Some Good News!

I want to start by saying thank you to everyone out there praying for us.  We are finding so much comfort knowing that so many people are lifting up not only Jonathan, but our entire family before God.

Romans 15:30 says, I appeal to you brothers, by our Lord Jesus Christ, and by the love of the spirit, to strive together with me in your prayers to God on my behalf.  I know God hears the tiny prayers from my 2 & 4 year old sons, but when there are hundreds of you praying with us, it must be really loud up there!  Thank you for answering to our plea. 

Overall we had a long but pretty good weekend considering.  Jonathan was able to golf in the Qualchan member guest (which by the way was the first question he asked the dr.).  Him and his friend Trevor actually took 3rd...  So we mustered up the courage to go out in public and face that grueling questions "How are you?".   We attended a BBQ, a Play date with the boy's friends Gracin and Landon, and then we went to church. 

Ever been to church and feel like there is no one else in the room and the pastor is just talking to you?  On Sunday Michael Wittwer taught us about a regular guy in the old testament named Gideon.  If you want to read the story, it is in Judges 6, or log onto http://www.lifecenter.net/sermon/gideon-let-it-go/ to watch the sermon.  But to summarize what we took away from the story: God's plans are not limited by probability, they are limitless because of his ability.  The odds could not have been more stacked against Gideon, but because he trusted God, incredibly with only 300 men, Gideon defeated 135,000.  Sometimes our best plan, is not God's plan.  God's plan will always be better.  So today whatever the odds turn out to be, we are trusting that God's plan for our family is better.  (Michael, I have no idea if you will ever read this, but thank you!)

Today we checked into Inland Imaging at 8 am for what may have been the longest day of our life.  I obviously am not feeling well, and Jonathan wasn't allowed to eat anything until after the second scan.  If you know Jonathan, not eating for 19 hours may be worse than having a tumor in his leg.  He had multiple types of dye injected into him for each type of scan, but was a trooper.

This afternoon we received a call from Jonathan's oncologist.  He said he read the CT (above) and it LOOKS CLEAR!!!  This is great news!  This means the tumor is not a secondary tumor and he doesn't have cancer in his lungs, liver, or any other place you would never want to have cancer.  This also gives us a small amount of hope that there still is a chance the Dr. is wrong and this tumor could be benign.  However even if it isn't, we will take this win today! 

This is his bone scan.  The dr. said he didn't have time to review this scan yet but would call us tomorrow.  I'm no dr, but I think this looks promising as well.  The tumor in his knee is very obvious... and then the other white spot I'm telling myself is his bladder.  Because they told us he will pee out all the dye... So probably normal. 

Wednesday is our next big day.  Jonathan will check into the hospital a little after 5 am and will be having a minor biopsy surgery at 7.  This will take less than an hour, and the dr. he will be able to tell us a lot from just seeing the biopsy himself.  Then we will wait for the tests to come back as to what stage, what kind, etc. 

So I'm going to appeal to you again.  Please don't stop praying for us!  We had a win today, but this pretty scary week isn't over yet.  Many of you guys are asking how you can help and I promise you we will let you know.  I think we may be needing lots of people over the next few weeks with meals, help with kids, etc.  But for now sit tight and just pray.  We will know more of what the next few weeks and months hold hopefully by Wednesday or Thursday. 

1 Thessalonians 5:17 Pray without ceasing.

Asking for prayers!

So some of you may know some of what is happening with Jonathan, and for some of you this is going to be the first time you have heard.  I think I've talked to 10 people today and it isn't getting any easier explaining the same thing over and over.  So I decided I should probably start some form of blog to keep everyone informed.  For those of you that we have talked to, I'm including pictures so you can maybe better understand...

So I'll start from the beginning.

About a couple months ago, Jonathan began to have knee pain after working out in the gym.  So like anyone he tried ice, ibprophen, and rest.  (Well except golf... He powered through that!)  But the knee pain wasn't getting better and he was beginning to loose mobility in it.  For example he couldn't bend it very far etc.  So he thought he better go see orthopedic Dr to see if there was something up with meniscus etc.  So about 2 weeks ago at that apt they did an X-ray.  Well in the X-Ray there was a shadow type spot above the knee.  We were told it is probably from an old injury or possibly a cyst or something like that.  Anyway, we should probably look further just to make sure.  So on Monday  the 23rd Jonathan had an MRI done.  He came home with the CD and all the pictures.  We were pretty sure something was wrong, well because when I show you the pictures you'll know.  The issue was not with his knee joint, there was something going on with his bone in that spot that was just suppose to by a bruise or something.

On Wednesday the 25th he had a follow up apt with the orthopedic dr.  At that appointment Jonathan was told that he has a tumor in his femur.  The dr. had told him that he had already sent the scans to a tumor specialist, who is a orthopedic oncologist.  He told him this next dr. would like to see him immediately and that he needed to bring his wife to the appointment.  So at this point we knew this wasn't good.  That was a long night...

Thursday the 26th at 1:00 we met with the oncologist.  He got right to the point.  Now I'm going to try to show the scans to try to help explain this...  Here are a couple pictures of what the normal part of his bone should look like. 

The big black ring is his bone.  Inside that black ring in the marrow.  This is a healthy portion of the scan.

This is beginning to show the problem, because you are beginning to see the "hot spot" in the scan.  But if you look at the bottom bone, that is more normal looking.

As you move down his leg this is what the scan begins to look like.  (remember white hot spots are bad)  The Dr. explained that this is the photo that make him believe that Jonathan has a malignant tumor starting from inside the bone. On the left side of the scan, this is the more health part.  There is more of that thick black circle.  But if you move to the right side, the tumor is beginning to eat away at his bone.  So there you have it... Jonathan has what we suspect to be a cancerous tumor inside his femur.  (excuse me while I go throw up again!)

 

Here are a couple of images from the side... when you look at the bottom bone, which is healthy, seems kind of obvious there is a big problem above.

 

So now what?

 

The oncologist has ordered a bunch more tests that are happening as quick as possible.  But for us it isn't happening right now, so it isn't fast enough!  So on Monday Jonathan will be having another MRI, bone scans, and the most scary is a CT.  Jonathan and I can't remember if the Dr. said that a bone tumor is secondary to another cancer that is somewhere else in his body, or if it will cause secondary cancer somewhere else in his body like his lungs.

 

After those test, Jonathan will be going to the hospital on Wednesday to have a minor surgery to biopsy the tumor.  There was an option to just stick a needle in his leg and get a piece, but that has a 20% chance of mis diagnosis.  So we opted for the surgery.  I think this means they actually cut into his bone and take a small piece out of the tumor.  The Dr. said typically he will know immediately more about if it is for sure cancer.  Then the tests will begin to tell us what kind, how fast, etc.

 

What we do know is that Jonathan will at the very least be having some surgery.  This Tumor has to come out.  There is a possibility they will have to remove his entire femur.  OR there is a possibility that with Chemo and radiation that they can shrink the tumor and maybe the surgery will be less invasive.

 

What can you do for us?

 

We've debated on how much we tell people... But at this point, we know what we need, as much prayer as possible.  So I'm asking you to get down on your knees right now and really pray for him!  I mean really pray for him!  He has a 2 year old son and a 4 year old son... this isn't suppose to happen.  BUT I know God won't give us something we can't handle, and he is young, strong and healthy.  Whatever this is, he is going to fight like hell!

 

I will continue to post more as we know more... So now we wait...