Suffering

Our boy is suffering. The chemo has just wiped the poor kid out. He's super tired and in lots of pain. He also now has pneumonia.

Just.Suffering.

That doesn't sound like a severe enough word for it and it's hard to adequately express the heart break we're all feeling because of it.


In addition to the symptoms that we can see, he's also having a lot of complications due to the tumor. The tumor is trying to take over his entire abdomen. Michelle says that you can even feel it on his side now, and see it coming through the skin. It's probably because of the weight loss, or it could be continuing to grow. It's putting too much pressure on his kidneys and liver, which can lead to failure of those organs. The surgeons are feeling that they are being forced to do something here. If they do nothing, he will only live for another 10-12 months. They are talking about putting some stints in for his liver and kidneys soon, to try and buy some time. They need to allow him to heal from the chemo and get healthier before they attempt any surgery. So, possibly in 4-6 weeks, they will attempt to remove part of the tumor to relieve some pressure from his major organs.

Tyler's case is rare, so the doctors are often changing plans and trying different things. But, this is the news as of today. 

Please continue to pray for Tyler. We are truly still in need of a miracle here. I feel hopeless when we get news like this and I don't know what to pray for, so I'm encouraged by these words in Romans 8.
 

But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? ²⁵ But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.
²⁶ In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. ²⁷ And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.
²⁸ And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. ²⁹ For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. ³⁰ And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.

More Than Conquerors

³¹ What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? ³² He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? ³³ Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. ³⁴ Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. ³⁵ Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? ³⁶ As it is written:

“For your sake we face death all day long;
    we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”^[j]

³⁷ No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. ³⁸ For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,^[k] neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, ³⁹ neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.