God Has Prepared, God Will Protect, God Does Provide

Thank you to everyone for your kind words by email and in the guestbook on the website. Our trip to Children's on Tuesday was a long day. Anika and Tegan stayed at Grandma Debbie and Grandpa George's while Michael and I went down. We had an appointment with Dr. Park. She had us get a CT scan of Kelby's torso & neck. That confirmed the cancer was in her arm, but they didn't find it anywhere else. On Tuesday we have an appointment for a bone scan which will tell us if there is cancer anywhere else in her bones. If it is confined to her arm, we'll have radiation done to it in the next couple weeks. That will require about 2 weeks of driving down to Seattle every weekday. It might mean she'll have to have a central line put in again, but maybe not.

Other than the radiation, there isn't a lot that we can do that doesn't have difficult, painful side effects. There is no standard of treatment for her at this point. There are experimental studies, but they aren't proven helpful, so we don't want to put her through them. If she was old enough to understand...she might be willing to put up with the extra difficulty in order to provide help for others in the future...but we just don't think she would be able to put up with that. Dr. Park said that sometimes they can chase around these bony metastases with radiation for a couple years...so maybe we have some time. At the time that there are too many spots to effectively radiate, we would have to switch to hospice care. This is just what we understand as it is now. We should know more after Tuesday's scans.

Now, you must all understand that God is taking care of us already 100%. There are things that we realize now that were preparing us for this situation. Mike just changed jobs. He went from something that didn't keep him busy enough to something that he enjoys and gives him a lot to do. This means we're not adding frustration onto frustration at work. The insurance was transferred over fine although the out-of-pocket was higher in the new plan. However, I just asked Children's Hospital about their financial aid and we qualified! That means that we won't have to pay anything out-of-pocket! Praise God for the things we didn't even think to ask him for yet! Mike's job is very flexible and the people he works for seem to be so amazing and kind. Also, we just got a dog. He is an excellent playmate for the girls and especially for Tegan when her sister isn't feeling good. Mike's mom and dad have just come to a point were they are available to watch the two girls when we need it, having just settled into their new house and finalized the sale on their other. They just got a dog too which is really fun and distracting for Tegan when she's there. I know there are even more things that God has provided for us that I can't even think of right now. It is just more evidence that He is in absolute control...and kind, faithful, and wonderful in our time of need.

Kelby learned how to pump her legs on the swing today! We are so proud and amazed since we've been working on it for some time. She is such an amazing girl. Thank you all for your prayers. We are hanging in here & I still feel that sense of peace. It must be because you all are praying for us!