T's diagnosis and plan for treatment. He will do the surgery tomorrow morning for less than $300 in co-pays for me. Dr. T would have cost $3200. The Kaiser doctor will do it all in 30 minutes, whereas Dr. T would have taken 2-3 hours and done it much more carefully. So I will get there at 7:15 a.m., have anesthesia as there is so much to remove. He will pull out another tooth with an infection under it on the bottom right, and scrape out infected jaw bone tissue from 3-4" of jawbone. Last time this was 3/8" deep, so I suspect it will be similar. My face is aching, so I am thrilled to get this done ASAP. A friend asked me yesterday if the jaw stuff can cause cancer, or if cancer causes the jaw problems. From what I have learned, serious jaw problems can lead to all sorts of other problems. Wherever your body has a weakness, it can make that flair (arthritis, asthma, heart, cancer, etc.). For me, root canals have always lead to infections under them. The infections can lead to the bone getting infected, and then that can spread and get into the blood and travel to your body. I hope that helps explain what I was talking about in my last blog. I saw my radiation oncologist on Tuesday and he said my bone and joint pain could not be from radiation. He believes it is still from chemo side effects like the Neupogen shots I had to take. He signed me off and I don't have to see him again. He is a special person and a fantastic doctor. So your prayers for tomorrow's surgery would be appreciated. Pray that I would heal quickly and get no infections. I am already on some powerful antibiotics to get ready. I am grateful for this costing less, so thank God with me for His provision. I am still so sore and achy, but now know it is from all the stuff my body has gone through with the whole treatment and will eventually heal. By chiropractor says my neck is very stiff. That will eventually heal too. So I can heal from the jaw surgery and the rest of this at the same time. Meantime, friends have begun bringing dinners and that has been a tremendous help. I will update you ASAP to let you know how tomorrow goes. I am thankful for friends who would take time to read all this. By the way, Greg actually got a cell phone and we just got wireless internet at home. We both moved out of our offices at Initiative360 over the weekend and Greg has set up an office at home. That was a sad day for us. We are still waiting to hear from the board. Please be praying for them. God bless you- Nancy