Duane and Debbie's Blog

Decent News

2007-08-08T12:48:00.000-07:00

I apologize for taking so long to update this. I have been "snowed under" in June and July with work. In the past week I had trouble getting into the blog. Any way....

Right after my last post, Debbie fainted at the ocologist's office while a new inexperienced tech was trying to take a blood sample in late June. That revealed a very slow pulse, 48, which was apparently a side effect of the Revlimid. She is case # 17 with that side effect. (It is a very new drug.) So he took her off it. A cardiologist checked her 3 weeks ago and said no major problems, thankfully. In the 5 weeks she has been off the Revlimid, her pain diminished and has now disappeared and her pulse rate is close to back to normal now. The oncologist has been on vacation and we see him tomorrow, expecting him to put her back on the Revlimid at a reduced dosage. He says the Revlimid is the main fighter of the Myeloma. Since being off it for 5 weeks, there was little improvement in her M Protein marker number coming down (from 0.6 to 0.5). Also, we assume the pain she felt back in June was due to the Revlimid attacking hot spots. She is feeling much better now. We were a little disappointed in such minor improvement showing up in the blood work yesterday, but we rejoice that it was improvement. She has resumed all her normal household duties, and was able to maintain her discipling studies thru the summer and hosting 2 small groups. So that was a blessing.

Thanks for your prayers.

Good News!

2007-06-18T18:38:00.000-07:00

Since my last writing, God has been answering the prayers of the army He's raised up to pray for Debbie. Thank you to each of you who are keeping her/us in your prayers. There are not sufficient words to thank you adequately.

I'm now realizing that what I thought was very active Myeloma over the last 6 months apparently was imperceptable.....the MRI and X-rays show "stable." There were no new Myeloma spots, cracks or fractures. Though Debbie has/is experiencing some pain, I no longer look at it as loss of improvement, but rather her body responding to the Revlimid and Decadron that she is currently taking.

Another great praise is that the M-Protein marker has dropped from 1.8 to .9 in about 3 weeks time. This is the first time it has dropped in 11 months. Two years ago at diagnosis, the M-Protein was at 4.8. This is an amazing improvement for which we thank God and recognize He's heard the cries of His children! Thank you again for your prayer support! While this is somewhat elevated, it's not bad.....that's where she was in December when the oncologist was unconcerned and not ready to take action. She started her second round of the drugs yesterday......we pray this brings the count to 0.

I thought her stamina had dropped, but it hasn't. She continues to do the things she has been doing (minus lifting). She walks almost every day.....sometimes twice a day. Her energy level is good.

I realize now that writing what I did at 3:30a.m. probably didn't give me a very clear perspective on things. We are greatly encouraged and want to ask you to join us in praising God for what He has done. Please continue to pray IN FAITH!

Blessings,
Duane

How to pray for Debbie

2007-06-07T04:18:00.000-07:00

In the space of a week, Debbie has lost at least a year’s worth of steady improvement. A week ago, on June 1, a vertebra between her shoulder blades began to hurt and has gotten progressively worse. June third she suffered a cracked rib. June fifth she realized that she was digressing daily and we noticed a drop in her stamina when we went to walk our two miles - she made it one and three quarters miles. Tuesday evening, on the fifth, the vertebras in her lower back began to hurt and worsened yesterday. If you sense a note of concern in my words, you are discerning correctly. Thankfully the staff prayed over us Tuesday, and the elders did so last night. So what do you do when pain, problems, and concern come knocking at your door? You pray! Here are some suggestions from God’s word about how to pray for Debbie.

Lord God, Jesus told us that if we have faith as small as a mustard seed, we can say to this mountain of a disease, move out from her body, and it will be cast out. NOTHING WILL BE IMPOSSIBLE FOR YOU. (Mt. 17:20,21)

Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet your love, O God, your unfailing love for Debbie Jenks will not be shaken nor your covenant of peace be removed because you have compassion on her. (Isa. 54:10)

Lord, you have said, “…whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. (Mark 11:24) Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.” (Mt. 7:7)

So, Father God, we come in faith, trusting in your words and your power, doing what you have commanded: We are asking you for healing, we are seeking the prayers of believers and all the healing powers of medicines that you have given us, and we knock on heaven’s door asking that you throw open a door of your healing power upon Debbie Jenks. We ask for it in prayer believing that we have received it. We believe, help thou our unbelief (Mk 9:24), for all things are possible for you, O God!

“Ah, Sovereign LORD, you have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and outstretched arm. NOTHING IS TOO HARD FOR YOU” (Jer. 32:17) – not even healing Multiple Myeloma is impossible for you! – your will be done in all things. “For nothing is impossible with God.” (Lk. 1:37)

“Praise the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases.” (Psa. 103:2-3) Lord, your Word says ALL diseases can be healed by your power, so we ask for Debbie’s healing from MM.

“Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.” (Isa. 53:4-5) Because of the cross, God, we ask Jesus to take Debbie’s Multiple Myeloma upon himself and allow his painand his wounds to afford healing for her because…“He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.” (I Peter 2:24)

Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven. Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. (James 5:14-6)

Psa. 103:1-5 –“Praise the Lord, O my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name. Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits—who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, who satisfied your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.” Lord, redeem her life from the pit of disease and despair, and crown her with your love and compassion, and renew her youth again, as You have for the past 22 months, for she shall not die but live, so she may proclaim what wonders You, Lord, have done in her life. Psa. 118:17 – “I will not die, but live, and will proclaim what the Lord has done.”

Mt. 18:19 – “Again, I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. For where two or three come together in my name there am I with them.” Father, almost two years ago, believers united in prayer for Debbie and you miraculously gave her a strong remission at the end of July ‘05. Lord, we boldly ask for complete healing this time, because we are children of the King of Heaven, who loves to give His children what they ask for so that you are glorified, and so that her life will be a testimony to your power and goodness.

Isa. 41:10- So, because of this promise, and our previous experiences with it, we do not fear, for You are with us; we will not be dismayed, for You are our God, You will strengthen us and help us; You will uphold us with your righteous right hand.

I Peter 5:10- “And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast.” Lord, you have done this before for Debbie, and we ask You to do it again, to your glory, in the powerful name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Duane and Debbie Jenks

Treatment Time Again

2007-06-03T19:20:00.000-07:00

After watching the main marker for Myeloma (M Protein spike) remain at 0.1 for a year (which is great, but absolute 0 is best), it began creeping up last August and increased a tenth of a point each month through December to 0.6. Then in February it jumped to 0.9 and then up to 1.4 in April and 1.6 in May. It became obvious that the myeloma was active and messing with the other blood counts, which had remained in normal ranges until April. So Debbie has made the decision to treat it again with the steroid Decadron and a new drug, Revlimid, which is an improved, cleaned up and improved drug that is 100 times more powerful than Thalidimide which she took almost two years ago for 3 months. Because it so powerful she takes a tenth as much as before so that in reality it is only 10 times more powerful. She took her first doses on May 20, praying for the side effects to be minimal, but that the desired effect of repressing the myeloma would be maximized.

When she got the news of the continued rise in the marker on Wednesday the 16^th, she was discouraged, but God in His providence sent two angels of mercy to encourage her at church that night. One introduced herself and told Deb that she was praying for her, though they’d never met. The other loaned her a wonderful little book about healing which buoyed her faith again on Thursday. Then she found out Thursday evening that our friend and naturopath, Dr. Carr, had spent an hour praying specifically for her that morning. Friday we saw the oncologist. He was relieved that she was finally ready to treat it again with pharmaceutical drugs. He was cute as he left the room saying in essence and with a smile that if he had another patient as tough and independent minded as Deb, it would be too much and he would have to retire (smile)!

We pray for a great response to the prayers on her behalf and to the treatment so that healing will occur. Fortunately, she feels good and strong, and she has minimal pain. So we rest in God’s sweet peace trusting in His power and grace.

Duane

Africa trip

2007-04-02T14:34:00.000-07:00

We decided not to write anything until after the fact, but Deb and I just spent three weeks in March in Africa traveling with one of our elders and another staff couple! She has had a burden for Africa for several years now, and my recent job change to Minister of Missions necessitated a visit to five of our missionaries in order to acquaint me with their work and to communicate to them about recent changes at RHCC. It was obvious that the Enemy did not want us to go, as we had several health issues/obstacles to overcome the week before our trip, and at times thought that Deb would not be allowed to go due to vaccination requirements and dangers for her, but God saw us through all that and made sure that she got to go and that was good, because she had some important touches to make with some women along the way. Halfway through the trip, we parted ways with our wives, they to help lead the Come Before Winter Women's Retreat for 60 African missonary wives held in Kenya while we three men went to South Africa and Zambia. It was an amazing experience for all of us and a blessed one.

How does one summarize a three week trip to visit: five African nations; five outstanding missionary families; meeting scores of African church planters; witnessing the birth of a church with 14 baptisms and true celebratory worship; experiencing poverty and famine in the African bush while eating the best they had to offer; seeing the ravages of AIDS through the eyes of orphaned children and their impoverished caretakers; being amazed at how much missionaries can accomplish with such limited resources at their disposal; catching the vision of a Christian university in Africa; seeing the power of the spoken word of God transform lives; feeling loved and accepted while preaching in 3 prison churches; preaching multiple times (until midnight) during a four hour worship service with 200 brethren praising God; seeing the wonderful impact that interns (like Laura Beth Chapman) have on a great mission effort; seeing Jacob mentor and train orphans to be evangelists; getting to teach a group of Mozambican preachers for a week while brushing up on my Portuguese; all this while experiencing another part of God’s creative genius in flora, fauna, fellow man, beautiful water falls (including Victoria Falls) and the source of the Nile River? We stayed in tents at a lodge on the Zambeze River near Victoria Falls and one morning watched an elephant swim across the river! That was incredible.

Suffice it to say that I return to the USA a changed man. I am more grateful for what we have and more determined to lay up treasure in heaven by sharing what we have here with the less fortunate. I am humbled by the high quality of the five missionary families who are all superb and doing great works for Jesus Christ by impacting their respective nations with the gospel. They are making amazing differences in those diverse cultures. RHCC is blessed to have great missionaries in the field. We were blessed by being with them. They are lights in a dark world who give a new zest for life to those who know them or are impacted indirectly through those whom they train for ministry. They truly shine like stars in a dark sky.

We will see Deb's oncologist Thursday the 5th for the latest on her condition.

Mostly Good News

2007-01-20T01:35:00.000-08:00

Over the Christmas holidays, Deb began to have pain in her hip and pelvis bone around the hip such that it hurt with every step, so we called to move up her tests and appointment by a week to the 5th and asked for an x-ray of that hip and pelvis. We were fighting for faith and trying not to be too concerned and jump to conclusions again. But by the time of the x-ray on the 5th of January, it had stopped hurting. Otherwise she felt fine.

She went in to see her oncologist on the 12th and received mostly good news. The x-ray showed no reason for her pain and no difference from the last time it was x-rayed. Wonderful! Her red and white cells were in normal ranges along with platelets. Good! Tthe refined test for MM showed her to be in the normal range - meaning no measurable activity. Fantastic! But that pesky M protein marker that had been increasing a tenth of a point per month had jumped .3 of a point to 0.9. No one can figure out why it is doing this. So that is a concern and something to watch. The oncologist is baffled by it and is going to consult others for ideas. He is being patient with us and is not recommending his treatment yet. So, our take is that any time you go to the oncolgist ,and he says all of the most important tests show normalcy, and he does not recommend his treatments, then that is good news! We will go back the end of February for tests and see him March 2 for another checkup. Hopefully that M protein will begin to decrease by then.

It was a very good visit. We had never seen such humility from him as he answered our probing questions with "we don't know" over and over and tried to explain the very limited knowledge medical science has of the human body and its operation. For the first time he also mentioned two retired medical doctors who have MM. One is eleven years out with only two relapses. the other is three years out and was treated with the stem cell transplant approach. He thinks Deb's MM is a slow acting type. Hopefully he is right.

Our Sovereign God is good all the time. We continue to enjoy good health and are grateful for it and of course desire more of it.

Resveratrol Research Info

2006-12-18T13:33:00.000-08:00

I have been too busy to look at the blog for the past couple of months due to a change in my ministry. I apologize for not responding to the questions in the Comments section sooner.

The brand of Resveratrol that Deb has used is Resveratrol by Pure Encapsulations. She took a therapeutic dosage of 2 capsules by mouth, 4 times a day for the past year and still takes it. You can order it at www.thegreenpharmacy.com for $29.50 plus shipping. I would suggest ordering at least 4 bottles (a month's supply) to make the $7.50 shipping cost more reasonable.

Here is a research website to read about research on MM with Resveratrol haing very positive results. The Intro. and then the discussion are most helpful for us laymen, especially the final paragraph that begins, In conclusion...

http://cancerres.aacrjournals.org/cgi/content/full/65/21/9943

I thought our out of pocket $700 a month expenses for several supplements was expensive until I found out just one treatment of Aredia at the oncologist's office last year cost $2200. Fortunately for us, insurance paid that. Another drug she took for two months cost $4100 for a month's supply, fortunately, again covered by insurance. For those wondering why she only took it for two months, she began having neuropathy in her face from it (a side effect) and decided to quit it in Sept. of 05 before damage was done. She has since gone totally natural in treating and trying to kill out this monster disease. We don't recommend this for anyone else. But she is very disciplined in her diet and in her supplement treatment. It is practically a full-time job to treat MM this way, but the benefits of great improvement and no side effects from drugs is worth it to us.

Duane

Praise Report! Good News Again!

2006-10-30T15:12:00.000-08:00

As I mentioned in the last post, Deb’s oncologist had noted a "slight increase" in one of her markers in late September and ordered a series of tests including an MRI.

The oncologist gave us great news today! First, keep in mind that he has told us on numerous occasions that the myeloma tumors or lesions in her bone marrow will be there from now on, nor do they diminish in size. Secondly, keep in mind that all her vertebras had many lesions (tumors). We praise God because this new MRI report says that there has been an improvement or diminishing of those myeloma lesions throughout the spine and that there are only "a few small ones" while where the other lesions have been, they are now "essentially invisible". She has been taking an alternative supplement since November last year which is supposed to reduce multiple myeloma tumors so we praise the Lord for His provisions. In addition, the new more refined blood test that he repeated last week indicated that she is totally in the normal range. (this confirmed the findings discovered in August, by the same test). Also, her IGG marker has been well under the normal range for a year now, but has been gradually rising. Today is the first time is too has moved into the normal range! The Dr. assured her her kidneys looked good, and all other check points were right where they needed to be. The oncologist saw no reason to change what she is doing and just recommended that we check her blood work again in 6 weeks, to see if the M Protein moves back down. So we will simply praise the Lord and wait for more good news then.

God is so good. Won't you praise Him with us?

Same Song, Second Verse

2006-10-23T08:59:00.000-07:00

This fall is stacking up to be remarkably like last fall, thus the title, Same Song Second Verse.
Last fall Debbie had improved enough to take some vacation time in Branson and also accepted a speaking appointment for the women's Ministry here. During our vacation the Oncologist called with alarming news from recent tests fearing that her cancer was ravaging her. We had a faith crisis for couple of days, but we decided to trust God, thinking that it was all a ploy by the enemy to sidetrack her from her keynote speech in five days. God was faithful and the oncologist admitted that they apparently misread her MRI and she continued to improve.

Well, this year we had a wonderful week of vacation time in the Northeast seeing fall foliage. Debbie is scheduled to speak again at the RHCC Women's Fall Renewal on the subject of "Healing Prayer" in early November. And guess what? The oncologist is alarmed again. One of the blood tests that serves as a marker for her type of cancer (it also measures many other things so it is not a super accurate marker for Multiple Myeloma) has been increasing over the last 3 months from 0.1 (where it was stable for a year) up to 0.2 in August, to 0.4 in late September, to 0.5 in mid October. So she will go in for a new and more accurate blood protein test this weekalogn with an MRI, which she dreads since it takes about 3 hours of lying on her back time with the pounding machine above and around her.

Our prayer is simply that the M Protein marker is increasing just because of an alternative treatment she did in August and September to strengthen her bones, plus, that treatment could easily be the cause of the increase. Hopefully, this more accurate test will show that she is still in the normal range like she was in August. That is why the oncologist was not concerned with the 0.2 reading then, knowing that it can fluctuate due to many reasons. We should know something more definitive by Friday this week. In the meantime, our Naturopath is having her to again increase the natural medicines she had cut back on, just to get a headstart on any treatment regimen that may be needed. He sees what appears to be a viral attack on her body in the slides that I sent him and does not think it is the cancer, but he cannot be sure. The more accurate test this week with the oncologist will tell us what is or is not going on.

A Historic Week

2006-09-20T12:32:00.000-07:00

Monday evening at the Continent of Great Cities Dinner at the ACU lectures, our hearts were filled with joy as we watched and listened to Alesandra Kelly (Ale) tell her story of how she came to be a missionary wife in Buenos Aires, Argentina. It started for real 25 years ago tonight (9-20-81) as Deb and I along with four other young families got on a plane and left the USA to move to Fortaleza, Brazil, to begin a new church planting ministry. In 1984, Alesandra’s parents were among our first 100 converts, and I was privileged to share the gospel with them when Ale was just 10 years old. The whole family moved to Sao Paulo in search of work in about 1989. As a result, Ale and her siblings finished growing up in the great Ninth of July church in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Her father has since planted numerous congregations as a tireless self-supporting church planter whose health is now deteriorating. Her parents’ zeal for sharing Jesus was contagious for many including her and her three younger siblings. Ale has married Chris Kelly from Portland, OR, and they serve as missionaries in Argentina. Ale’s brother and his wife are part of a church planting team composed of Brazilians being sent out by the Ninth of July church. Her baby sister is married and they are active Christians there too. Her next to youngest sister is engaged to the son of a “preacher man.” Ale told of how she had learned how to teach children by watching Debbie teach her mother and other ladies how to teach and make visual aids for children. She showed us slides of her family and the churches her dad had planted and finally her spiritual family (church) in Argentina. As she told her amazing story of a family finding and sharing faith in Jesus while growing in grace, there was hardly a dry eye among the 250 folks present. Even though she has never played softball, she hit a home run with that speech!
It is an amazing thing to see one’s spiritual grandchildren grow up and bear such fruit by having their own spiritual grandchildren. What joy fills our hearts as the Kelly family spends time in our home this weekend as they complete this leg of their furlough.

Checkup after one year of remission

2006-08-04T12:38:00.000-07:00

We have been on roller coaster this week, but it ends with great news. Last Friday, July 28, Deb went in to the oncologist’s office to do major blood work and an X-ray skeletal survey to compare her myeloma lesions in her bones with the survey done 13 months ago. We would see the Dr. today,the 4th, for results of the tests.

On Monday the 31st she also did a bioscan to test her immune system. Most Americans hit the 20,000 range due to a poor diet rich in fast food. The highest anyone had ever tested at the office in NRHills was 51,000, which was the massage therapist in their office, and she was able to raise it to 58,000 using their immune boosting supplement. Debbie tested out at 55,000!!!! That was an A+ and shows that what she is doing food and supplement wise has her very healthy and explains why she has had no colds or infections, which normally attack myeloma patients.
On Wednesday she called the oncologist’s nurse to check on the blood work results, in particular, the M protein band which is a marker for Multiple Myeloma, which has been steady at a negligible 0.1 for the past year. It had climbed to 0.2. Our alarms immediately went off and we began to ponder if that meant the MM was active again, but we decided to try not to get alarmed because the last time we did that back in January we were "all wet" in our assumptions. We expected the oncologist to raise alarms at our office call with him this morning, Aug. 4th. She has made some major changes in her supplements that she uses to fight it, and we feared that perhaps the changes had not been good for her.

However, he came in giddy!! He was delighted with her progress and the results of the blood work and X-rays. He had also performed a new and very refined blood test for measuring small amounts of myeloma activity. That test showed that she was in a very normal range, and there was no measurable myeloma activity in her body! Praise the Lord! He said that this test is much more accurate than the M-protein test, and 0.2 is still negligible and nothing to be alarmed about. The skeletal survey showed a bit of improvement too, but keep in mind that rebuilding bones is a three year long process. He said, "Keep up your good work, see you in two months!" Wow! What a relief!!
So we praise God for continuing to give her victories over this formidable enemy.
Debbie and Duane

Maintenance Mode

2006-07-07T18:59:00.000-07:00

What a week! Our old friend, Dr. Joe Carr from North Carolina, was supposed to be in Brazil this week on a mission trip, but got canceled due to the bankruptcy of the Brazilian airline they were to fly on. Since he had not scheduled any patients for this week, we invited him to come to DFW and see us - so he did. Duane picked him up at the airport Saturday afternoon and took him back early Thursday morning. In the meantime, we had lots of discussion time, great and intense prayer times, story telling time, time for Debbie to ask hundreds of health related questions, and late night talks, in addition to celebrating the 4th of July with a BBQ with friends. Duane also took a couple of days of vacation in order to have time to spend with Joe.

But the best news was going to another Naturopath's office and using his microscope so that Joe could look at Deb's current blood samples on July third. As we expected, it looked very good. Praise God!! As a result, Debbie will cut back on the medicinal dosages of her supplements to more of a maintenance mode and even cut out a couple of them. That is good news. We probably could have done that a bit sooner, but it is much better to err on the side of caution, which we did. We just praise God for the way He has answered many prayers on her behalf.

What a Year!!!!

2006-06-24T15:42:00.000-07:00

It was a year ago today that Deb could no longer stand up, was taken to the hospital in an ambulance and we got the feared definitive diagnosis of Multiple Myeloma when she was taken to the oncology ward. Oh, how far she has come since then! Our lives have returned to normal with the exception of all the supplements she takes, evening back pain and the occasional appointment with the oncologist. He is still very uncomfortable monitoring her with her choosing alternative types of treatment, but cannot argue with the results. We have been very blessed with God's grace.

We saw another Dr. this past week who monitors patients who use alternative therapies. He is a believer, read the 2 page synopsis of events for the past 18 months, listened and then said, "It is obvious that God did a major healing last July." Finally a man of medicine who will give God his glory!!!! His specialty is endocrinology and he noticed some imperfections in her blood work and thought that it might be worthwhile to do some blood work and verify how her endocrine system is functioning and make sure that the thyroid is functioning correctly. He too, is a bit hesitant to monitor her because myeloma is so complex to deal with, but he will try to find an oncologist for us who will work with patients in alternative type treatments. We shall see what he has to offer.

Praise God who is so gracious and good. Truly, we believe she received from the Lord the I Pt. 5:10 verse (at the top of our homepage) last June as an encouragement to hang in here and receive his healing. We still monitor the markers every three months in order to stay on the safe side of catching any change early.

May God bless each of you.

Duane

No Change Is Good!

2006-05-04T07:47:00.000-07:00

We got Deb's blood work back yesterday and will see the oncologist tomorrow. The M protein marker remained the same - 0.1 (and the rest of her blood work was in normal ranges). So as long as that marker does not increase that is good news. Our lives have returned to almost normal. I can also report that she continues to get stronger and feel better. For example, she began doing her own juicing of vegetables about 3 weeks ago, which is something she thought she would never be able to do. In the mornings she is almost pain free except for bending or stooping, but as the day goes on her back hurts.

We think that is due to her back not being in perfect alignment (we know that from the MRI) due to her compression fractures and surgery's limitations at restoring God's perfection. Thus a misalignment of just one or two degrees in those repaired vertebras causes her back muscles to overcompensate and strain by the end of the day. But hey, that is a small price to pay for repairing major compression fractures and taking away her constant pain and very limited mobility that she had up through October. We are indeed blessed.

About a month ago our Naturopath reduced the dosages and frequency of some of her supplements and cut out others. But after a month of reductions, he called to say that he wasn't as pleased with the blood work that he had gotten and felt that he was a bit premature in cutting back. So he wanted her to ramp back up the therapeutic doses and stay there for another two, weeks and then see how it looks and reevaluate. It absolutely amazes me what all a trained eye can see in one's blood. But after all, Moses told us around 3500 years ago that life is in the blood.

God has been very good to us in many ways this past month and some prayers that we have prayed for over 5 years have been answered. Praise the Lord! We will celebrate 30 years of marriage next week. What a trip! The end of this month marks the beginning of our ninth year of getting to worship God at this awesome church. This summer will complete our 13th year in Ft. Worth. My, my, how time flies!

P.S. The Oncologist on Friday said that Deb is doing amazingly well. Just great. The blood work is all superb.

No News = Good News

2006-03-10T18:51:00.000-08:00

I took Deb to the oncologist today. Her blood work was normal - although that does not include the M protein cancer marker, for he didn't see any need to measure that this time - it hasn't changed since September (0.1). She did spend an hour and a half taking aredia (the fossamax type bone builder) intravenously. She will do that every other month indefinitely. She continues to feel good, her strength, energy and stamina are practically normal, and her back pain continues to diminish (it occurs mainly for a minute or so when she stands after having been sitting for an hour or so, and at the end of the day after she has been on her feet for several hours). She is helping teach a couple of discipling classes for women, and our lives are now approximating the normalcy we knew some 15 months ago. We just believe that God is doing something marvelous in her body. She is NOT yet in a complete remission, but we (Deb and I, not the oncologist) believe that she will get there. So keep beseeching the Father for complete healing that only He can give. We will not go back to the oncologist in two months at which time he will do a complete blood check including the M protein. Another plus was that our Naturopath also cut out some of the supplements she was taking, and diminshed the amounts and frequency of others. So we both feel that major progress has been made- Praise the Lord....!

Steps to aGreat Marriage (#2)

2006-02-26T06:32:00.000-08:00

I apologize to those of you who regularly check this blog for updates for not updating sooner. Debbie continues to improve, get stronger, (though it is hard to recognize it) and take on more everyday tasks. Her spirit is strong.

Here is one quick example of how she is improving. Yesterday she cleaned house for only the second time (since May) without my help. About a month ago (the first time she did it without my help) it pretty well wiped her out for the day, so I helped her the past three weeks. Yesterday, after she finished, I took her to the Lawn and Garden Show at the Civic Center in Arlington for 3 hours. I think my back hurt more than hers! ha. That is when she realized how much more she had improved.

As I mentioned in the previous blog, this past year has been our worst but our best year of marriage for it has taken us to a new level in our relationship. So here are some more Steps to a Great Marriage.

4. Lead Out in Prayer.

Praying together is of course a no brainer. That is when you allow spiritual intimacy into your relationship as you open your hearts to God and each other and pray for each other.

5. Let Go of Sin.

The theological term for this is confess your sin. The Greek for confess was a puzzle to me as a first year Greek student for the compound word for confession was literally "same speak" or "say the same thing". Then the teacher explained that confession is saying the same thing that God says about your sin. Boy, that puts it in a different light. So I had to confess my selfishness before the Lord. I have always struggled (well, okay, sometimes I struggled) with my selfishness. But I had to really come clean with this character flaw this past spring in order to serve my sweetheart and to let our love grow.

6. Learn to Love Unconditionally.

Agape love was the result of that confession and repentance. I had to deal with that idolatry of self (that is what selfishness is - idolatry! That puts it in a different light too.) But I learned that the more I served her, the more I loved her unconditionally, and God was answering a prayer that I had prayed for years. Here is a small example. I am very practical, and I think the dumbest waste of time and effort many people practice each day is making the bed. Why make it when you are going to crawl back into it each night? Over the years, Deb would often "rope me" into helping her make the bed before I left each morning. Well, during the 9 days she was in the hospital, I never made a bed! However when she came home from the hospital, I began making the bed every morning (all by myself), because I knew it was important to her. I don't think I have missed a day doing it since, and now I don't mind it. It is something that blesses her, and for the past 4 or 5 months, she has helped me do it! As my dad used to say, "Ain't love grand!"

May God bless you,
dj and dj
PS Marcos started selling cell phones for Radio Shack at Sam's in January. This past month he was the top salesman in the DFW district and among the top 25 salesmen in the nation. We are pleased with his progress. Tracy continues to do well in his work too.

Steps to a Great Marriage (#1)

2006-01-29T12:58:00.000-08:00

Praise Report: The January MRI showed significant improvement in her spine!

I wrote earlier that I would share some lessons learned about taking one's marriage to the next level. I do believe that they are the foundation for a great marriage. I will share three today. I also decided to "cut to the chase" and not do a lot of illustrating since Deb reserved veto rights on what was written! ha. So here are three of many steps to a great marriage.

1. Let God reign.

A great marriage has God as its foundation, so be God centered, not self-centered. It is His will that must be done, not mine. This life is not about me or mine. It is about God and his work. He will use us as He desires in order to work out His will in this world. Sometimes He does that with untimely deaths and illnesses, and other times He does it with long faithful lives of service. Whichever it is, we must recognize that God is Sovereign, not us. We must be obedient to His commands and teachings and to his direction for our individual lives. We submit and surrender to Him. He is working out history, and we will one day be amazed at how our lives have been impacted by those who came before us and how our lives have impacted people presently and in the future. Trust God - (not yourself, not someone else, nor wealth). This means we even trust Him with our health or lack of it. Instead of asking, “Why me?” we should be asking, “Why not me?” Trials give us an opportunity to grow and bring God glory. This is when we can walk the talk.

Live each day as if it is your last.

Life is uncertain. Each one of us who drives or rides in a vehicle could be killed in an accident at any moment. A life threatening disease will open your eyes like nothing else to the transient nature of this life. We have no guarantee of tomorrow much less next month or next year. So tell and show your loved ones how much they mean to you each day. Make each day count with your beloved spouse and children. Do not take your family for granted. Love them dearly. Treat every goodbye kiss as if it were your last goodbye (because one day it will be), and if it should be the last, make sure that you both have pleasant memories of those last moments together. Tell your family those things you want them to know and believe about God and you and tell it to them often. Do for them today what you would like to do for them because you may not a tomorrow with them. (Of course, I am not suggesting running up debts in order to live each day as if it is your last!!! That is irresponsibility and poor stewardship.) But treating them as Christ would treat them is good stewardship of time and resources. Try to live each day in such a way that you have no regrets. Made amends with others and right "wronged relationships". Take advantage of the opportunities God gives you to serve Him; do it today, not tomorrow.

Lighten up.

Laugh a lot. See the humor in your situations. Laughter is a good medicine. It relieves stress. It brings joy. Laughter brings happiness. It lightens one’s load. See humor in the circumstances and trials that life throws at us. In May and June as I watched Debbie digress rapidly, I laughed more than I can ever remember. But we were in such a serious fight for health that we needed to lighten up and laugh. So I began to see and enjoy humor in every situation, even most every comic strip. She needed to laugh and laughter is contagious. I am serious minded by nature so I made a special effort to find humor and express it instead of holding it in or shrugging it off. So we shared a lot of laughs.

God bless you all.
dj

Great news!

2006-01-13T14:19:00.000-08:00

Thanks to so many of you for your prayers and encouragement. God is good all the time!

Today is a great day! For the second visit in a row the oncologist was very positive about Deb. Our reaction Wednesday to the blood work remaining the same reminds me of the end of my first year of Greek. Our teacher said, “Boys, you can read a little bit of Greek now, but you only know enough to be dangerous and cause trouble. You know the basic rules but have no concept of all the exceptions to the rules.” (Even after four years of classroom instruction in Greek, I realize I still only know enough to cause trouble and confusion!) Well, we only know enough about Myeloma to make wrong assumptions and jump to erroneous conclusions, like we did on Wednesday, so I removed that "blue, blue" update based on our poor assumptions due to Deb calling a nurse to get a marker number a day before we met with the oncologist.

Today the oncologist explained that they very seldom get a myeloma patient’s M protein down to a 0.0. A 0.1 is great, and the longer it stays at 0.1 without increasing the better. She has been at 0.1 since the end of August. He said that if she had only had a 75% drop, they would have called that a remission, but she has had and maintained a 97% drop! (She had a 91% drop in August, if you remember, in the specific marker, IGA). This is a great remission, even if it is not a “complete remission.” A “complete remission” (0.0 and no measurable cancer activity or presence) seldom happens, although our friend here, Eddie Nelson, as I understand it, did achieve a complete remission even before his stem cell transplant, however his MM was in only one vertebra and was caught very early.

The Dr. said that Debbie’s response to the treatment for Myeloma is about as good as it gets! A stem cell transplant might give a little better treatment response, but even that is only effective 70% of the time, and they are very happy if the M protein stays at 0.1 even after a transplant. He said that 0.1 does NOT necessarily mean that the cancer is still nibbling away on her bones, although it could be doing a little bit of it. We just don’t know and cannot measure it except over time (many months) with periodic x-rays. I had forgotten that he told us in August that the M protein is not a real accurate measure of cancer activity. So that also makes us feel much better about coasting along with a 0.1 reading. He is very pleased with her progress, and even at the last visit he encouraged her to keep doing what she is doing. Praise the Lord! So if down the road, she does get into a complete remission, we will praise God for his further divine intervention.

He reemphasized that in treating myeloma he is concerned with three things: blood, bones, and M protein. He reiterated that the M protein is under control. The blood is back to normal and under control. Therefore, the bones should be under control and that explains no new compression fractures and they appear to be under control too. Occasionally, x-rays and MRI's can cross them up in their reading of them. Something shows up and they just assume it is myeloma when it could have been a number of other things. Here I go assuming again, but it would appear then, that the films that had him and the neurosurgeon so concerned back in November may not have been new myeloma. We are praying that it was new bone growth. Whatever it was should be clearer in X-rays and an MRI to be done next week. The comparison between films will be interesting to see.

So we will quit stressing over insignificant numbers and enjoy each day that the Lord makes on our behalf. May God bless you in a special way this weekend so that you sense his presence and his love for you.

Duane
P.S. I plan to start writing spots on this blog about lessons we have learned thru this ordeal - lessons that have taken us from a very good marriage to a great marriage.

Duane

Insights from Exodus 25

2006-01-05T07:41:00.000-08:00

Our dear friends,

I sensed from the Lord that I am to share my Quiet Time from this morning so that it may minister to someone who reads this blog. So here it is. And I plan to do more sharing here every few days about the lessons I have learned through this trial. (FYI, we go for blood work Monday the 9th and should know on the 13th during the appointment with the oncologist/hematologist whether or not Deb has gotten into a complete remission. Please continue praying for complete remission.)

My A-Team began to meet again today after several months off, due to Deb’s illness and holidays. It was good to be back. I knew that the news paper would be a temptation to skip my Quiet Time due to Texas’ great comeback victory for a national Championship last night, so I confessed that and prayed against it. God answered that prayer immediately! Lance took my newspaper with him as he left.

My assigned reading for the day began in Exodus 25 (keep in mind that I tell new believers to begin reading their Bible from GN 1- EX 24 and skip the rest of Exodus which is pretty boring as it deals with instructions on building the Tabernacle). I read the first 16 verses and decided to skip all the “boring” material for once (I have read my Bible through many times so my conscience was clear – I thought!). However, I decided to skip Leviticus, and Numbers too. As I was turning on toward Deuteronomy I sensed the Lord’s displeasure and His summoning me back to EX 25. So I surrendered and went back.

Amazingly, He allowed me to read it with fresh eyes this time. I only got through 22 verses today as He opened my eyes to symbolism I had always missed before, I guess because I was in a hurry to rush through the “boring parts.” Let me share with you the insights.

Ex 25 v. 2 “Tell the people of Israel to bring me their sacred offerings.”

What we offer to God is sacred, whether it is our tithes plus, or our possessions, or time or talent because it is offered to Him. It is holy. It is set apart for a sacred purpose. God’s purpose.

Ex 25 v. 3-7
The Israelites offered precious metal, fine cloth and skins, special wood (keep in mind how little of this wood could be found in the desert and how much would be needed for cooking, sacrifices and building the Tabernacle), olive oil (how precious this too would be in the desert), spices and precious stones. God wants our best too, the first of our income and time.

Now v.8 gets exciting! “…build me a holy sanctuary so I can live among them.”

Doesn’t that ring a bell? Jn 1:14 says that Jesus tabernacled or dwelt among men. God dwelt among the Israelites in his shekinah glory as a cloud by day and a fire by night as He led them through the desert. Remember God’s shekinah glory descended from heaven and filled Solomon’s Temple as God’s dwelling place among his people until their sinfulness caused him to “divorce” his bride Israel and send them into exile (sounds like Eph 4:30 where our sin can grieve the Holy Spirit who dwells within us, doesn’t it?). Remember there was a 400 year period of prophetic silence until John the Baptist appeared to prepare the way for God’s shekinah glory to appear among his people in the form of Jesus, God robed in flesh.
Ex 25:10 says that the Ark of the Covenant (the box that held the stone tablets of the 10 commandments which was God’s basic covenant law for Israel to keep in order to be blessed) was to be made of wood and overlaid inside and out with pure gold.

Interestingly enough, Jesus, God’s human box containing his covenant words for all mankind, was a carpenter who worked with wood and died on a wooden cross, and his spirit was overlaid inside and out with pure sinless flesh.

Ex 25:16 says to place the 10 commandments written on the two stone tablets inside the box. Remember that God’s own finger inscribed that stone (Ex 31:18; 34:1). Later on, in Jeremiah 31:33-4 God prophesies through Jeremiah that after the exile and restoration, the day will come when God will write his laws no longer on stone, but on the tablets of his peoples’ hearts and put them in their minds, and the Hebrews writer is telling us that is what happened in New Testament times through Jesus and the Holy Spirit. That is why it is so important for us to dig into His Word, so that God can write it on our hearts.

Ex 25:17-20 speaks of the ark’s cover being the place or seat of atonement and two cherubim (images of angels with wings) stand at each end of the ark and spread their wings over it covering it. Recall that only the high priest, once per year on the Day of Atonement, would enter the Holy of Holies where the ark sat, which sort of also symbolized God’s throne and his presence there, and the High Priest would sprinkle blood on the mercy seat or atonement seat to deal with the sins of the people for that year.

This foreshadows LK 24:4 where two angels in the tomb announced to the women that Jesus had been raised from the dead. His own blood sprinkled the cross and the empty tomb.

But get this next verse! – Ex 25:22 – God says to Moses, “I will meet with you there and talk to you from above the atonement cover…From there I will give you my commands for the people of Israel.”

Isn’t that what happens in our Christian lives? God meets with us at the cross and the empty tomb. When we approach God’s throne of grace in confessional repentance, Christ’s blood has already made atonement for our sins, God forgives us and grants us mercy and grace and restores us into right relationship with him. He cleanses us. He speaks to us from His Word [even often causing a text we (may have read many times but never seen or internalized) to jump off the page and into our hearts] and through prayer or however He chooses to call attention to his message to us which then requires a faith/trust reaction on our part to be obedient to his command for our next step in our faith walk with Him.

In this journey called life we have to TRUST God’s leading. He usually shows us a direction He wants us to go in life, but then only allows us to clearly see one step at a time into the future. And our future is put on hold until we take that one step in trusting obedience. Then he shows us the next step to take in obedience to his will so that he can shape us and mold us into spiritual beings that look more and more like Jesus, his perfect Son.

Remember that Hebrews 5:8 says that Jesus learned obedience through his suffering. Let us not be surprised when God allows us to suffer in this life. Even if the Enemy means to discourage or destroy us with that painful experience, God in his all powerful might and wisdom will use that painful experience:

to chip away our rough edges in order to turn us into a diamond like being that will brightly reflect his glory from deep inside us in spite of our obvious flaws;

to boil away the impurities in our character that try to contaminate us;

to cut dangerous, infectious-like sin out of our sinful hearts;

to separate us from deadly rebellion;

to pull us away from distractions that threaten to sidetrack us from our mission of serving God.

Regardless of what crucible or pressure cooker you find yourself in, trust God to use it for your cleansing and strengthening as he transforms you from a sinner into a saint. (Romans 12:1-2)

May God bless you,
Duane

A Positive Oncologist

2005-12-19T13:37:00.000-08:00

A week ago (on Dec. 12) Deb had a good Dr. visit with the oncologist. He was positive for a change. He took an x-ray of her pelvis bone (which was heavily involved in myeloma in June) and compared it to June's x-ray. It showed that her bone was a bit stronger than before, so we hope that is the case throughout her skeletal system. She asked him if any of his other patients used alternative medicinal treatment. His answer was surprising to us. He said that at least two thirds of his patients also did alternative treatments. She then asked him about a double blind medical study in Europe on a supplement that was proving to be very effective in fighting MM, but he was unaware of it so he took the info to check it out. At the end he told Deb that she was doing well and to keep up the good work!

She has started a therapy on her back where she is in a small pool at a sports medicine therapy place. This is giving her more mobility and helping her exercise her back without all the pressure that would be on it outside the water.

After battling a sore throat the past few days, she started the next round of steroid treatment yesterday. It inhibits the immune system so she didn't want to start on Wednesday last week for fear it could lead to a throat infection. Pray for it to do a great job of helping drive the myeloma into complete remission.

The other day she started sounding a bit like Yoggi Berra (for you non baseball fans, he is the old guy in the Aflac commercials who repeats himself like a proverb - saying the same thing in two different ways). She said, "You know, if my back didn't hurt a little bit, and I didn't know I was sick; I wouldn't know I was sick!" Smile. That was music to our ears. She is able to do quite a bit more than even a month ago. She has come a long ways, and God willing, she will go quite a bit farther over the next 20+ years.

We went to Abilene for Marcos' graduation on the 9th, and he promptly left for a week of skiing in Colorado with aobut 60 of his ACU social club buddies. They had a good time and none of the guys got hurt, so that was great. Now it is job hunting time. He finished the semester with a 3.67 grade point average even with a bad case of senioritis.

We celebrated Tracy's 27th birthday last night with dinner at a gourmet pizza place and driving through two neighborhoods to see their beautiful Christmas lights. God has blessed us with two fine sons. Thank you, Lord.

Here are our prayer requests:

1. Ask God to bless this steroid treatment into suppressing the Multiple Myeloma into complete remission soon, i.e., no cancer activity detected, so that no further compression fractures occur.

2. Ask that Debbie then be able to get her body into an alkaline state and keep it there. Thankfully, she is making some progress in this area.

3. Ask that her bones rebuild and get stronger during the complete remission

4. Ask that she not get sick during this time of a weakened immune system due to taking the steroid.

5. Ask that her faith and confidence remain strong and her attitude stay very positive

6. Now stretch your faith in our God who heals and ask that her alkaline state be permanent and keep the cancer from returning for 20 + years. (Yes, I know how many of us were raised and taught about limiting God, but our God is the God who often does the impossible. So let's grow our faith some more. "Ask and you shall receive, seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened to you." Mt. 7:7)

Debbie is one of the most disciplined people I have ever known, and I believe she is disciplined enough, by God's grace, to be able to stay alkaline with her vegan diet and supplements. She has an admirable faith to ask for great things, and an indomitable spirit to fight for healing. We all love and admire her.

Thank you and may God bless you all with a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year,
Duane and Deb

Surprises and Decisions and Requests

2005-12-01T14:44:00.000-08:00

Friends,

I apologize for not updating you for the past two weeks, but a lot has happened.

The first surprise was that as I followed up on my "over 50" physical I went to a cardiologist to have a routine ekg stress test done on Nov. 21. Both the Dr. and I were surprised that it showed significant abnormality in my heart, and he strongly suggested that I have an angiogram done ASAP. That was done this past Tuesday, Nov. 29 and showed that my heart is fine. He said that 20% of the time the stress test abnormalities are false. Whew!!! That was a major bullet dodged. Thank the Lord, I can now throw away my nitro glycerin tablets I was carrying around in my pocket!

The second was on Wednesday before Thanksgiving. We got Deb's blood work back showing that the cancer marker was still the same as in September when she got off the steroid treatment. If only it had increased or decreased we would have known what action to take - either hold the alternative treatment course if the number was decreasing or get back on the steroid treatment if it showed the cancer progressing.

After praying and thinking through it all, on Sunday (Nov 27) we decided to put her back on the steroid therapy which suppresses the cancer (along with the bad side effect of suppressing her immune system) in the hope that it will bring her into complete remission and getting the M protein cancer marker down from 0.1 to 0.0. (Keep in mind that in June it was 6.4, July was 4.8 and 1.4 in August, and it has been stuck at 0.1 since September, so she has come a long ways.)

The reason for this decision, we think, is really two fold. First, even though the cancer is barely active, there is so much of it in her bones that it is making her system acidic such that the alkalinity we are trying to achieve is offset by the cancer's spewing out acid into her system. She has not been able to get ahead of it. If the steroid will completely suppress the cancer down to 0.0, then that will help her achieve alkalinity in her system, which we believe will keep the cancer suppressed indefinitely, and that gives us great hope and confidence in a healing.

The second reason was a time factor. Her spine is weakened (and beginning to hurt a bit more) from the advanced state of MM at diagnosis and the presence of the tumors in her spine such that we were concerned about it causing more compression fractures as it continues to nibble away at her vertebras. We just didn't feel that we could put her spine at further risk by spending another month much less several months combating this monster naturally as we had been. Her body needed a boost, a reinforcement, to knock the MM down to 0.0 ASAP. So we resorted back to the medical community's recommended steroid treatment, in spite of all its side effects. We think the trade offs are worth it at the present time.

Here are some special prayer requests along this line:

1. Ask God to bless this steroid treatment into suppressing the Multiple Myeloma into complete remission soon, i.e no cancer activity detected, so that no further compression fractures occur.

2. Ask that Debbie then be able to get her body into an alkaline state and keep it there.

3. Ask that her bones rebuild and get stronger during the complete remission

4. Ask that she not get sick during this time of a weakened immune system

5. Ask that her faith and confidence remain strong and her attitude stay very positive

6. Now stretch your faith in our God who heals and ask that her alkaline state be permanent and keep the cancer from returning for 20 + years. (Yes, I know how many of you were raised and taught about limiting God, but our God is the God who often does the impossible. So grow your faith some more. "Ask and you shall receive, seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened to you." Mt. 7:7)

Debbie is one of the most disciplined people I have ever known, and I believe she is disciplined enough, by God's grace, to be able to stay alkaline with her vegan diet and supplements. She has an admirable faith to ask for great things, and an indomitable spirit to fight for healing. We all admire her.

Thank you and may God bless you,

Duane

God is Faithful

2005-11-16T07:36:00.000-08:00

First, last night Debbie spoke to 300 ladies at our Ladies Fall Renewal and God used her powerfully. Thank you for your prayers on her behalf. She is so relieved now. The women's minsitry did request audio and videotaping of it.

Secondly, we had a great vacation last week with my parents in Branson, MO. It was relaxing, fun, and good to get away from our routines and as Deb said, to forget about her health conditions for a few days.

On our way home Friday, we got less than encouraging news - both biposies showed cancer still active in her vertebras and the hematologist/oncologist wanted to see her immediately on Monday instead of waiting for the Dec. 28 appt. (We were hoping for no sign of cancer and a cmplete remission report). We expected the enemy to try to discourage her before her speaking engagement on Tuesday, and he took a good shot at her, along with a very spiritual lady and friend who serves on the Women's Ministry Team. He put her in the hosptial with emergency gall bladder surgery over the weekend, but she was able to be at the Ladies Renewal and even got up to close the evening with powerful prayer!

BUT GOD showed us his faithfulness over and over again. There was a very encouraging phone call Friday evening. Two handwritten cards were waiting in the mailbox to encourage us. Two Spirit led ladies and friends "happened", (no, they obeyed the Spirit's prompting) to call Deb Friday and Saturday to encourage her. God spoke to our needs in our Quiet Times, a new RHCC Praise Team music CD (Unshakeable) really blessed us, especially the songs, God Is in Control and I Am Not Afraid. Another card came in the mail. And on Tuesday one of our friends sent her a bouquet of flowers.

Monday's Dr. visit was interesting. He said that the MRI from mid October in preparation for her kyphoplasty surgery showed many new spots of myeloma since her last MRI the end of June. But as we think through all this, it is possible that those "new spots" were from July while she was still digressing, because all the blood work shows the disease being arrested. The timing of all this is interesting. We think the Enemy wanted to discourage her the day before her speech. Anyway, instead of making a knee jerk reaction, we will have more blood work done Friday and see if there is any improvement or digression from last month before making a change in her treatment regimen. In the meantime we will just walk in faithfulness with what God has shown us thus far trusting in His good pleasure.

We see the neurosurgeon later today to get her assessment of the success of the surgery.

God bless,
Duane for us

Waiting Game

2005-11-06T15:20:00.000-08:00

We found out from the neurosurgeon's office that it will be another week to ten days before the bone marrow biopsy reports come back (since it was not a rush order like it was when we were trying to get a diagnosis). So we will be patient.

Deb continues to feel better from the kyphoplasty, mainly just hurting where the four tiny incisions were made. Those have closed and continue to heal. She does have to be careful to not bend, etc., for the next 6 weeks so as not to cause another vertebra to get a compression fracture.

Keep her in your prayers about a speaking appointment. She will be speaking at our Ladies Fall Renewal on Tuesday night, Nov. 15 on the subject, "Cracked, Broken, or Just Plain Empty Pots." They want her to tell how God has worked in her life in all this and draw spiritual applications. Public speaking is something that she is very hesitant to do, but has done it a little for womens groups over the years and God always uses her, even though she is reluctant.

She was asked to do this back in July the week after she got out of the hospital and turned it down thinking there is no way she could improve that much that fast to do this. The lady who asked her really sensed the Lord telling her to ask Debbie (and when she thinks she hears from Him, she is seldom wrong). So by faith they held out for Deb and did not get another speaker. About three or four weeks ago, Deb realized that God had healed her enough to do this and was sorry that she had not had enough faith in July to go for it, but she did not need that stress on her as she recuperated. Then a week later Deb finds out that they still want her to do it. Wow! God knows what he is doing. We should have seen that invitation in July, when things were so bleak, as a promise that healing was on its way.

By the way, Rick Atchley had an outstanding lesson on lust today in his series, Extreme Makeover, Heart Edition. You can access it at www.rhchurch.org, then click on Sermons Online (it is the fifth line down in left hand collumn of blue items). I recommend this message for both genders. (By the way, I don't think I have ever heard a sermon of his that was not outstanding)

God bless
Duane

Successful Kyphoplasty Surgery

2005-11-01T09:09:00.000-08:00

This is a major week for us as we prayerfully wait for more good news. First, Deb’s kyphoplasty surgery went well yesterday morning (10-31), and she got home at 7:30 last night, but she is back on pain medication due to the incisions and manipulation of the spine. Second, we will get blood work info back on the cancer markers (special tests) late this week.

Praise the Lord! She can now stand totally erect. Her spine (which had been protruding) is now recessed as it should be. The Dr. did a bone marrow biopsy of each of the two vertebras to determine if there is still any myeloma activity. These biopsies were painless since she was under anesthesia and will take the place of a special bone marrow biopsy surgery that the Hematologist wanted her to have done in the near future which would have hurt pretty good! So that is a special serendipity blessing in the timing of all this.

Her lower back feels much better, and apparently that sore knot area above her right kidney since March was a muscle spasm all these months because of the compression fracture down low (Lumbar #3). The knot is now quickly getting smaller and less painful. The surgeon said that this L-3 vertebra was very soft and would have continued to compress and get worse, so it is repaired and solid now with the 9cc of cement filling it now.

The T-12 (thoracic #12 located low between the shoulder blades) had ossified (i.e.the bone was healing itself and mending) and was very hard to get the needle into and then took lots of pressure to “balloon” it to full size. In other words the natural mending of the fractures in it had to be broken apart as the vertebra had its inch in height added back with the procedure, as planned. However, that vertebra is going to be sore and hurting for a while due to the corrective surgical trauma. But the 6 cc of cement has it solidly in place and her spine as a whole is in much better alignment. The surgeon said that judging from the amount of healing in it, this T-12’s compressing is probably the pain that put Deb in the hospital and on morphine in late June as it was compressing and crunching down and was what made her feel like her back was not connected.

Now for the minimal downside. She has to take it very easy for two months as the spine readjusts so as not to cause weaker vertebras to develop compression fractures. No bending, lifting, etc., and no driving for a week. But that is a small price to pay to get much more of a normal life going again.

Blssings,
Duane

Kyphoplasty next week!

2005-10-24T14:29:00.000-07:00

After an MRI last week and a visit with the neurosurgeon today (10-24-05), Debbie has two vertebras that are now candidates for kyphoplasty (this is the outpatient surgical procedure that involves putting a needle into the compressed or collapsed vertebra, using a balloon to raise it back to near normal size, then filling it with a cement to hold the pieces of the vertebra in place). Of course the Hematologist will have to okay it first, but it was his idea to start with, so we are sure that he will naturally defer to the neurosurgeon's recommendation on this which is, "let's do it." Each vertebra takes about an hour, and she will work Deb into her surgical schedule one day next week. Then she will need to take it easy for a couple of months while the other vertebras adjust to the "new shape" (nearly normal shape) of these two vertebra. She doesn't want these two reformed and strengthened vertebras causing any new compression fractures on weak vertebras nearby.

Debbie is greatly encouraged by this news and very hopeful that this will reduce her pain and discomfort in her back and increase her mobility. We are prayerful that her blood work late this week will also bring encouraging news. We appreciate your prayers and encouragement more than you can know. May God bless you.

Duane and Deb

JUST ENOUGH LIGHT FOR THE STEP I'M ON

2005-10-17T18:50:00.000-07:00

Saturday, I (Debbie) was blessed to be a part of a group from RHCC that went to Dallas to a conference on prayer by Stormie O'Martian. I'd been blessed by several of her books that I've used to expand my prayer life through the years. Saturday's conference was yet another blessing.....in more ways than one. The fellowship was great, her thoughts were inspirational, and the praise time was dynamic! During the course of the day, the emcee drew names from the 2000 or so attendees, giving away books and baskets. Needless to say, I was shocked when my name was drawn, but very touched by the way God providentially provided this book for me: JUST ENOUGH LIGHT FOR THE STEP I'M ON (Trusting God in the Tough Times) Already I've been blessed by my reading.

Truly, God has been faithful ALL my life to supply the light needed for whatever I've gone through.....but especially over the past four months. There were days that I barely had strength to get out of bed, but He supplied light for that day, and every day since. He is my EVER PRESENT HELP in time of need. He is my ROCK, the GREAT PHYSICIAN and MY DELIVERER. He casts our fear and continues to sustain me. HE IS FAITHFUL!

And speaking of faithful, I want to thank each of you that have been faithful to pray for us as we've walked through this valley. We have felt the strength of your prayers....and we still covet your prayers. I have a handwritten card with 2" letters here at my desk that reminds me daily, "HE IS ABLE!" There is NOTHING too big for my God, and I'm not afraid to ask Him....nor am I afraid to ask you to join me in praying:

1) That my pH be balanced to the proper alkalinity, so cancer cannot survive
2) Complete healing of my back
3) That I will go into complete remission, and the cancer NEVER come back
4) That God will grant me 20+ years of great health in His service (yes,
contrary to what the doctors say!)
5) THAT HE WILL BE GLORIFIED IN ALL THIS, AND SATAN WILL GET NONE OF IT!

"If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you." Jn. 15:7

Humbly receiving His grace and your prayers,

Debbie

Refreshing vacation

2005-10-09T15:50:00.000-07:00

Deb and I did what we never dreamed would be possible for her to do just two months ago - left town for a vacation. We went to Harding's lectures (our second alma mater) and heard superb keynote lectures, saw a few friends there, visited my (Duane's) folks in Muskogee, Ok, then visited the Lawsons (one of the original 5 families on our mission team in Brazil) in Fayetteville, AR, then spent three days on Lake Texoma. We really needed that break from the grind of the past 10 months. So that is why the blog has not been updated in a couple of weeks.

Our first alma mater, York College in York, NB, (where Deb and I met, by the way) has been a blessing to us this past month after a student called us, talked, ended up reading our blog, shared it with her supervisor who has shared it with others. The York family is praying for Deb's healing and recuperation and has sent numerous cards, even though most of them do not know or remember us. York gave me two of the greatest years of my life as I grew spiritually by coming to kow Jesus better and as I learned about sacrifice and commitment. Yorkies are a special family and we are blessed to be a part of it still.

Deb goes for an MRI tomorrow to see if her T-12 vertebra is a candidate for Kyphoplasty. Remember to keep praying for complete remission this month and to ask God in faith that this cancer never return in her body, as we go for more blood work the end of the month to determine her progress.

God bless you all, and keep praying!

Great improvement in comparing blood slides

2005-09-22T17:56:00.000-07:00

I am going to copy a couple of paragraphs from the August 8 post to explain this picture above so that you can better compare it to a more recent slide (below) that continures to show improvement.

When a person is deteriorating, these (white) lakes have smooth edges; when a person is improving, the lakes have an appearance similar to a real lake or pond "icing over" in the winter time (ices forms around the perimeter first, then begins to spread out to the center of the pond). The more the lake is covered with "ice," the better the improvement. This is known as a "healing profile." Your sample on July 22 had the appearance of swiss cheese, being full of large and linked "lakes" with large amounts of "debris" (sialic acid) throughout the lakes. This is a degenerating picture. Your sample on July 29 was remarkably improved. The "lakes" were beginning to "ice over," with a majority of them producing the desired healing profile. When you get the picture I'm sending, it will be visibly obvious even to the untrained eye. In a nutshell, your body has made a dramatic change in a very short period of time. You have shown improvement in the course of a week that I normally look for over a month! Even in the case of instantaneous healing the body still has to "catchup" with the immediate correction of a diseased state. That is, one moment the body is degenerating, the next moment it is healthy; all the "garbage," (dead, degenerated materials and tissue) must be cleared from the body through normal (i.e., not instantaneous) mechanisms and this takes time. A good analogy might be the result and aftermath of a flood: even with the flood waters recede, the debris the flood brought has to be cleaned up. There is no more flood but there is a lot of cleanup to be done! So it is with the body -- that's the way God made it! In every case of miraculous healing I've been associated with and have examined (I can name 4 cancer patients right off the top of my head who've had this happen and that I've been blessed to have been working with so that I could actually track them pre- and post-miracle), this has been the pattern. In working with another 200+ who did not have a miraculous remission of their cancer but who have improved dramatically through natural intervention, they too, followed this pattern, though at a slower pace.

I finally figured out how to add the latest pictures to this form Augst 26. Hopefully you have read the description of what to look for in these drops of blood (August 8th post entitled Mom's blood slides and explanation). The two pictures from Aug. 19 are two different drops. The bottom is one drop and a close up on a spot on it. Remember the white spots are bad, but notice how rapidly she has improved, so that on August 26 her drop just had a small band of white spots along the outer edge and each of the white spots had almost completely crusted over. This August 26 slide (at least the center part that is dark red) is what a healthy person's blood will look like.

These photos were very encouraging to us. I hope they will also encourage you to keep praying.

Duane and Deb

Another Fracture

2005-09-22T17:18:00.000-07:00

Bad news / Good news

After dropping by the oncolgist's office to pick up last week's X-rays which showed another major compression fracture, we went to see the neurosurgeon again (last time we saw her was early July). Here is the bad news. She looked at it and said that it looked like the T-12 vertebra had compressed down a full inch all the way across while the T 10 was also compressed a bit. She said that in a bone that had a lot of myeloma tumor in it, when the myeloma is killed out the bone is so compromised that it compresses under the body's weight.

But the good news is that it looks like it is a candidate for kyphoplasty (the procedure to pump it back up with a baloon, then fill the cavities with cement so that the vertebra will rregain most its original size.) We will do an MRI and then she will determine if kyphoplasty is a good option. Fortunately, Deb is still off all pain medication and doing well. She is walking a half hour each day, can stand sit and walk reasonably well. Her strength and energy are returning to near normal. She got her hair cut and styled yesterday and it looks really cute on her (amazingly, most of those stray gray hairs disappeared too! Mine is turning loose more than turning gray.)

I had a physical done today and everything was normal and good with the exception of my triglyceride count. The Dr. said that exercise will take care of those numbers. My supervisor told me earlier today that I needed to get back into my exercising. So that is being reminded twice in one day. Do you think I will get the message? Or am I like those die hards who choose to ignore evacuation warnings and choose to ride out a hurricane? Time will tell.

God bless.

Duane and Debbie

Freedom - removal of PICC line

2005-09-17T19:29:00.000-07:00

The major news this week is that since we are past needing to take blood and receive a lot of IV drugs, etc., is that the 16 inch PICC line in a vein in Deb's upper arm was remeoved yesterday. That does away with changing a weekly bandage, and daily shots of heparin. It is a bit sore and hardened today, so we are watching it carefully to make sure it is not infected.

Also, the oncologist said Friday that Deb is "almost in complete remission" based on the bloodwork. We will see him again in 6 weeks, and trust the bloodwork will indicate complete remission at that time.

Her blood work continues to improve along with her increase in strength and stamina. The main problem now is her spine. She will see the neurosurgeon Wednesday to see if another vertebra may be in need of the kyphoplasty procedure. She has been off all pain medication now for quite a while, and quit the anitinflammatory naproxin, which is a mild pain reliever, last week. So that is our news this week.

God bless.

Continued improvement

2005-09-10T15:05:00.000-07:00

There are a few items noteworthy of good news for this week.

First, Deb was able to stand totally erect yesterday without pain and without using a hand on her hip to help support herself. Please continue petitioning the Father above that her back will heal and that her back and stomach muscles will get stronger so her spine will get back to normal. She still has quite a ways to go with her spine.

Secondly, her lab work yesterday showed that her blood counts continue to improve with only two that are high and two that are low, and a couple of those are real close to being in the normal range. So that is much improved.

Thirdly, her blood's ph is approaching the alkaline range that we have been trying to get her into. That is important because the cancer cannot survive in blood that is slightly alkaline. It is actually the healthiest state for us humans, and healthy folks have it. Pray that her blood will get to an alkaline state and stay there. Of course, a lot of that success depends on her staying on an alkaline diet.

Our friend, Eddie Nelson, is undergoing the stem cell transplant over the next few weeks as his treatment for his Multiple Myeloma and is doing very well. He has taken his initial chemo and has not been nauseous at all, praise the Lord. He has responded very well to the steroid treatment, and he and Lena have been an encouragement to us through this ordeal. Fortunately, they caught his MM very early with only one bone in his body compromised.

Please keep the Nelsons and us in your prayers as we battle this disease.

God bless,
Duane

A Get Away

2005-09-03T19:39:00.000-07:00

First of all, our hearts ache for the Hurricane victims on our Gulf Coast. We cannot imagine the difficulties they face with starting over after having lost every thing except their lives and the clothes on their backs. May the rest of this nation rise up to help.

I desperately needed to get away and relax a bit and recharge, so Deb and I went to a Bed and Breakfast in Salado for two days. It was a blessed time for us and restful for me as we stayed out in the country and mainly just chilled - well, yes, we did an hour's worth of shopping each day in some of those quaint stores. Isn't she wonderful to enjoy looking at stuff without having to buy anything? She is one in a million.

On the providential side, the owner of the B&B is a vegetarian and was able to give Deb a lot of ideas about the diet changes we need to implement. That was a real blessing and encouragement for us. We are not going the vegetarian route, but we are cutting back quite a bit on meat consumption, she more than I. I enjoyed visiting this morning with a couple who rode in from Crocket, TX, last night on a motorcycle. I noticed a strange lookign little insignia on his cap, and I asked if it was a symbol of the F 117-A fighter (the Stealth fighter-bomber)? Sure was. Their son is in the Air Force and he works on the stealth fighters. So we had airplanes to talk about (one of my intersts). They are also believers and we had a good time at breakfast. I was much refreshed and almost ready to head back to Ft. Worth this afternoon.

Debbie continues to get stronger and feel better, although she did not sleep well last night, probably due to her second day back on the steroid. So she is a tired puppy tonight and went to sleep at 8:30!

It is good to be home.

Oncologist's reaction

2005-08-26T17:51:00.000-07:00

We went back to the Hematologist this morning for the dreaded time of telling him that Deb would not be doing the stem cell transplant. She told him, and boy, did God answer those prayers! It was NO BIG DEAL.

He simply said, "Okay. Then we will continue to do what we are doing." In addition he was positive and upbeat about her future since she has had a great "response to treatment" (we believe it to be a great response to prayer). He said that the verdict is still out on whether or not the transplant actually is the better route to go due to the great new medicines available and he believes there will be a cure in her lifetime - a drug that a pill a day will keep MM away. He expects her to have a complete remission in the next few months - I gather that that means no sign of the MM in her bone marrow anywhere, and he plans to do another bone marrow biopsy in a few months to verify that. (I believe that complete remission would show up now due to God's intervention in July.) But we will play his game of timing the biopsy. She will move from taking the steroid treatment every three weeks to once a month (four days on, 26 off) starting September 2. We figure that can't hurt her liver too much. We are continuing with modified supplements and diet changes, and are going to work more aggressively on building the bones back, especially her spine.

We went to Tulsa Wednesday and Thursday for me to officiate my cousin's funeral. My parents were so pleased at how well she looked and how wellshe was getting down, because they were down here when she was at her lowest the end of June. Deb really enjoyed getting out on the road and away and she did really well on the ride and all - I think the part she most enjoyed was getting off the diet! ha. The funeral was a celebration of a life well lived, and I opened it up at the end for people to tell what Gary had meant to them and about 8 people did so. It went great! Their vignettes were so powerful and a blessing to the family and friends.

God bless you all,
Duane and Debbie

Decisions and Prayer requests

2005-08-17T20:50:00.000-07:00

Decisions

Dear Faith Family,

I have sat on this for a week before copying it to the blog, just to be sure we wanted to share it. From here on I will try to update this blog each Saturday.

We went to Baylor Medical Center in Dallas on August 11 to talk with a transplant physician. He was very personable and of course, knowledgeable. He spent an hour and a half with us explaining all the options transplant wise, and answering all our questions (Tracy and Marcos went too.) For new readers who may not have read what a stem cell transplant is – FYI here is a simple explanation. Stem cells are immature blood cells that can be harvested, frozen until needed and then put back into the body at a later date. After harvesting them one receives a strong dose of chemotherapy to kill the cancer cells in one’s body, however that chemo also kills one’s bone marrow. After chemo, the stem cells are put back into the blood stream, they gravitate to the bone marrow and set up shop making blood cells again.

Here are some facts that we gleaned:

About 98% of stem cell transplant patients survive the procedure.
The successful stem cell transplant for Multiple Myeloma (MM) patients will buy them about two or three years before the cancer returns
About 30% of the time, the MM still returns shortly after the transplant
Even after a stem cell transplant, most hematologists want to continue a suppressing treatment – in other words, Deb would continue taking the same medication treatments she is currently taking until they no longer had any effect upon suppressing the cancer.
Then one would try another drug type of treatment (and there are a few to choose from, though by far the most effective is the one she is currently on) to try to suppress the MM and get it under control again for a while.
They say that the best results from a stem cell transplant occur when it is done during the first 4 – 6 months of treatment and during the first remission. It has decreasing results after each relapse.

We did not hear anything that changed our minds about not doing the transplant to combat MM. At this point in time, we do not plan to ever do a transplant procedure. We don’t expect everyone to agree with us, but we ask you to accept our decision and to support us in it.

The doctors say that MM always comes back. However, I asked the transplant dr. if he knew of any MM patients in whom it appeared that there was some divine intervention. Yes, he knew of a handful of such cases. I asked him if their MM had returned. He said “Not yet.” He has only been doing this for 8 years though. But that is all we needed to hear. We are confident that there was some divine intervention the last week of July - I believe it was the 25^th.

Just as the Israelites trusted in the Lord rather than horses and chariots, we are going to trust in the Lord and the incredible doors He has opened to us. We want God to be glorified through all this. (Phil 1:20-21) We will work hard on our diet and add supplements in an effort to keep her blood ph on the alkaline side rather than the acidic so that the cancer cannot return. (Up until a year ago we knew nothing about this truth. God’s providential timing is perfect). This route gives us the hope of 20+ more years. May the Lord bless those efforts. For the time being, we plan to continue the maintenance therapy with the steroid Dexamethasone four days a month and a daily dose of Thalidomide.

We continue to covet your prayers that the MM stays in remission until it is declared as cured, that her blood stay in a healthy alkaline state, that her back continue to heal the fractures and strengthen all her weakened bones, that her strength return, and that the regular gloom and doom visits with the Hematologist will not dampen our faith with doubts as we maintain a positive outlook. This route also may allow the Hematologist to grow his faith as he sees Deb’s continual improvement in spite of his prognosis.

May our God bless you with an abiding sense of His presence ever being near you until He calls each of us home to be with Him.

Duane and Deb

Praise God! Remission is here!

2005-08-08T19:05:00.000-07:00

Remission!!! Yes Remission has already occurred by God's grace and power. Here is the story.

Back on Monday night, July 25th, after an hour of intense prayer over Debbie, Joe and I sensed that something happened. I was banking on a “yes” answer to all the prayers for her healing. This past Wednesday, the 3rd, we got an excited call from Dr. Joe in North Carolina, our long time friend who is helping monitor Deb’s progress and immune system. He said that Deb had made a dramatic improvement from July 22 when he got a drop of blood to read and July 29 when I sent him a slide with another few drops. He said she is in a full scale healing mode, and then sent us copies of the slides via e-mail which shows the obvious difference. I am going to include a couple of paragraphs that he wrote.

Hi Deb (and Duane),…..
When you get the picture I'm sending, it will be visibly obvious even to the untrained eye. In a nutshell, your body has made a dramatic change in a very short period of time. You have shown improvement in the course of a week that I normally look for over a month!
Even in the case of instantaneous healing the body still has to "catchup" with the immediate correction of a diseased state. That is, one moment the body is degenerating, the next moment it is healthy; all the "garbage," (dead, degenerated materials and tissue) must be cleared from the body through normal (i.e., not instantaneous) mechanisms and this takes time. A good analogy might be the result and aftermath of a flood: even with the flood waters recede, the debris the flood brought has to be cleaned up. There is no more flood but there is a lot of cleanup to be done! So it is with the body -- that's the way God made it!
In every case of miraculous healing I've been associated with and have examined (I can name 4 cancer patients right off the top of my head who've had this happen and that I've been blessed to have been working with so that I could actually track them pre- and post-miracle), this has been the pattern. In working with another 200+ who did not have a miraculous remission of their cancer but who have improved dramatically through natural intervention, they too, followed this pattern, though at a slower pace.
(This is the end of Joe’s paragraphs)

Now listen to this confirmation!! We went to see the Hematologist and did more lab work today. He was elated at her progress and admitted that she is several weeks ahead of where he would expect. I asked why he had not tested for the M protein #. He explained that the M Protein # is not a real accurate measure of cancer activity. I was disappointed, but for only a moment as he continued to explain that the real cancer marker or measurer is the imunnoglobulin G number. When Deb was measured for this right before the beginning of treatment her number was a little over 6400! Normal range is 690 up to 1600. She was four times that number. WELL, last Friday’s test on the 29th (it has to be sent off and thus the week delay in getting results) was down to 619. He explained that in her case, if the number dropped just 75% (from 6400+ down to 1600 - high normal range) that is considered a remission. However, in Deb’s case, the number improved by 90%!!!!
That means there was no measurable activity of the cancer. Joe and I believe God killed it on July 25th! Yes, I will admit that she was responding well to treatment, but the hematologist did not expect to see this kind of improvement in the two weeks since seeing him on July 22. Only those of us praying had hoped to see such a dramatic improvement.

NOW THE BAD NEWS. The Hematologist says that Multiple Myeloma always comes back. He just controls it with different treatments. It is not yet curable, he says.(However, he does not know our Great Physician. Secondly, he told Deb that her back pain may not improve any, that the compression fractures do not rebuild, they just heal enough (now that the myeloma is no longer weakening them) to keep any more fractures from happening. He doesn't want her twisting, bending, lifting, etc. Just walk for exercise.

Well, I am elated with the great news. We will keep taking some meds like a good patient, and our herbs, and juicing, and improving our diet, etc. So we thank the Lord God for answering our prayers. The Dr. wants us to go to Dallas soon at Baylor and get a stem cell transplant. We will go talk and learn, but we are not sold on that treatment yet. Pray for us to have wisdom and to discern God's will.

Praise the Lord,
Duane

Mom's Blood Slides & Explanation

2005-08-08T14:49:00.000-07:00

If I (Marcos) remember correctly I think this is at somewhere around 100x magnification +/- 50.... ish (haha i hope that spread covers it). Just pointing out the obvious, the two pics on the right are a bit more magnified-zooming in on one "lake." I can tell you with good certainty that in a healthy person, ideally there would be no white "lakes or ponds."

This is the explanation by Dr. Joe Carr that was sent with this picture.

Here is an attempt to explain the significance of the blood test we are looking at (called the HLB Peripheral Blood Smear).

The HLB Peripheral Blood Smear is carried out by extracting capillary blood from the fingertip of a patient, placing it on a microscope slide, letting it dry, and then observing it through a special phase-contrast microscope that allows the definition of all aspects of the cells, their fibrin net, and the characteristic translucent "ROTS (reactive oxygen toxic species) masses."

These ROTS masses have an appearance of a lake or pond. In a healthy individual they are absent; in a health-challenged individual their presence, size, linkage with other "lakes," and the appearance of various bile salts, together with sialic acid within the lakes all define the severity of the challenge.

When a person is deteriorating, these lakes have smooth edges; when a person is improving, the lakes have an appearance similar to a real lake or pond "icing over" in the winter time (ices forms around the perimeter first, then begins to spread out to the center of the pond). The more the lake is covered with "ice," the better the improvement. This is known as a "healing profile."

Your sample on July 22 had the appearance of swiss cheese, being full of large and linked "lakes" with large amounts of "debris" (sialic acid) throughout the lakes. This is a degenerating picture. Your sample on July 29 was remarkably improved. The "lakes" were beginning to "ice over," with a majority of them producing the desired healing profile.

When you get the picture I'm sending, it will be visibly obvious even to the untrained eye. In a nutshell, your body has made a dramatic change in a very short period of time. You have shown improvement in the course of a week that I normally look for over a month!

Even in the case of instantaneous healing the body still has to "catchup" with the immediate correction of a diseased state. That is, one moment the body is degenerating, the next moment it is healthy; all the "garbage," (dead, degenerated materials and tissue) must be cleared from the body through normal (i.e., not instantaneous) mechanisms and this takes time. A good analogy might be the result and aftermath of a flood: even with the flood waters recede, the debris the flood brought has to be cleaned up. There is no more flood but there is a lot of cleanup to be done! So it is with the body -- that's the way God made it!

In every case of miraculous healing I've been associated with and have examined (I can name 4 cancer patients right off the top of my head who've had this happen and that I've been blessed to have been working with so that I could actually track them pre- and post-miracle), this has been the pattern. In working with another 200+ who did not have a miraculous remission of their cancer but who have improved dramatically through natural intervention, they too, followed this pattern, though at a slower pace.

For the more scientifically minded, an indepth thesis on the biochemical mechanisms of the HLB test can be found in the publication Oxidology: The Study of Oxidative Mechanisms in Health and Disease, published 1985 and written by Drs. Robert Bradford and Allen Henry; and in the many works of Dr. Majid Ali of the Capital University of Intergrative Medicine. The works of Oscar Kruesi, M.D. and Neil Speight, M.D. are also quite useful and perhaps more "layman friendly."

I hope this helps! The picture will speak for itself when you see it!

The Lord...heals ALL your diseases...

2005-08-08T14:45:00.000-07:00

This morning my Psalm reading was 103. Verses 2-5 jumped out at me.

"Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits- who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's."

First, we are continuing to praise the Lord for his goodness, and now for the remission he has afforded. We want to continue to remember all his benefits, all the good things that he gives us, some of which can be a bit painful at times, but which work good things for those who love him.

Secondly, it says, "HEALS ALL your diseases." MM may be incurable by man's hands and wisdom, but nothing is too hard for the Lord. We believe that divine intervention took place on July 25th that has accelerated her recovery by weeks, as her body works to get rid of all the toxins and garbage left by the cancer. We will work hard to keep her blood Ph on the alkaline side so that MM will not come back. Please keep praying for the two compression fractures in her spine to heal quickly and even more, that divine intervention will restore her spine and other bones to their pre-cancer days in such a way that the Hematologist confesses that Jesus is Lord. Pray for him and his staff to open their eyes and hearts to the Lord.

Thirdly, we feel that Deb's life has been redeemed from the pit of coming death, first on June 26 with 2 units of blood, and now with remission.

Fourth, we have been crowned (though undeservedly, but by His grace) with lots of love and compassion demonstrated thru so many of your hands.

Fifth, we have had a number of our desires satisfied thru this ordeal with good things that we had long prayed for, but never expected them to come by means of illness.

Finally, we pray and trust that her youth will be renewed (healing in her back and bones) so that she can get back to normal pain free movement and living.

God bless,
Duane

Revival Breaks Out

2005-08-01T18:29:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned last time, our good friend, Dr. Joe Carr (Joe, I can't believe I actually wrote that title, you are just a regular Joe to me - ha) from N.C. was with us the last part of July. We spent some quality time together in prayer over Deb and over Joe. You see, he was going back home to preach yesterday in his preacher's absence (vacation). No problem, Joe was trained as a minister at Harding Graduate School, on our mission team to Brazil in the 80's, etc. But Joe sensed the Lord challenging him to preach about repentance and Lordship so we prayed for him to be God's instrument in ushering in revival.

Well, God did! At their early service with 55 present, 30 came forward to repent and rededicate their lives to Jesus as Lord. At the late service, with 275 present, well over 100 responded with life changing repentance and confession! I can hardly wait to hear what all God does in the near future and how people will be getting saved as believers start to take their faith seriously as a matter of life and death. Pray that those in love with the status quo will not quench the spirit's fire (I Thess 5:19) in that church, but will rather humble themselves before God and allow Him to work His will in that body of believers.

As for my precious wife, today was a tough day. Nausea returned. Enough said. She even turned me down on going to get some frozen custard! God continues to demosntrate his love for her through words, gifts, cards, flowers and acts of service. We are unworthy of such attention, but we bask in it knowing that it is from the Father by means of His Spirit touching hearts in special ways. Praise be to Him who heals!

Duane

Great Lab Report

2005-07-27T10:37:00.000-07:00

Good news!

Debbie got really good news Friday, the 22nd from the Dr. and the lab reports. She is really responding well to treatment and her blood work shows it. For example, her red and white blood cell counts are just below the low normal range. Remember that her hemoglobin count was down to 7.2 in the hospital, and this anemia is one of the disease‘s symptoms. She had the transfusion of 2 units on June 26 and it went up to about 10, whereas 12 to 16 is the normal range. Well, three weeks ago it was up to 11.1, two weeks ago it went up to 11.4, and last Friday had climbed into normal ranges with a 12.4 reading! But here is the exciting count - the abnormal protein band (which was the blood test that tipped us off to Multiple Myeloma on June 9th when it measured 3.9 and you want it to be zero) on July 15 had dropped to 1.3!!!!!! After only 3 weeks of treatment!! The Dr. was pleased as were we. Also the type of MM she has is the IGG which (I think) stands for Immune Gamma Globulins and its count was at 4.7 on June 9. By July 15 it dropped to 1.9! Normal range is 0.6-1.6. So progress is being made, praise be to the Lord.

When we first visited the Dr., he said that four to six months into treatment we should have it under control enough to talk about doing a stem cell transplant. Well, he told us last Friday that it is time to start talking about the pros and cons of a stem cell transplant and get educated so we can make a decision about it. So pray for us to have wisdom in all this. (FYI - A stem cell transplant is the favored form of treatment. It involves harvesting her own immature blood cells, called stem cells, through a process called apheresis (sp?), putting them in cold storage, then giving her a high dose of chemo over three days to kill the cancer, [but it also kills her bone marrow and immune system], giving her lots of antibiotics to prevent infection, and then putting her stem cells back into the blood stream. Amazingly those stem cells set back up in the bone marrow and start producing blood cells again thus restoring one’s health. The Doc says it is 70% effective, but that the MM will come back in a few years. 30% of the time MM comes back quickly, and then one‘s immune system is very debilitated).

Over the weekend we got to spend a lot of time with two of our original 5 mission team families (we all go WAAAAY back to 1977). That was a wonderful time together. On Monday, Debbie got to see and visit with another first cousin from Miami who came in for the funeral of their cousin on Saturday, which Deb was not able to attend. So they got to visit and catch up and enjoy being with one another.

In the past week three different groups of our fellowship have prayed over Debbie for her healing, and we are most grateful. We sensed that God was working in all those sessions, especially the last one.

We go back to do lab work in two days, so hopefully, we will have even more good news then.

Keep praying, you have God’s ear. God is so good!

Duane

Thanks for small things

2005-07-21T20:55:00.000-07:00

Zech. 4:10 says, "Who despises the day of small things?" In the day of Zechariah, Zerubbabel had completed the foundation of the temple, but some despised such a small thing as one stone being laid upon another.

Just a brick is not much. But many bricks cemented together will build a hearth, a fireplace, a wall, even the walls of a house. Each brick is a small thing, but when many are joined together they can be impressive.

One person praying is not necessarily a small thing because of the great God to whom we pray, but when hundreds of saints join their spirits together to pray in unity and agreement, those prayers move mountains. And we believe that God will answer your prayers for Deb's healing. Many have told us that they sense the Lord saying to them that this disease is only for a time. WE are grateful for the many who have stepped up to a higher plane in praying - not just for us, but for the kingdom. All together these saints put great fear into the Enemy. He has no defense against prayer. We have no offense without prayer, for it summons God's Sprit into empowering those who trust Him.

Who despises the day of small things? Not me - not anymore. Moving from a bedpan to a bedside commode is a small thing, just as is moving another 12 feet to the bathroom. But put them together and it is a great improvment (two weeks ago). Going from being stuck in a bed to being able to get up and walk with the help of someone lifting you is a small thing, as is being able to move about on one's own with one's hands on the legs, but then it improves to the point of walking erect with hands on the hips, it is a great thing (last week), as is getting rid of the hospital bed from one's house. (Got rid of it Tuesday - day before yesterday) Going from constantly having a bucket or barf bag nearby to taking no more thought of it for a week is a small brick each day that built up into an impressive block of time called a week-plus - (until an episode last night). So we start over today rebuilding another barfless time block.

Walking almost 2 blocks seems such a small thing, until realizing that the better part of 5 weeks were spent confined to a house or a room, with very little walking or exercise, and rejoicing takes place over the day of such a small thing that became big to us. Remember how exciting baby's first steps were? Why? It was such a small thing. But it was the beginning of bigger things. So is the recovery from illness or accident. So far recovery has been built one day at a time. God can heal immediately and completely at any moment. But He can also heal through time in those small events called days and weeks so that He can better work His will in all our lives. We shall wait on the Lord to reveal His will in his timing.

Our hearts are heavy this evening, for an event that we knew was coming for some time has now occurred. We received news that Debbie's first cousin, Barb, passed away after about 6 years of battling breast cancer. They were kindred spirits, about the same age, and they both loved Jesus and teaching children, Deb in Sunday school for years, and Barb as a great faith filled professional teaching children in the Broken Arrow, OK, public school system. Her laugh, smile and bubbly fun-loving spirit will always be fondly remembered as she glorified her God in every way. Our prayers are with her husband, children, parents, 4 siblings and their families.

God bless,

Duane

Prayers -- the greatest gift of all! - UPDATE (7/18/05)

2005-07-18T19:03:00.000-07:00

PRAYER REQUESTS
1. That God will show us individually, as a family, and collectively as a body what He wants us to learn.
2. That we have wisdom in knowing which route to go in method of treatment.
3. Thank the Lord that Deb's food and meds are staying down.
4. Thank the Lord for the good report from neurosurgeon that she thinks the vertebra will rebuild itself within about 3 months' time; we pray that it will be even sooner than that, and that she can regain her ability to walk normally again very soon.
5. That God will have mercy and grace upon us all and heal Debbie COMPLETELY so that she may continue her areas of ministry, continue her role as mother and wife, and one day be the example and mentor to grandchildren and daughters-in-law that she has been to our two sons.
6. That God will guard Debbie angainst infections, blood clots, or any other complications that we don't even know to could be possibilities.
7. That as God comforts us we will be equipped to comfort others with the comfort we received. II Cor 1:3-4
8. That God will be glorified throughout this whole process, and that He will drive out all fear and anxiety about the future, as He fills our hearts with peace. He has been faithful to do this, by sending someone daily in person, in a note or an e-mail to encourage us. He is so faithful.
THANK YOU FOR THE PRAYERS!!!! Please continue to pray!

STRONGER EVERY DAY!

2005-07-18T18:40:00.000-07:00

I (Debbie) want to take this opportunity to thank each of you for your faithfulness to be in prayer on my behalf. I feel extremely humbled to know that hundreds of people are keeping me in their prayers. I feel the strength of those prayers every day, and know that God is hearing your heart cries. He supplies me with peace and faith....no fear or anxiety. All of this makes no earthly sense, given the kind of cancer I have.

I have a number of things for which we can give God thanks, so let me innumerate some of them, and you can join me in thanking my Faithful Father:
1) my food and meds are staying down (one week now!) 2) my pain has greatly diminished 3) my appetite is picking back up 4) I'm walking more and standing up straighter 4) I was able to be at church again this past Sunday (always a blessing!) 5) I drove for the first time today since I was in the hospital 6) I'm able to take more of the supplements that build my immune system.

God is answering a long-standing prayer of mine to experience more of His love. I knew He couldn't love me more than He already does, but I wanted to experience more of it.....move it from my head to my heart and KNOW it! He has backed up the truck, so to speak, over the past few weeks and has used many of you to spill out that love all over me. His love.....through you....has come in the form of visits, cards, e-mails, food, flowers, gifts, etc. I have never in my life been so overwhelmed with so many avenues of love in such a short period of time. But I know that love originates with My Heavenly Father, and you are the vessels He uses to pour it out. Thank you for being sensitive to the promptings. Some of you have written very personal messages to me, with Scriptures that have been impressed on your heart. I have read and re-read those notes. They are very precious to me. Thanks for taking the time.

I feel very encouraged. I feel stronger each day. My spirits are high. I take one day at a time, knowing that is a gift from the Lord. In all of this, my greatest desire is that God be glorified, so I do ask that you join me in asking for that.....however, He wants that to look. We are continuing to ask for the IMPOSSIBLE. We are asking for healing. Join us if you will in that request. I'm confident there are more things God wants us to learn as a body at RHCC while we walk through this valley together.....let's not miss it!

It's so wonderful to read your msgs on the blog and know that I'm not in this alone, that God has raised up an army of intercessors on my behalf.....I keep asking that He keep giving the burden, and people will not grow weary in prayer. Thank you for stepping into the gap......I'm greatly indebted to you for your prayers.....the GREATEST gift anyone can give me.

Together with you for HIM,

Debbie

Lab & lunch update

2005-07-15T12:07:00.000-07:00

We went to do lab work this a.m. Her PT (clotting rate) was exactly where they wanted it. Her red blood cell count went up fro 11.2 last week to 11.4 this week. (Normal is 12-16 so she is still a bit low.) She did get a shot of arenesp (sp?) to build the blood. She will take that shot every two weeks. Her white count was low again at 3.0 whereas a low normal count is 4.8. THat is why MM patients are so susceptible to infections. This was a "heads up" to me to practice and enforce purell washes on our hands and on any visitors too. Next week we will do labs and see the dr.

She walked into the lab udner her own power this week as opposed to the wheel chair last week! After we got out, I asked her if she was up to lunch downtown at her favorite sandwich shop, LaMadellin's. She was! She even walked two blocks each way, and that boosted her confidence. I guess it was the first time she has been out to eat in a month (since her initial visit on June 16 with the Hematologist.) It did her great! (Gotcha -You just thought I was going to write good.) She did come home and take a nap after lunch. Also, her appetite is returning, so that is good news too.

Interestingly, we keep running into former Saginaw contacts at the Lab. Last week we ran into our sons' high school basketball coach. This week we ran into our former neighbors across the street in Saginaw - both times as we were entering the building. (It is a small world we live in!) They both promised to keep Deb in their prayers.

She is feeling stronger today. Also I must have misunderstood the Dr. She is on the steroid for 4 days and off 4 days. So she will restart that treatment again tomorrow instead of today. She continues to keep everything down since Monday evening. That is a record for the past month.

Thank you for your prayers and thoughtfulnesses.
Duane

Frozen Custard

2005-07-13T09:08:00.000-07:00

Friends,

Some have asked for a written update so here it is. Today is Wed. This is the first day in which I have not been able to detect improvement in her condition. I think that is due to this being the second day off from her 4 days of steroid treatment. She was very tired this morning and went back to bed at 9:30 a.m. and is still asleep at 11 a.m., as I called the house and spoke to her mom. But rest is good!

After two upchucks on Monday, she thought some Frozen Custard would sound good, and it was good for her to get out of the house. We ran into the Hatchetts there (He is one of my colleagues). That helped her keep her evening meds down ( eating the custard helped, not seeing Chris Hatchett)!! Tuesday she did well and I took her back for some more Frozen Custard last night. She is addicted now. I won't be surprised if she doesn't have to have it 3 times a day! ha. You might ought to consider buying some shares in that stock! She may have to go thru Frzn Custard rehab treatment to get set free this fall! Anyway, everything has stayed down since 7 pm Monday night, PTL.

Duane

Good News fr. Dr.

2005-07-11T15:32:00.000-07:00

We made our 3 pm appt. w/ the neurosurgeon. She said that Deb's two compression fractures are too small for kyphoplasty, especially in light of how much Debbie has improved over the past week and how much her pain has diminished. The Dr. said the fractures should heal and build back the indentations in the vertebra naturally - will probably take about 3 months for them to rebuild. She ordered a back brace to help her do more walking. She said that Deb should try to stand erect until the muscles tire and then lie down and rest them. (If the Dr. told me that, that would be a phrase I would get in writing and I would use from now on, especially when certain chores were due. Fortuantely, Deb didn't think that far ahead.) So God knows best, and He knew that we were impatiently jumping the gun on trying to get her more pain relief and mobility in hoping and praying for a quick fix with the kyphoplasty. I guess we are just impatient Americans who have adapted back into this instantaneous culture. But not everything can be had instantly, not even in Texas. And spiritually, many times, we just need to simmer for a while, like a good pot of chile. So we will put up with the heat while He refines us.

Duane and Deb

Imptce. of Intercession by you

2005-07-09T20:07:00.000-07:00

Dear Friends,

I really wanted Marcos to write this post since he had seen the most change in his mom. When he left on 7-4 to go back to ACU, Deb was not getting up on her own at all. When he arrived back yesterday (7-8), he reminded her of that when he saw that she was getting up on her own quite a bit, albeit having to support part of her upper body weight by holding onto her upper thighs, but that was great improvement. Also, she stopped taking breakfast in bed Friday and now makes it to the table. (I was relieved because I could see that breakfast in bed thing becoming very addictive! ha) I continue to see a strengthening and a lessening of pain in her moving about. We do believe the medications are knocking the myeloma down and hopefully out.

Some folks have been prompted by the Spirit to write encouraging words and to share Scriptures that really speak to our hearts. We are so encouraged. Our hearts are at peace - an answer to many of your prayers - and we have been at peace for some time now. The fact that my blood pressure is back into the normal range is a proof of that presence of the peace of God that passes all understanding. We know that whatever comes has been sifted through God's fingers and we trust Him above all. He has shown Himself to be True and trustworthy through all our many years of faith walk, and so it is easy to trust Him now - come whatever may come. Rom 8:18-39

Your prayers are so important to us because I cannot intercede for her as I would like to, so I depend upon the myriads of intercessions by thousands of praying saints. That forces me to put my trust in God and my hope in the prayers of my brothers and sisters in Christ. That is far more powerful anyway. Instead of feeling helpless, I feel more like the soldier who has been called out of the battle and told to watch and wait for the outcome while thousands fight the battle for him. So I thank you. And I ask you to continue to intercede for my precious bride of 29 years that she may return to her ministry of marshalling the saintly forces to making visits to the Throne Room of Heaven on the behalf of the Kingdom of God and for many of you.

Goodnight, and God bless you,

Duane for the Jenkses

Lab report

2005-07-08T09:37:00.000-07:00

Friends,

Just got back from doing labs a little while ago. Her PT test was normal. That is the (Prothrombin - sp?) test to verify if her blood is thin enough while taking the cummidin (sp?) to counteract the clotting tendencies of the two cancer fighting drugs she is taking. Her white cells were in the low normal range, and red cells were at 11.1 which just below the normal range, but keep in mind that she was down to 7.2 on that count when she got the blood transfusion. So it is still in the okay range. Won't know about how well the drugs are working until next week or the week after when the Dr. is back from vacation.

Duane

Progress report and upcoming Dr. appts.

2005-07-07T18:57:00.000-07:00

Dear Ones,

We will see the neuro surgeon on Monday - finally. I suppose we will find out then whether she is a candidate for the treatment to rebuild the vertebra with the compression fracture. One comment on the day that I mentioned that, has a web link and a description of chykoplasty (sp?). That is the procedure of putting balloons and cement into the vertebra.

Again I must say how overwhelmed we have been with your attention and love. She gets nearly a dozen cards a day. Everyone I see tells me they are praying for us. Plenty of food is being brought in and it is a blessing because there seems to be so little time to do those necessary things like cooking. A trio is coming Saturday to do some cleaning. (Girls, don't do too good a job or she may try to hire you every week even after she gets able to do it again!) Secondly, thank you for overlooking my typos, sometimes my fingers seem faster than the keys and I am in too much of a hurry to proofread and correct much. If it is intelligible I jsut leave it - see! jSut like that.

I can see a tiny improvement in Debbie each day, even if she only sees it every other or every third day. It is seen in comportment, lessening pain, increased mobility, attitude, fewer naps, etc. For example, this evening she sat in a chair and cleaned out the fridge for a few minutes. She hasn't been able to do that for the past 4 weeks. That is encouraging (her cleaning the fridge) because it tells me the treatment is working. The hematologist said she would begin to feel better even before the numbers improved in the blood work. We go to the hematologist's office tomorrow to do lab work. It may even show up in that blood work that she is improving, or it may take until next week. We start the steroid (Decadron) treatment again tomorrow for 4 days, then 3 off and 4 days on, then 3 off ...

Her nausea seems to be improving a bit. Could it have been my cooking for two weeks that sent her to the hospital?

Her mother, Mary, moved to Ft. Worth two years ago, we thought for us to help take care of her. But no - it was apparently for her to help take care of Deb and she has been a few hours each day during the week to help out around the house and be Deb's legs to get this and that for her. God is good in his provisions. We are so grateful we don't have little ones at home to have to take care of in addition to an adult in need of help. That would be overwhelming.

I am getting more comfortable in flushing her PICC line with Heparin each day. I might be ready to give injections real soon - any takers out there? I didn't think so. Marcos is at ACU this month taking two classes, but he plans to come home each weekend to see his momma and me - at least that's what we tell each other - we know he is really coming to see his girlfriend Emily. She is a real sweetheart.

Goodnight, and God bless. Pray that we get good reports Friday and Monday.

Duane for the family

Small but Great improvment

2005-07-05T07:51:00.000-07:00

Dear Friends,

Just a quick update:

bottom line - Deb is back to where she was a day or two before we took her to the hospital. Last night (July 4th) she got up on her own a couple of times - she does that by not standing erect, staying a bit stooped and either putting her hands on her upper thighs or holding onto something else to take the weight off her spine. I am actually able to leave her for a while and her mom is coming to stay with her this morning and afternoon.

Duane

Equipping the house

2005-07-03T16:35:00.000-07:00

Dear Friends and Family,

Thankfully, we finally got out of prison, err, I mean the hospital Saturday afternoon at 4. Good thing too, cause I was about to married to a crazy woman if we didn't get home and soon. This has been good for her emotions - which by the way, are affected greatly by the medications she is on, especially the steroid, which we are now off of until July 8 - other Multiple Myeloma patients have enlightened us aobut some of these things, and how to expect the ups and downs and reclusive attitudes. Thanks for your patience and understanding. Anyway, we got a portapotty and other items as we arrived home. (I just had to throw that portapotty word picture in for all you construction folks as you try to figure out how to get one inside, and then what! ha I suppose the actual name is a potty chair so you can now get the little white and aluminum piece of furniture correctly pictured in your mind.)

The nausea continued from Friday evening at the hospital until Saturday evening at home - another request to the dr. for a px and a trip to pharmacy for suppositories seem to have finally done the trick. She has kept food and drink and meds down for 24 hours now. For that we are msot grateful.

This morning I thought I would go to the 8 am service, but we had rude awakenings about how poorly equipped and staffed we are in this house. That hospital room had nurses just a button away to help anytime I was in over my head, which at my height means considerable trouble. Here, we don't even have the button! I realized by about 7:15 I wouldn't be making it to church
today. We needed a hospital bed with a motor and rails - badly - but this was Sunday a.m on 4th of July weekend. Well the home health nurse came at 10:30 and she knew how to get things done! By 1:30 pm we had a hospital bed set up in the bedroom! What an amazing country we live in! God bless the USA!

An angel was sent by the Lord to bring us dinner last night, and again for lunch today - this angel was disguised to look and act a lot like Laura Reppart. Heavenly food was so delicious cause it was disguised as home cooking. Another angel who lives nearby had offered to do anything so I asked Angela Mallette to buy some items we needed. What sweethearts they are.

I can tell that I am going to be tied down a lot in ministering to my wife over the next couple of weeks, so be careful of offering to do anything. ONe fellow did that and I asked him toofficiate a wedding in my place, at which he immediatley began crawfishing, which I must admit I enjoyed his discomfort way too much last week and began to dig him a good bit about it. But Kim Mallette came to my, - I mean - the bride's rescue and tied the knot a week ago today. (I know I should not mention people and their acts of kindness because there have already been many and many more will come and I won't be able to mention all of them - probably because these three will cut my tongue out - no, that won't work, but they may cut my typing fingers off.

Enough of the levity - Deb and I have never felt so loved and accepted as we do by so many in our church family, blood relatives, and friends. It is humbling, but oh so very sweet. She has received over 100 get well cards (we quit counting) numerous calls, and about 60 visitors the first Saturday in the hospital. We felt so loved and cherished. Thank you. We cannot thank you enough. And then the steroids began to kick in late Saturday night, plus the further deterioration in her condition made visiting an impossibility. She did sleep a lot during those days in the hospital which is apparently just what the Great Physician ordered for my bride.
It is 7:25, and time for mored meds and a move for Deb.

God bless,

Duane for the family

Home Sweet Home!

2005-07-02T15:53:00.000-07:00

Yes I am writing this from home. Since Dr. Wilson, the neuro surgeon, still had yet to look at the MRIs and was not going to anytime soon, Mom released herself this afternoon. As you can imagine her sanity depended on getting out of there soon since she had not been ouside in 8 days. We picked up the prescriptions and supplies today and had the home health services bring some essential things to the house as well. She is still nauseous much of the time and she felt compelled to remind us of that as soon as we got home. : ) Mom still has pain when she tries to stand or walk but at least she is capable of being somewhat mobile. An improvement over a week ago. Praise God!

Keep praying that Dr. Wilson will get around to looking at the MRI and CT scan soon and be able to find a simple solution to Mom's pain. Also pray that her nausea will subside so she can get some much needed nourishment and relief. Most of all pray that she be cured!

Thank you all for your prayers and petitions to God. It's good to be home. Bring on the Food : )
Web Site Manager
-MJ

2005-07-01T18:47:00.000-07:00

We just got back from an hour and a half (from 6:30-8:05) of Deb stuck in a huge doughnut (MRI) after doing a CT scan at 1:30 this afternoon - fortunately it was a 10 minute test. With this being her third MRI the past 30 days and her last one lasting almost 3 hours and killing her back with pain, she was very anxious about it so the Dr. allowed her to have some adavan which pretty well put her out and allowed her to sleep thru it. However, it caused her to throw up when the tech woke her up and brought her out, but her quick acting hubby grabbed a nearby trash basket and caught it all without getting any of it on her top nor the sheets. Applause! (I aplogize for my "sick" humor, but ya gotta laugh at situations.

The neuro-surgeon wanted the CT and MRI done here because she couldn't see clearly enough on the last one and the hospital MRI's are much more powerful. Hopefully the Dr. can see what the problem is and it can be corrected with a shot of cortisone or something into the disc (this is just me talking - and hoping) - that it is a simple fix. I think we are due a simple fix, because nothing in this whole ordeal has been all that simple. We are hoping the doc will see us in the morning and let us know what the results are. I am going to spend the night tonight with her because she is still groggy and secondly, surgeons often make real early rounds and I sure want to hear what she says.

Please pray for a simple fix to this pain in her back when she tries to stand. God bless and good night.
Duane for Deb, Tracy and Marcos

2005-07-01T10:23:00.000-07:00

The neuro surgeon called our nurse to order another MRI and a CT scan. This probably means we will not be leaving the hospital today.

2005-07-01T08:28:00.000-07:00

We still have not heard anything back from the neuro surgeon but Dr. Negron came in this morning for his daily check up. He watched Debbie get up and walk down the hall then told us that SHE MAY LEAVE THE HOSPITAL THIS AFTERNOON! He was going to try and get a hold of the neuro surgeon and if she did not find anything then he would come back at 5:00 to release Deb!

2005-06-30T19:03:00.000-07:00

PRAYER REQUESTS

1. That God will show us individually, as a family, and collectively as a body what He wants us to learn.

2. For our doctors to have wisdom and insight in treating Deb.

3. That they can find the source of the back pain and alleviate it.

4. That the hospital staff and doctors will see Christ living in us.

5. That God will have mercy and grace upon us all and heal Debbie so that she may continue her areas of ministry, continue her role as mother and wife, and one day be the example and mentor to grandchildren and daughters-in-law that she has been to the two boys.

6. That we will rely on God's strength. Isa. 40:31

7. That as God comforts us we will be equipped to comfort others with the comfort we received. II Cor 1:3-4

2005-06-30T13:18:00.000-07:00

We have been here in the hospital for seven days now. The doc came in this morning and said he thinks that Deb has turned a corner last night and this morning. Deb was able to get up on her own and took a bath with a little help. That is a huge improvement over the past week when she had to have a shot of morphine, lots of help, and even still was in excruciating pain while trying to stand. We are waiting on the neuro surgeon to report to us what she has concluded from the MRIs and X-rays. She should give us a report this afternoon. We thank you for all of your prayers and the many cards and calls! Please continue to pray for her to be encouraged and in better spirits.

2005-06-30T08:39:00.000-07:00

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