Update #10 - 10/2/23

Kara did NOT get her last chemo treatment today, and that’s a good thing. I would have been writing this from the chemo floor at the cancer center, but our plans are detouring slightly, and an update is overdue. (I feel the need to keep apologizing for letting too much time pass between updates, but ask any of my teachers from school and you’ll quickly discover I’ve never turned anything in on time in my life.)

The next thing that needs to happen after chemo is surgery. It’s pretty important that this happens within a certain window of time after the last chemo treatment, typically around 6 weeks or so. If that were to drag out too long, risk factors start going up. The surgery actually involves two surgeons, and to make sure schedules are coordinated (so as not to delay the surgery), we need to make the surgery appointment well in advance, ideally between the fifth and sixth chemo cycles. To schedule that appointment, a consultation appointment has to happen before that, and to make that appointment, Kara’s insurance requires a referral from her primary care doctor. Apparently, I’m not the only one turning things in late; that referral was requested TWO MONTHS AGO, and we finally got it TODAY. Now if you read back through all the things that need to take place before the surgery, you’ll realize that exactly none of those things have happened yet, and we’re now a bit behind where we should be.

So why didn’t Kara get her last chemo treatment today? Due to some lingering symptoms from the last treatment, her doctor suggested we delay the last treatment by a week to give her body more time to recover. Why is this a good thing? Because delaying the chemo by a week isn’t a big deal, but delaying the surgery another week (post-chemo) is a bigger deal. Since we’re already behind the 8-ball on that, delaying chemo on this end actually buys us a week on the other end to get all our ducks in a row for the surgery.

I don’t know if that’s the kind of thing folks care to know about, or if that’s a little deeper than most people care to wade into the minutiae and drama of someone else’s life. But these are some things we are asking you to pray for: Pray that we can get whatever appointments and referrals we need so that the surgery can happen in a timely manner (before Thanksgiving). Pray that Kara’s body continues to recover from the chemo during this extra week. Praise God with us that we finally got through the red tape to get the first appointment. And pray that above all, God would get the glory!

If you didn’t follow all that, it’s ok. Our heads are spinning with lots of questions too, like “why can’t these doctors just talk to each other?”, and “why is anyone still using faxes?!”

Speed round!

• We celebrated our first full year of ministry at Neighborhood Church Lakeland with 72 in attendance! And the whole event was run mostly by folks that have joined since launch!

• Our worship leader moved away, so pray with us that we can find someone soon. We miss you, Caleb and McKenzie!

• We have not yet purchased a vehicle with the funds raised, mainly due to being too swamped to work on it.

• We got the new “My grace, all sufficient…” t-shirts, and they look awesome! Thanks Jon Ostrowski!

• We are looking for some more monthly financial supporters to join our ministry support team. I’ll talk more about it in another update, but please be praying about that too!