The Gathering Place Where Family Matters

Wednesday Morning April 15th

“Your Prayers are so Special”

I knew last night that many of our friends were praying specifically for Karen to be able to get some sleep. Thank you so much for your prayers. Today has started as a much better day. She was able to sleep until about 3:00. Karen was able to briefly dose after that. That may not sound very good except compared with the night before, it was a good night for her.

Our visiting home health care nurse was here this morning to check on the incision site and was pleased that Karen drained only about 40ml. We are beginning to see a slowing of her fluid and this is a huge blessing. There still is quite a bit of pain from the injection that causes the bone marrow to go into overdrive producing blood cells to boost her immunity.

So these are some of the thing that we are praying about today.

• That the chemo will aggressively fight the mass in her lung.
• That the side effects of the injection will lessen.
• That the Lord will work out the arrangements for the surgery to implant the port.
• That the Lord will continue to work out His wonderful plan in both of our lives and that we would serve Him through the great open doors He has brought to us.

“But I want you to know, brethren, that the things which happened to me have actually turned out for the furtherance of the gospel” (Philippians 1:12).

One Rough Night

April 14th, 2015

Thanks dear friends for checking in on my Sweetheart Karen. It has been a very difficult twenty-four hour period of time for her. Overnight she became very nauseated and the pain in her joints became really great. Do you find it more difficult to be sick in the night? We surely do. Finally at about 1:45 she was able to hold a portion of a Popsicle down. Dosing off and on for the next couple of hours would be the best she would do over night.

Today is a little better. She has been able to eat a tiny bit and hopefully tonight will continue to be better. She is still taking the anti-nausea medication and is doing her best to keep hydrated along with taking a little bit food. She has lost five pounds in the last two days. I told her that this is no way to lose weight!

Thanks to our friends and family who have encouraged us about her getting the port. Our vascular surgeon will operate a week from today and get this under her skin in the upper right side of her chest. We truly appreciate your prayers as we continue to lean heavily on the Lord. The Lord has been very good to us.

Monday Update

April 13, 2015

We Have News To Share!

You have been praying and we are really sensing it. Karen and I think that it is wonderful to know that we have so many friends traveling along on this journey with us. Thank you so very much.

We are being very intentional in counting our blessings. For the many friends who have sent a card, a note, an email, or a private message on Facebook, thank you so much. Your expressions of encouragement are such a blessing.

The shot on Saturday is designed to stimulate the bone marrow to go into overdrive helping to build up her immunity. The unfortunate side effect is that it causes “growing like pains” that is resulting in a lot of discomfort in her limbs. We are grateful that the better anti-nausea medication Zophran is helping with her nausea. She’d really be a sick camper right now without that medication.

So, our prayer request is that the joint pain will let up. Also on April 21st she will have a port implanted by her vascular surgeon. We are pleased about this. The amount of chemo-therapy that she has yet ahead will be much easier given via the port.

A couple of verses that are especially meaningful to me today are, “I have set the LORD always before me; because He is at my right hand, I shall not be moved. Therefore my heart is glad…” (Psalm 16:8-9). This joy of which David speaks is not the denial of problems pretending they do not exist. It is rather the deliberate choice to focus on the Lord, depending fully upon Him, and beginning to understand the blessing that comes from Him.

The Lord’s Day April 12th, 2015

What a great day today. My Karen and I were not able to go to church and we greatly missed our local church. I just don’t know how people who are perfectly healthy can avoid going to church and enjoying the fellowship of God’s people. It’s always been a mystery to me how folks who claim to belong to the Lord can be so little committed to their local church.

However I can tell you that my sweet wife and I had such a precious time of worship. She has committed her life to the Lord Jesus and she loves Him with all her heart. Our medical team strongly advised us to avoid crowds for the next two weeks. She is in the most susceptible times of her life. With the amount of sickness all around us, she could easily get sick. This would be a very serious situation.

We are thrilled that the side effects of Friday’s chemo therapy are not as bad as they could be. Because the medical team was able to give her the biggest dosage of the big gun chemo therapy, I had to give her a special shot on Saturday. This injection is called Neulasta. It stimulates the bone marrow to produces the body’s immune system. Many of our friends prayed me through the giving of an injection to my dear Karen.

Such stimulation of the bone marrow results in flu like aches and pains in the muscles and joints. She surely has this today. She also is very fatigued. So we appreciate your prayers as she continues on this course.

Tomorrow she has a follow-up appointment with the vascular surgeon who wants to drain her pleurix catheter in the office. She sees him at 10:45 tomorrow morning. We’re not sure if he is going to take the stitches out or just what he is going to do. We are confident that the Lord has everything planned out and we are going to follow Him. I will update you tomorrow afternoon on Karen’s progression. Thank you so much for choosing to be on the journey with us. I hope you know how much you mean to us.

It has been such an encouragement today. Friends who are nurses from around the Elyria area emailed or private messaged me that they would be willing to come and give Karen the shot. We even had one of the Doctors from the oncology group phone me personally this morning offering to come into the office today at 3:30 to give Karen her shot if I wanted him to do so.

Karen and I both sensed your prayers. Right at 3:30 I gave her the shot of Neulasta in the back of her right arm. This is designed to help her bone marrow go into overdrive to get her blood count up to where it should be. During the next two weeks she will be especially susceptible to colds or flu bugs. The medical team really, really wants her to keep healthy. So we continue to appreciate your prayers.

By the way, I have earned another degree. I thought you might be interested in this one. I am now Michael Peck, ICBIRDTTMYW. This degree stands for I Can’t Believe I Really Did This To My Wife! Thank you again for your prayers. Can you imagine the courage Karen has watching me holding a syringe?