Continuing to Care for all of Us!

Dear Family and Friends,

We write you this letter on behalf of our mom. She would love to write something gathered from her own thoughts, but that level of concentration does not come as easily as it was a couple weeks ago because of the side effects from her radiation treatments.

One thing that she can't stress enough, and we would be remiss not to tell you, is how blessed and comforted she is by your thoughtfulness through sending cards and praying. It is a sweet reminder of how powerful our God is and that she is not alone with so many of you lifting her up in your prayers. We continue to trust God no matter what and we are comforted by our faith and the hope that God will heal her from this.

Mom has now completed almost all her radiation treatments, and given that there are no delays, her last scheduled day of treatment is Thursday, October 27th. She has been so courageous through this entire time. It is no more evident than now as she nears the end of her 6 weeks of chemo and radiation. The first couple weeks, when she was writing her own updates, brought with them few side effects. But as it was explained to us by her doctor, radiation treatments build on top of one another as do the effects of them. For mom this became more apparent about halfway through. She started losing her hair and bravely shaved her head. This has only made her more beautiful as her hair is not there to distract you from her contagious smile and bright eyes. During this time she also started to experience severe headaches and confusion. An MRI was done which determined that things looked as expected at this point of treatment and these symptoms were a result of the swelling in her brain from the radiation. She is continuing to take steroids to manage these symptoms. We are thankful that the headaches have improved drastically and the confusion is slowly getting better. Even though the daily radiation takes a toll on Mom physically and mentally, she continues to care for all of us. She is great to have conversation with, (Oh, that wit of hers!), keeps an ever tidy and clean home, and cooks delicious meals like always! These tasks take her more time than you might imagine, but she gets them done all the same. Except conversation...it must take a lot to slow down that wit and humor of hers!

Mom, along with all of us, are excited for treatments to come to an end. We anticipate about a month break from chemo and radiation followed by an MRI. The results from the MRI will determine the next plan of attack. Recently, Mom had an appointment with U Penn to see if she is eligible for any treatments. There are none available to her right now, but possibly in the future.

So for now we continue to take it one day at a time and see what tomorrow brings. Mom and all of us thank you for thinking of us during this time and pray that your week is filled with joy and blessings.

Love,

Jeff, Melanie, Sarah, Becky and Jenna

Praises

As always we praise God for all of you who are praying for mom and all of us. We have faith that God has great plans though all this!

Dad continues to have local work. Praise God!

Praise God that we all have each other and our amazing husbands who are supporting all of us

We praise God for the wonderful husband Dad is to Mom and what a great dad he is to us!

We praise God for all He has done and is about to do as He claims victory over this tumor.

Prayer Requests

Please join us in prayer and faith in believing that this 'incurable' tumor will be destroyed and this testimony will bring glory to God. His power cannot be underestimated!

We continue to pray for the Holy Spirit to give mom and all of us the words we need to share the gospel to those we meet and have also gotten to know at treatments.