November 25, 2009

I am so thankful for your encouraging notes, text messages, and emails yesterday. Kelley and I were at St. Thomas well into the evening, and your communication with us throughout the afternoon was so comforting to us. We are so richly blessed to have you as a part of our family and lifting us up to Him. Please forgive us for not responding to you as we were focused on processing all that we were learning.

Their best guess at this point is that Kelley has a cervical cancer that's at about Stage I - B, and less common that what they typically see. We will be back at St. Thomas at 6:00 AM Wednesday morning for a CT scan which they will process with all the other tests she had run Tuesday evening. We are hoping to get all those results by around lunchtime on Wednesday to confirm what they believe to be true about what we are facing and that we are on the right road to treat it.

All of these tests will help them be as prepared as possible for her surgery that will take place this coming Monday on November 30th. She will have what they term a "radical hysterectomy" in an effort to remove all of the cancer. This will require a hospital stay of about 3 or 4 days and a recovery time of about 6 weeks. We should get the pathology reports about 3 days after her surgery which will be their best chance at knowing the extent of the cancer in her body. If all they suspect is true and is confirmed by the pathology reports - their statistics reflect that her chances of beating this thing are about 90%.

It has been amazing to watch God unfold some opportunities for us throughout this process. They are extremely detailed and difficult to convey in a concise manner. Simply put - His hand can be easily seen in the way her case is being handled by her doctors. That, along with your encouragement and prayers, has been so reassuring to us. Thank you so much.

As you would imagine we are feeling a bit overwhelmed, confused, hurt, anxious, and scared. In all that, though, we trust in One who is so faithful. We are thankful for His presence in our lives and that He has not charged us to walk through this alone.