July 17, 2007 - The Phone Call

One of the interesting things about climbing up a mountain is how each time you think you have reached the peak, you arrive at the top only to find another peak waiting for you (sometimes laughing at you I think). That is where we are right now. With every step we take on this journey, we keep thinking we have finally reached the top. In this case, we agonized over surgery, but we made the choice, Keira went in for the operation, and everything went very well. However, we wanted this to be the end. We truly hoped this would be the end. When they were only able to get a biopsy, we hoped that the tissue sample would show that the tumor was dead. We reached a peak and simply wanted more than anything for Keira to be done, to be healed, to be finished, to not have to go to anymore doctors, not have to get poked or stuck anymore, not have to have anymore more surgery, and maybe more than anything, we just wanted an answer. Though it has only been a few months, it seems like an eternity.

Well, we got the results finally, and there is another peak. It is not over as we so wanted it to be. The doctor told us that the results were a mixed bag. Some of the tumer is dead, and some is not. How is that for not having an answer? At the top of this peak, there is another one we have to climb. So, with our eyes locked firmly on that next peak, we are putting one foot in front of the other and marching our way on.

Here is what is happening: We are going to wait. We are going to do nothing. No chemo. No surgery. The doctors unanimously feel that the next best step is to wait. They believe there is a good chance that the tumor will shrink on its own. Instead of subjecting Keira to more chemo or more surgery when there is a chance that neither one will be necessary, they have decided to wait it out and see if the tumor will continue to shrink on its own. At the end of the month or the beginning of the next, we will rescan her. If the tumor has shrunk (please God) we will continue to monitor her, and she will not have to go through more chemo or surgery right now. If the tumor has grown, we will march right back into the fight guns blaring!

So we wait and believe and hope and trust.

Trust is a hard thing. Nothing is more precious to us than our daughter and yet there is nothing we can do for her, but leave her in the hands of the doctors and more importantly in the hands of God. But it is still hard. To trust God with the small things seems so much easier. To trust God with our daughter is a true test. But we must trust Him. He is our hope. He is her hope. He is our strength and our redeemer and the rock on which we stand. Amen.

Jason, Erin & Keira Grace