Subject
Update on Daughter Barbara






Dear Praying Family,

We are coming up on a week since we left Calgary to be with our daughter Barbara and family as Barb continues her battle with cancer. The latest development being the appearance of a small tumour/lesion in the posterior frontal lobe of her brain which had begin to manifest itself in the form of seizures. She was in the hospital last week starting on Monday and being released on Wednesday evening. During that time she was placed on steroids to reduce the swelling around the lesion as well as being put on anti-seizure medication. She had one seizure last Thursday after coming home but none since, which indicates the steroids and anti-seizure medications are working.

Joan and I and Barb met with her oncologist at Cedar-Sinai Hospital here in Los Angeles on Monday. He is still in a definite treatment mode and has her scheduled for radiation treatment on the brain lesion on Friday, two days from now. This is a one hour "gamma-knife" treatment where the radiation is directly aimed at the lesion without doing any damage to surrounding tissue, although it will for a time cause some additional swelling. This procedure is done in conjunction with an MRI which gives the doctors a visual look at the direction of the radiation making sure it is pin-pointed precisely on the lesion. Please pray for Barb's physical and emotional preparation for this procedure and that it will be done carefully and with better than expected results. The effectiveness will not be known for three months when they do another MRI. This is a very new technology and procedure and not offered in many hospitals around the world. We are grateful that Cedar-Sinai has the equipment and the staff who are skilled in preforming the procedure. While modern medicine is wonderful it still has its risks. Barb and the whole extended family knows that ultimately all healing comes from God who declared in Psalms 103:2-3 " Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits - who forgives all of your sins and heals all your diseases." This is why your prayers are of the utmost importance because the Scriptures also declare in James 5:15-16 "And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven. Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man (person) is powerful and effective." Thanks for standing with us during these challenging days.

Once the radiation treatment is finished Barb is scheduled for a follow up colonoscopy, where the cancer originated, and will also be put back on chemo for three months for treatment of some small lesions in the liver and lungs that were showing some activity in her most recent CT-PET-MRI tests. While her blood cancer markers have continued to be in the normal range it is obvious that not all the cancer cells in her body have been eradicated so the cancer continues to show itself in various places in her body. Pray that the Lord will do a miracle in Barb's body allowing her immune system to take over and eliminate all cancer from her body.

Right now we are all living one day at a time and your prayers are a big part of God's sustaining grace in all of our lives. We will keep you updated on a regular basis.

Love & Prayers

Dave & Joan and for Barb and the whole family