Complicated situation

This is coming from Steve. Please forgive my writing style and and lack of continuity that you will find in Caroline's fine writing style.

It's not easy to determine what is best for general consumption and publication. Should we tell everything, the good, the not so good, the bad? Should we limit it to positive thinking? Should we only post the facts and leave it at that? Well, we have determined that it's best just to be open and honest with you all. We don't want to hide anything from anybody but we also don't want to be a downer either. But the fact is that Caroline has an aggressive cancer in her body right now as I type. It's an ugly fact in our lives right now. As we tell you about these things please respond with prayer. Tell God how much we humans need his help to overcome this sickness. We also feel that by being open with everyone that this will help you to know what to pray for and understand Caroline's situation. We do believe that if it His will that Caroline will be totally healed of this disease, not just remission, but true healing.

Yesterday the "Port" was put in just below Caroline's collar bone. Listening to the doctors talk about this procedure you would think we were going in for a routine oil change. However, the reality is that it's not routine for the human body. The surgery set Caroline back a bit with some new pains to try to mask with medications. It's just not routine!

We had a pre-chemo meeting with the doctor today. As you may know the plan was to start chemo tomorrow but given the setback with the port we are now looking at starting next Thursday. On Tuesday a CT Scan was done to get a base line for cancer growth. We received the results today. This is not the news we were wanting to share with you. But again to be open and honest... there is "borderline - mild adenopathy" (enlarged lymph node) near the sternum and suspected cancer in a few places on the liver. All of this may have existed before the surgery but we don't know that for certain because the same type of CT scan (with contrast) was not done a few weeks ago so these may have gone previously undetected. On the bright side the level of the cancer marker, CA 125, which was once 120 is now 53. A normal level is about 30. We are headed in the right direction. Praise God!

You can all do research on the cancer. You will soon find it's an ugly one and one that likes to travel throughout the body. We are struggling with what treatment to use. Nobody can make a decision about the right treatment without standing in the door and facing it yourself. I think it's akin to someone without kids trying to give advice to parents. And not only that but no two people are alike and no two cancers are alike. There is no flowchart to look at. There just isn't an easy answer.

We have determined that we want and intend that God be glorified in this process. That sure sounds good doesn't it? Now put it into practice or as a good friend puts it, "now put shoes on it..." How do we glorify God in this process? How do we know which is the right treatment when facing a disease with an 85-95% 5-year failure rate using the best of modern medicine and the track record for natural treatments is unknown and not tracked, except for anecdotal evidence. Like I said, do your research. You won't like what you see. So coming back around, we want to glorify God regardless of the outcome. We want to know God's will and put Caroline in God's hands so that he is glorified. If it means to put Caroline in the hands of the brains of the many smart people who have developed and now provide treatments using a caustic drug combination of Platinum and Taxol, that's cool we are good with that. If it's to use a natural approach we are good with that. Or do we do both? Our dilemma at this time is that we really really are not convinced one is better than the other. Both sides present good arguments. Maybe it's both I don't' know and I don't think you can convince me one over the other. But.....

My whole point of the last paragraph is to ask God to cleanse your hearts (see James 5:16) as we solicit your humble yet powerful prayers to the one and only God that put over 100s of billions of galaxies in motion and designed and then created our exceedingly complex bodies together. We ask for prayers of peace that surpasses all human understanding and a wisdom to determine the best treatment(s). You, working together with us, and all of us working together with God I think we have a good shot at this. Caroline and I both think and believe that the key is glorifying God in this process. We don't know the outcome but God's thoughts and ways are higher than ours ever could be. See Isaiah 55:8. Who better to place our trust in. This is serious business.