Waiting

Just to let you all know....
We are still waiting for Toronto to call with the date for surgery or even if they'll definitely do it. We know that they have my information but because the secretary is on holidays we won't hear anything until Jan. 2nd atleast.
Just so you know
Ramona

Well, I'm just sitting around on a Saturday evening and watching Mony clean the house. Give me some credit, atleast I admit it. Anyway, just another note that we appreciate the encouragement and prayers that come from the people that read this blog. We still haven't heard anything from Toronto, which, I guess, is not that big of a suprise. I talked to Joanna on the phone today, it sounds like she has done all the research about the hospital and accomodations out there and those kind of things (for those of you who don't know me, I'm pretty bad at researching)....oh ya...i had mentioned earlier that we were concerned that Ramona's arm was tingling again (the same as when the tumor was big)...we still sometimes wonder what is going on in there...in case people forgot Ramona still has a wound in her armpit from her biopsy in July (looks like a .5 inch long slit)...anyway....I was changing the dressing the other day...and it looked like there was a lot of puss there so i irrigated the wound (stuck a plastic needle into her body and squirted saline into the wound...as i squirted...out gooshed a clump of something...it was like like a tubular 1.25 inch long/.5 inch diameter blob of scrambled eggs covered with vanilla pudding and a hint of dijon mustard (and a neat looking blood vessel or something in there)...it was kind of rubbery...might be dead tumor i guess...anyway...have a good night...earl

Now that we're finally home from our day in Winnipeg, here is the the news. Within the next few days Dr. Wong will send Ramona's CT results to Toronto to be looked at by the surgeons there. This does not guarantee surgery, but as Dr. Wong said, "it's the best possible Christmas gift I could give you". This is all likely to take place in early January. Thank you all incredibly for praying...it's time to head to bed...(the CT report is right in front of me...for those of you who like details there are many more...)
Goodnight (woo hoo),
Earl

Friday morning...about 10 a.m....I phoned Kathy, Dr. Wong's nurse...i got the answering machine...my message went something like this..."we are concerned about Ramona's tumor and are feeling impatient...Ramona has a tingling feeling in her arm like when her tumors were bigger..." ....ten minutes later...Kathy calls me during coffee break..."the CT results are right in front of me...the tumors shrunk...come meet with dr. wong on monday at 11:45 a.m...." needless to say i was absolutely blown away and shrieked (i guess you can ask my co-workers, i'm sure it was more of a manly grunt of joy) in delight and booked it in my little Neon as fast as i could to go tell Mony (she was volunteering at school)........a day later now...it is still encouraging to have good results (although we don't know the details of how good they are)...Ramona's arm still feels like it used to which makes us wonder what's going on with that tumor...we pray we can be in Toronto ASAP...
Learning to trust the God of miracles,
Earl

Tomorrow is the big day! Part of me tries to block it out and yet really I have quite a lot of peace. Somehow I really think that my CT will show that my tumors have shrunk significantly again. I remember the last time that I had a CT, I was lying on the stretcher praying like crazy that it would show good things. And sure enough that test showed that my tumors were responding to the chemo. That was 3 rounds of chemo ago and I'm really hoping for the same result. I have to be in Selkirk by 9:00 but my scan is only at 10:30.
So many are praying and I firmly believe that God is so capable of doing whatever He chooses with that test. Thank you for joining Earl & I in praying.
Just a little side note: Last week I got super excited because my eyebrows are growing back. This week I noticed that my eyelashes were also coming. No they were never all completely gone, but pretty close. My head hair....well I'm getting pretty impatient. I've got more 'fuzz' than I used to but I'm not sure you can call it hair. It's white and the current discussion is if I'm going to have blonde hair or if it'll be brown like before. :) Yesterday in the mall I took off my toque for awhile and Becki, (my sister) did a lookout to see how many people would stare. It doesn't bother me as much as it used to so it really was quite funny.