Surgery June 5th

We are praising God once again! No matter the outcome we will praise our Lord!

Last Monday's meeting with the oncologist went better than expected. The PET and CT scans showed further reduction of the tumors. The tumors have shrunk more than 50%!!

Deb's CA125 is 153 (normal range is 0-35), but it has gone down from 1,675.  

A meeting with the GYN oncologist surgeon today went very well too! She was very pleased with the progress of the chemotherapy. She says this is a good time for surgery ("debulking") and it seems that it will be less invasive than originally thought!! The surgery will be Tuesday June 5^th. It will be an open surgery with a vertical incision about 5-6". The uterus, the cervix, the ovaries and maybe the spleen will be removed. It looks like the bowel may be able to stay intact but she won't know until she goes in. Originally we were looking at removal of a large percentage if not all of the bowel, so this is great news to us!! The small lump under the right arm is still questionable so the surgeon is having the scans reviewed again to see if surgery in that area is necessary. If it is, then she will have a surgeon on hand who specializes in that area. The surgeon will also confer with the oncologist to see about installing a port directly into the peritonea so when chemo resumes it will go directly into the abdomen.

Deb will be at St. Mark's in Salt Lake City for 3-6 days. At home recovery looks like 2 to 6 weeks. We have been blessed with helpers the week of surgery, the week after surgery and the month of July!! Deb's cousin, Jill, will come out June 8-18th and then Deb's mom and niece, Holly, will come after to help care for Deb and David. We are celebrating David's birthday on May 31st -- he will be three!! We are so excited!!

After recovering from surgery (about 4-6 weeks) chemotherapy will resume. We don't know how many treatments so we will need helpers during that time too. Such a long ordeal!! Again we are praising God for such wonderful news.

We appreciate you all so very much for keeping us in your prayers. So many words of encouragement and prayers have helped us through dark times. We rest in joy and peace because we are confident that our Lord is in control … we pray that His will be done through our lives and this terrible disease!!

 Love and blessings,

 Tim, Deb and David