Update #9

Dear family and friends,

There really is not a whole lot to say this time around. Rob is still in the hospital regaining strength after his bad reaction to the last chemo. He has come a long ways in the week and a half but still has a ways to go before he comes home. He has no side effects of the reaction( though he still can't remember those couple days very clearly) but his physical strength did take a dive. So now that they have nausea under control again (was a hard thing for the staff to figure out proper dosage since he didn't get the full chemo treatment) his eating has improved this weekend and that goes a long way towards building back strength. The goal of the staff is to get him home this week, so we are going to work hard at that but we'll see what happens.

Chemo was originally scheduled for tomorrow again but this won't happen for sure this week. Dr Wong wanted him to regain enough strength to go home first before his next treatment. So at this point we're not even sure of the plan for chemo. We hope to see Dr Wong this week at one point, so then we'll get an idea of what we're looking at.

While this is not really a place we'd recommend for a lengthy stay, we can't say enough about the staff and excellent care that we get here at St. Boniface! Some of the most caring people work as medical staff and this is a huge blessing as far as the environment in which Rob is healing and making progress to come home. Couldn't ask for better.

One more thing we'd like to mention again is the amount of support that we continue to receive from so many people. While we're not up for all kinds of visitors we very much appreciate and feel encouraged by all the cards, phonecalls, texts and emails that we received! Thanks also to those anonymous people who help out in different ways, you know who you are. We thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

(Only to the interest of some of you: Robs phone, his only method of communication crashed a week ago and after some kerfuffle he got a new phone, with a new number. If you have been trying to contact him, he likely didn't get it. As for the new number, we're obviously not going to post it, but your welcome to contact me or our families if you want it.)

An encouraging phrase I heard this past weekend that provided food for thought was this: 'God spends more time making His people holy than He does making them happy.'. It kind of puts into perspective that our God has a purpose for us also in this battle with cancer that He put on our path. We don't always know His reasons for everything but we absolutely can and do put our trust in Him. We continue to pray that His purpose in our lives may be fulfilled.

Would like to end off with a beautiful Psalm, one that we have learned to say aloud as we go through this journey in our life.


Psalm 121

I lift up my eyes to the hills—
where does my help come from?
My help comes from the Lord,
the Maker of heaven and earth.
He will not let your foot slip—
he who watches over you will not slumber;
indeed, he who watches over Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep.
The Lord watches over you—
the Lord is your shade at your right hand;
 the sun will not harm you by day,
nor the moon by night.
 The Lord will keep you from all harm—
he will watch over your life;
 the Lord will watch over your coming and going
both now and forevermore.