We are going forward !

I want to thank all the wonderful people who have called, sent messages, came over to lift our spirits, and joined in our fast and prayer for Natalee. We have truly been blessed. Our friend, Gail Woller sent a note, which I feel conveys how through you, His tender mercies are picking up the pieces:

"I wanted to run right over and help you "glue" the pieces of the Hope jar back together... I realized that the Savior's grace and mercy are how He "glues" the
hope back togther again. He even can replace the jar with a bigger, stonger jar of Hope... I'm praying for His tender mercies to continue to be with you- Natalee, and the family- for your shattered jar to be replaced with a big, strong, light-filled jar of Hope to keep in view all the days ahead."

I had several people tell me that they had a strong impression to pray earnestly for our family, though they didn't know why. The first two days after the horrible news, our family just crawled in a cave. We were shocked that this new drug didn't work. I think from the beginning we felt this was the drug. Day three was a night and day difference, we felt His comfort and know your prayers were being answered. We felt His peace, and our minds were opened, thank you.

One of the others concerns we had, was Natalee's pain in her back and leg had increased so much that she was taking medication all day long just to ease it. She was using a Lidocaine patch on her back and taking Tylenol and Ty w/Codeine at night time. So you can imagine all the fears, that was wrestling in our minds. A week of sitting and waiting to find out the why's and what's were excruciating.

We are back at Emanuel; when we left, we had such a hard time saying goodbye to all the doctors and nurses, they have been there from the beginning. So it is good to be back home, and yes we fell in love with our doctor and nurse at Dorenbechers so again a sad goodbye. After meeting with Dr. Olsen, we felt hopeful about the new drug they want to try on her. This drug has a differant approach in attacking the tumors. The way she explained it was, before, we were trying to cut off the phone lines, (tumors seem to communicate to each other), and now we are attacking the Internet. OK, after I got home I tried to pick apart this analogy. I was somewhat confused so I will go back and ask for more clarification. This new drug is, Everolimus (e-ver-OH-li-mus), band name is Afinitor. Two side effects they are concerned about is she will have more sores in her mouth, and a high risk for infections. If Natalee even gets a fever we are to bring her right in.

About the pain in her back and leg. The back pain is from the tumor pressing on her sciatica nerve. She has been prescribed a medicine called, Gabepentin, an anti-depressant, which has proven to be successful for spinal problems, especially the sciatica nerve. As for her leg, they want her to do some physical therapy, one thought is they want to trick the brain by attaching some electrodes to the thigh , causing it to pulse which will send a message to the brain, hoping that it will put more energy on the new activity than the pain.

We have a new Hope-Jar ( it was too hard trying to piece it back together) and things are much better.