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.