Back in Spokane and interesting health issues

Dear friends,

Last Weekend in Denver
Home and relaxed on a Saturday, catching up with email and my blog, breakfast with our adopted exchange daughter Lindsay and her friend Annie, Greg putting in a water softener in the basement. I am very happy about how my weekend in Denver went. I saw Shelby (Greg's sister) and Paul, I visited with several friends and had a few missions meetings with folks. We had about 80 or so kids the first hour at church, and about 50ish the second hour. The lesson on Saint Patrick was very fun, but I also tried to connect it with their own lives now. I tried to help them know how to listen for God's voice, and to learn to pray for children at risk because of poverty, AIDS, natural disasters, war, slavery, etc. I used some of my Kidzana training. I will be doing this program again on March 4th at our church here in Spokane, and then we are going to have a Saint Patrick's Day lunch at the office and have fun with the curriculum then also. Thank you for praying for my trip! My one big sadness is not seeing more friends. Since I taught both hours of the main service, I missed getting to church myself to connect with friends.

Amazing Chiropractor in South Denver
Now my two doctor appointments in Denver... I saw Dr. Craig Lewis (County Line Chiropractic) by Broadway and County Line where Albertsons used to be. He is a very gifted guy. He is humble but has several degrees- bio chemistry, acupuncture, anatomy, chiropractic, physical therapy, and just did training in how to help chemotherapy and radiation patients, etc. He is very informed on supplements and wants to get a Naturapathy degree also. He has saved lives by recognizing symptoms- sometimes life-threatening, like an abdominal aortic aneurysm in a woman recently. She had no idea it could have exploded and killed her at any moment. He also realized that another patient was actually having a stroke but didn't know it. Anyway, Craig is a sharp guy. He adjusted me and checked out the 2"diameter sore spot on my right hip next to my back bone. It feels black and blue all the time and I have to sit with a pillow if sitting for long. My Spokane doctors can feel a muscle bunch there, and we did the bone scan and earlier a CT scan of my right kidney and bladder to check for cancer. No cancer is in my bladder which we have checked with a camera. We have tried massage, adjusting, the bone scan (which came back clear for bone cancer metastasis last Friday- Praise GOD! I am so grateful for this news!), and nothing helps it stop hurting. By the way, Craig said he will see anyone from my CHCC Breast Cancer Support Group- Friends for Life- free the first time. And anyone who says I sent them, he will only charge $25 for appointments.

So Craig (Dr. Lewis) carefully checked out all the angles and did some diagnostic things, and feels pretty confident that there is something inside that is inflamed (kidney or something like that) and that the pain I have is radiating out from there. He did one slight twisting move on me that especially hurt and made me yelp. He told me later that there is no way that should have hurt, and doesn't on any of his other patients. The only cause he knows is something inflamed internally. Well, I am set to go to a nephrologist (kidney doctor) on Tuesday afternoon at 2:00 this week already because of the blood in my urine. It would be a relief if that would be the answer to these symptoms along with the occasional huge pain I get just under my right ribs when I twist a certain way. We checked my ribs for bone cancer last year because of that pain. I know nothing about kidneys and probably should check out Kidneys for Dummies at the library.

Bio Meridian Feedback
From Craig I went to see Connie Wright at Dr. Susanna Choi's office- www.integratedobgyn.com. Connie did a session of Biomeridian Feedback on me. Men and women go to her for this testing. She uses a computer that has a large library of frequencies on it for all sorts of things- body systems, supplements, prescriptions, foods, etc. Everything has it's own measurement in frequency- like a fingerprint. I hold a copper cylindar with a little wet cloth in my left hand. She systematically uses a little sensor to touch places on my right hand and foot to check my body systems. Each time a little marker travels across the computer screen and lands in "stressed (red)," "healthy (green)," or "weakened (yellow)." Guess what showed up red/stressed? My liver, joints (knee messed up, and it knew!), my stomach, and kidneys (we shall see this week). My small intestine was yellow. It showed that I am not absorbing nutrition through my intestine and Connie said it indicated "leaky gut syndrome." My pancreas is good but it is not processing protein or fat- especially protein. So Connie checked all my supplements. She also does this with the same computer. It showed which ones work for me, and which ones don't, and dosing, etc. It is fascinating. And all of it is talor made for my body. We aren't just guessing, we know. We changed many that I have been taking to new ones, changed doses and added a protein powder I am now doing 2 times a day. It absorbs quickly and will help my intestine heal.

She also thinks that I may have a sensitivity to gluten. I already know I am allergic to the protein in dairy products and even ffound in many non-dairy products- casein. She said the molecules for casein, soy and gluten are almost identical. So after my knee surgery and a few weeks of recovery, when I can get around again, I will begin a diet that eleminates all three of these things- soy, casein and gluten. It will be hard work, but she gave me some great tools. Many people are on diets like this so there are lots of resources. Maybe after my intestines recover, she thinks from the damage caused by chemo two times, I can go back to gluten. Soy feeds the type of cancer I had, so I try not to do that anyway. She thinks these things can affect my joints, weight and make me feel tired all the time. I slept two days this week until after noon and slept the whole nights after also.

I got a look at my bone scan at my knee surgery pre-op on Thursday. What DID show up was antritis on my 6th neck vertebra on the left, my hands, my knees, some in my ankles and in my hips near the siatic nerves. That was interesting to see. And no cancer! Yipee!!

Knee Surgery 2/27 at 1:00 p.m. for 35 minutes
As far as surgery next Friday, Dr. VanderWilde will be shaving the edge off the arthritis on the back of my knee cap (which looks like hair rather than a smooth and slippery surface currently) checking the whole joint for any other problems, and trimming my torn meniscus to remove the flap which is letting fluid out into the Baker's cyst on the back of my knee. The flap prevents the fluid from being able to go back into my knee and the cyst can never go away without this repair. Dr. V said there isn't a guarantee that this will work. Sometimes it doesn't, but there is a very good chance that it will. Without trying this, I can expect a whole life of the pain and achyness I have had for the last 5 months. With the surgery I can probably go back to just the arthritis- which is livable. I can expect 2 weeks of a lot of pain, and then with a month of PT, I will be back to my normal in 6 weeks from surgery. I could run 7 miles a day if that was normal for me- which it isn't! But it does mean I could handle Ghana this summer if the Lord opens it up for me to go with our Spokane church. We have to purchase tickets soon, so I still need the answer to the kidney question before committing. Please pray that I get some answers soon from the kidney doctor. I will let you know after I see him what he thinks.

March Madness Week Approaching at Partners
I hope you are having a nice day. It is actually sunny today and the 80 inches of snow we had is slowly melting. There are places you can see the ground and others with several feet still. About 2 weeks from today, after surgery, our international leader friends are arriving from 10 regions around the 10/40 Window. We call that "March Madness Week." The North Africa area director and the man who spearheads our natural disaster response and preparedness ministry will be staying with us. After one of them leaves, we have an Indian lady coming who does work in Bangalore (I think) to free young women from sex slavery abductions. Wow! I am very blessed to have these folks in our home. I will cook meals ahead of time so that when I can't walk much, we can still get by. I know from last time that I have to have WHITE rice for them! Brown rice just doesn't cut it!

Our Family
Jesse is doing well in Senegal. He is learning French, teaching English, helping the Partners ministry there in any way asked of him. He and Taylor are helping to teach computers and are learning to play the djembe drum from a guy named Parfait. Jesse is very glad that he is there longer term so he has a chance to make and build relationships. He LOVES it there! Thank you for praying for him. He is working on thank you's to those who are supporting his trip. He didn't receive the list of names before he left, so he is working on it from there. You should be hearing from him sometime soon.

The girls are fine. Laura is at work in Baltimore, Jenni at Grove City and Allison in South Korea. Greg just turned the water back on after installing the water softener, and so far so good! He is a very talented guy! He had to do electricty, plumbing and installation. He isn't sure I appreciate just how valuable and talented he is! (I do!) He was asked to be an adjunct professor in the fall at Whitworth University teaching "Inter-Cultural Communication and Ministry." He is excited and has already been working on his curriculum. He just had his 51st birthday this week. And he is still the cutest guy ever! It is time to finish this so you and I can both get to the other things we have to do today. Blessings to you all! Nancy Fritz nancyfritz@aol.com and 509-990-8465