Where have you been?

Hello everyone,

If you haven't been following my life on the blog that I share with my wife then let me catch you up. If you do follow my life on the other blog, then please excuse the repetitive comments (#1 & #2), I'll try to keep it brief.

The last time I posted was Feb. 23rd. A LOT has happened since then and a lot of things I should have requested prayers for but time just did not allow for this. Here is what all has happened....

1. My grandmother has been in and out of the hospital again. The number of trips has drastically reduced, however her "rehab" period at the local nursing home ended a week ago. Unfortunately, she did not improve enough to be able to go home without 24/7/365 care. Also unfortunately the family isn't able to accommodate that so that means that she has to stay at the local nursing home. This is a very difficult decision for my father and one that I know pains him deeply. She still thinks that she will be able to go home after dad's surgery (more on that later). We will see. It isn't looking good, but who knows what the Good Lord will provide.

2. We have purchased, remodeled (to a certain degree), and moved into a house!!!!!! It's ironic that the previous post talks about the frustration that we were having with finding a house. It's also amazing just how much God will take care of you at the time you need Him the most, and when you really have just about reach the point of breaking He says..."Ok, You have been tested enough. It's time for me to take over. Come here my child and let me hold you in MY arms and take care of your problems/frustrations/worries." I, We, are so glad to be in our house. It's still not the way we want it, but it's pretty close to being the way we wanted it before we moved in. We were so blessed to renting a house that allowed us to take our time in the remodeling without the pressure of getting finished by a certain date. We also were so blessed to be living close to family and they have helped to the point that we could never repay them for what they have done. The house would not have been ready when it was if it wasn't for their help/generosity. While we are living in the house, we are still surrounded by boxes that still have our belongings in them. So the transition is still not complete, however we are totally out of the old house and totally in the new one. Now we just need to unpack everything!! :-S

3. The third things that has been going on in our lives is the one that is the most difficult to talk about. During the first part of June (and right in the middle of the major remodeling going on in the house) the doctors discovered a tumor the size of a lime on one of Dad's kidneys. The good news in this, is that it is on the kidney that is undersized and probably not functioning that well to begin with. The bad news is that we don't know anything else. We don't know if the tumor is cancerous or not. We don't know if it is cancerous, if the cancer has spread. We don't think that it has because we have been told that the first place that the cancer would go is to his lungs and they sound clear (and were clear in December when a chest x-ray was done). So as a result of this dad went to a specialist in the closest metropolitan city. The dr there thinks that there is a 60-80% chance that it is cancer. He doesn't know if it has spread and won't know until he does surgery. Surgery is scheduled for Aug. 7th and the dr will be taking the entire kidney and tumor out laparoscopically. Hopefully dad will only be in the hospital for 3 days (or so) and will be able to come home after getting out of the hospital. To say that this is stressing our family out would be an understatement, however because of God's help, we all outwardly are doing pretty good. We know that God will take care of dad and that whatever He has planned is for the best. Dad has been through a lot in the last 8 years, however looking back on all of the issues that dad has gone through we see God's fingerprints all over the place. My parents are truely blessed. Please keep my dad and my entire family in your prayers during this time. With his issues, my grandmother's health, my uncle's (his brother) passing last September, and the thing I'll talk about in #4. I'm ready for God to take the reins back and say yet again, "Ok, You have been tested enough. It's time for me to take over. Come here my child and let me hold you in MY arms and take care of your problems/frustrations/worries." However I also know that God will not give us more than we can bear. It's just a lot on the family's plate right now. However I also know that we will look back on this in the years to come and know that God is also working in this situation just has much as he did in all of the other instances we have gone through.

4. Recently my parents have had to deal with a finacial issue that is quite embarising. While I would give more details, the situation isn't life threating, between them, or as my late grandfather use to say....as bad as a wreck on a train. However because this situation has occurred it's put even more stress on an already strained situation with dad's health. Please pray that God will help my parents not to worry about the money lost and to know that everything will come about in the end. Whether they get the money back or not, it's only money and they will be just fine with or without the money.

So that's what's been going on the last several months. I'm very sorry that it's been so long since I have posted. With dad's surgery I'll try to keep the posts coming more reguarly so everyone will know how he is doing.

Thanks again so much for your prayers. We love you all.

Jack

Guidance from Friends and Family.

I just posted something to the blog that I share with Francie. Check it out and please respond with guidance and thoughts as to what we should do.

Time heals all wounds....????

Well it's been a little while since we found out about the event that has caused our family so much grief and anguish. And while they say time heals all wounds, the short amount of time that has transpired hasn't been long enough. We still hurt, ache, and grief over the event and the cause of the event. While I don't know many details, I have a feeling that this is the start of a very long hard road.

Even though we are no where near to being over this event, it is amazing to me just how God has a way of making things work for His Glory. While we haven't seen exactly how He is working in this situation, I know that God is in control and His Will will be done in ALL things. In knowing this, there are a few things that I have seen, witnessed, heard of, or been a part of that I see God's Will working in. In this post I would like to share just a few of those things.

One thing that has come of this is that the family so far has grown closer together. Francie has talked to various family members on a nearly daily basis. We also have been in contact with other family members much more frequently than we have in the past.

Another factor that has been a positive from this event is that we have seen the love from the congregation that we attend. This event has the potential to tear apart the church we attend, however I have been glad to see the support (both publicly and privately) that has come from the congregation. If any of you happen to read this blog I want to again publicly thank you for everything and ask you to please keep up what you are doing.

While I will never post on here the situation that has arisen, it is public knowledge. For those that I personally know that are dying inside to know what is going on you may contact me or my parents. If you just happen upon this blog and would like to know, I'm sorry but this is a private matter and one that I wish not to let you know about. However I do ask for everyone who reads this to please continue to pray for the family. Pray that healing will occur, pray that patience will abound, pray that those affected will turn to God for guidance and strength, pray that the community is understanding, and finally (as Francie pointed out in our other blog), pray that the Spirit helps us in our weakness, that the Spirit will intercede our groans of anguish to our Lord for us since we do not have the words to express just how we feel (Romans 8:26).

Like I said before, it's probably going to be a long process, however with God's help we will be able to pull through this. Again…..thank you SO much for everything that you are doing. Words will never express how truly gracious we are for your support.

Prayer Request

Other than SafetyDude, I don't know of anyone who checks this blog. However for SafetyDude and anyone else who stumbles upon this blog I wanted to let you know about a couple of things....


1. I am sorry for not blogging much lately. I have been so busy at work that I never seem to have time.

2. We have had a family member do something very bad recently. Bad enough that this person was arrested for these bad things that he did. This was a very large shock to us and we are having a very hard time dealing with the whole situation. Please pray for us, our realitive, and the whole family. It's just the beginning of a very, very long road and something that has the potential to rip the family apart. Please pray that this does not happen.


I hope that each of you are having a good week and that it's much better than ours has been.


Finally, if you do come across this blog please let me know. Selfishly, it would be nice to have to know someone is out there reading this blog.

Happy New Year

Well 2009 is nearly here. To say that my posting has slacked off is an understatement. I hope to do better next year in my prayer requests. However I will give a quick prayer request here on this blog....

As my last (Lord willing) prayer request for 2008 is that may God continue to bless us as He so richly has this past year. Even though parts of 2008 has been very hard, there have been other parts that have been filled with joyful events. The fact that we have our health, jobs, a roof over heads, family, and other blessings - we are so blessed to have what we do and I'm very thankful to our Heavenly Father for those blessings.

Love to all.....

Jack

Merry Christmas!

I'm going to try to get this in before midnight my time....

Merry Christmas!!

Jack

Update on my grandmother

Sorry that this has taken so long for me to update everyone on the status of my grandmother. To say that it's been a busy week with my grandmother being in the hospital, Thanksgiving, catching up at work, and taking care of other personal things would be an understatement.

The long and the short of it is that my grandmother does NOT have cancer. She instead has pneumonia.

To help explain this drastic change of events below is a timeline of last week, I've included a description of each day and the events that transpired. Please note that this is from my perspective and does not include things said both verbally and non-verbally to others in the family.

Sunday - Granny falls (again) and burst open a cut on her knee (for the 3rd time). While there and getting everything figured out, the medical staff learns her white blood cell count is over 33,000. Normal is 4,500-10,000 (according to www.nlm.nih.gov). Word is that they think that she has pneumonia.

Monday - An x-ray of her chest shows a "spot" the size of a baseball on her lungs. If memory serves me correct, the doctor said "I've never seen a spot this big that wasn't cancer" and "you need to be looking for a nursing home with hospice and she will never leave the state of ". Mom & dad leave to go where my grandmother is. A CT scan is done to get a better look at the spot on the lung.

Tuesday - Things are a little clearer, and I find out that she might not have cancer. A biopsy is taken to see if the spot is cancer. Doctor (not same one as on Monday) who took the biopsy says that symptoms of pneumonia are not present (green junk in lungs, fever, cough, etc); however the x-ray report says it is a mass and the CT radiologist calls the place an infusion. So, we are told she either has pneumonia or cancer. We are also told the results of biopsy will not be back until Friday (normally would be Thursday but since Thursday is Thanksgiving it will be Friday).

Wednesday - First doctor tells us that the white blood count has gone down to 8,000 (within the normal range). Because of this the doctor is now thinking that she has pneumonia instead of cancer. However won’t say for sure until the results come back from the biopsy.

Thursday – Thanksgiving …….no news.

Friday – We leave home to travel to where Granny D is. Results come back from the biopsy and my grandmother does NOT have cancer! A BIG sigh of relief is experienced throughout the family.

So that’s the timeline of events. Writing it down makes it not seem as big of a deal, but when you are dealing with the “c” word, in real time people get worried really fast. Since Friday she has been dismissed from the hospital, staying at my cousin's house for the time being, and hopes to come back home next weekend.

I apologize for the last post and making the outlook look so bleak, however hopefully by reading this post you will understand why the post was worded the way it was. I also hope that this helps clear up some of your confusion. My family and I really do appreciate all of the prayers, comments, and concerns expressed by several of you throughout the past week. I can’t explain how much they touched all of us.