Trusting & Waiting

We are blessed to have such wonderful friends, family and church   We are so grateful for all of the wonderful meals and gifts...we are humbled by the outpouring of love and support around us. Special thanks to my best friend, Heather Holford, for taking care of our girls this morning so Tom and I could go to church to praise our Heavenly Father. We needed that! Thank you Pastor Jon for allowing the Holy Spirit to work through your words, and for the prayer team for lifting us up in prayer after the service. I'm not gonna lie, we've been struggling with some feelings of worry, fear and pity. There are times that I'm tempted to kick and scream like a 2 year old myself, "I just want our old life back!".

We are asking for prayers this week as we have a lot of unknowns ahead of us.

Monday: We hope to celebrate Christmas with Grandma, Papa and Uncle Doug since we haven't been able to exchange gifts with them yet. We are praying for safe roads to travel to and from Clarksville, and for good health as our entire family has been struggling with being sick. Tom had walking pneumonia last week, and now both of my parents and my brother have it. Charley, Kaleigh and I have also been trying to fend off being sick, thank God for ZPacks!

Tuesday: We should have the results back from Izzy's bone marrow test. Please pray for good news.

Wednesday: We are going to the children's hospital for Izzy's injection of Nuclear Medicine prior to her MIBG scan. This medicine is manufactured specifically for her and shipped from Canada, it is administered 24 hours before the scan, and it will "light up" any spots of cancer in her body.

Thursday: Isabella's MIBG scan is at 11:30. We are praying that there will be no other signs of tumors or lesions in her body. On Thursday we are also meeting with the research specialist, Dr. Sholler, to hear more about the research study that she would like Isabella to participate in.

Friday: Izzy's surgery is Friday morning. The surgical team will be attempting to remove the entire primary tumor (and any other tumors or lesions that they find in the MIBG scan, which hopefully there will be none). Please pray that Izzy will be healthy and strong for her surgery, and for wisdom of the doctors and nurses, as it could be a very complicated surgery depending on what the tumor is attached to.

We will be in the hospital Friday night and possibly through the weekend, depending on how extensive the surgery is and how well Izzy is recovering.

After the tumor is removed it will be studied extensively to determine exactly what we are dealing with. It could be a very aggressive form of cancer, or maybe, just maybe Lord willing, it could turn out that it isn't cancer at all. A lot of our questions will be answered this week and the following week. This is a time of a lot of unknowns, which is scary, but we are trusting in God.

"Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge Him and he will make your paths straight." -Proverbs 3:5-6

Izzy's tumor measures 2.3 cm x 1.4 cm, which would fit in this box. We are thankful that our God cannot fit inside of ANY box!

 Thank you for your continued prayers and support.

Tom and Karen