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“God can suddenly
shift things” (quoted just now as I watched Joel Osteen). Truer words were never spoken. In 2014 George was doing well until a kidney
stone scan showed cancer. He was doing
so much better after 15 months and, bam, a fall causes a neck break.
I had a couple of “kisses from the King” today in the form
of messages from televangelist Joel Osteen.
We have found some of his weekly messages to be spot on with where we
are. Today, even his daily message spoke
to us. It went as follows:
“Delivered from All
Everyone has times when they feel overwhelmed or
“outnumbered” by the things that are coming against them. You may have heard
the saying, “When it rains, it pours.” For example, just about the time the air
conditioner needs repair in your house, the transmission goes out in your car.
It seems like one thing happens after another. It may feel as if all of the
forces of darkness are coming against you. But the scripture promises that with
God on your side, you have all the resources you need to have complete victory.
You are never outnumbered because the Greater One lives in you!
The next time you’re feeling anxious, fearful or worried
about anything, remember, He’s on your side. If God is for you, who can be
against you? He promises to guide and protect you and lead you into victory in
every area of your life!
“Father, thank You for Your faithfulness to me. Thank You
for Your peace even in the midst of the storms of life. I know that You are
with me, and I can stand strong because You will lead me into victory all the
days of my life in Jesus’ name. Amen.” “
Wow… that IS our life.
Just when we think things are under control something else comes up and
throws off our course. A saying that can
be heard around here lately is, “We just can’t seem to catch a break!”
The past seven weeks have been tortuous for George. The brace he has to wear 24/7 is bulky and
uncomfortable. It constantly irritates
his chin. He can’t take a decent
shower. There are a few areas under the
brace that haven’t had a super good cleansing in all this time. He gets bored sitting at home all day, all
week and looks forward to Fridays when I am off and I can take him with me for
a couple of small errands. The
highlights of his days are when people drop by for a visit – or when is able to
take a walk around the block with a buddy.
Companionship.
This week we found out that the brace has not worked at
all. In fact, after his CT scan on
Tuesday he got a call early Wednesday from Lan saying they were ordering an MRI
stat – for that afternoon and they moved his appointment today up from the
afternoon to the morning. Needless to
say, we were quite alarmed by the sense of urgency.
We met with Dr. Menon this morning to find out what is going
on. It turns out that George’s neck is
bending too far. Since his neck is one
long bone, the break is acting like a lever and the top is starting to
bend. He has gone from a 10 degree angle
before the accident to 27 degree angle now.
The photo is quite disconcerting.
Dr. Menon recommends a
surgery called a “corpectomy”. Described
in spine-health.com as follows: “ When the cervical disease encompasses more
than just the disc space, the spine surgeon may recommend removal of the
vertebral body as well as the disc spaces at either end to completely
decompress the cervical canal.”
It involves two separate surgeries hopefully performed on the same day. The first surgery goes through the front of
the neck and addresses the removal of some of the vertebrae bone which would
then be replaced by a “piston” and packed with some of the bone material. Then a plate would be put in place to
stabilize the front. The second surgery would be done from the back where they
would put screws in the bones to stabilize the back. Surgery would take approximately ten
hours. That is a LONGER surgery than his
CRS/HIPEC surgery.
The goal of surgery is
to restore the neck to where it was before the accident. They will never be able to make it better
than that. There are risks involved as
they will be very near the spinal column.
We talked more about
the disease in George’s spine. He has
DISH disease. Diffuse Ideopathic
Skeletal Hyperostosis. Ideopathic means “of
unknown origin”. There is no known cause
and no know treatment. It is rare … I
told George, “Honey, you really don’t have to be unique and have all these rare
diseases!” Most likely the disease has
affected his whole spinal column which would explain why he cannot bend over
very well. His back may well be fusing
into one long bone as well. Gee, isn’t
that great. L
We have an appointment
with another surgeon recommended by our new “friend”, the nurse
practitioner. We will see if he has the
same opinion and recommends the same surgery.
Then, we will need to plan a date for said surgery.
“God will lift you
out of the pit.” (again, Joel Osteen). Yes,
we definitely need to be pulled out of this pit. On the one hand we are grateful that George
is alive and that we do have the option of the surgery and seem to have, once
again, found a great surgeon (though we haven’t met him yet). But on the other hand a ten hour surgery
means long anesthesia and we know that wreaks havoc on George’s mental capacity.
Not to mention the fact that we are facing another 7-8 hour cancer surgery once
the neck issue is sufficiently healed. Double
edged-sword. Really need help out of this
pit!
As we watched Joel Osteen yet another nugget was
spoken. “The enemy cannot stop your path
in life, God has the final say. God hasn’t
brought you this far to leave you. The “second
touch” is coming…. Anybody can give up, that’s easy. Doubters are a dime a dozen. Faith believers say “I may not see a way, but
I know it will be shown to me.””
He then says that you need to be bold. So we are asking for your second touch, dear
Lord… give us a miracle again. We know
you have destined us for bigger and better things and are not done with our
lives on this earth.
