Post-surgery

Andrew is doing well. They finished Andrew's surgery at 3am. They left a quarter of his tongue and didn't have to remove his jaw bone. The doctor believes he was able to get the tumors out.

He is remarkably alert for someone who's practically been hit by a truck. Most people are not this alert for a few days. He can't talk because of the trache tube they put in his throat for the next week.

When I first entered his room this morning, he winked his eyes at me. I said, "You want your glasses?" He nodded yes. When we had to end our visit while the nurses worked on him, he gave his father the most grateful look after Dad read some Bible verses to him. And then he pursed his lips to me like a kiss as I waved goodbye to him and he had a happy look for a moment. I felt so much more encouraged after that. It was like I had my Andrew back and we could communicate with small gestures like that. He also can write notes.

Please pray for miraculous healing and recovery.

Never has the gravity of cancer in our lives been so real to me. I think I could spout all the facts of what the doctors told us these past two cancer bouts because I was always just floating. When I would tell people at church what was going on with Andrew's cancer, they always looked so horrified and worried. I said that I must not realize the gravity of the situation the way people looking on did. Well, now I know.

Most people will never have to go through the horrors I did for just a few minutes while Andrew was in surgery. Few people will have to make a decision in a few minutes where their husband's life feels like it is solely in one's own hands, while he is sleeping. Describing it to you would never make you know what the suffering is. One could never know the difficulty of fearing for your husband's life in a real way unless they actually experience it. I hope you never do. I nearly fainted, and I felt like if I did, I would never revive. But the Lord rescued me. I never imagined misery like that, and I only experienced it for a few minutes, and now know it is only the tip of an iceberg of what misery it could be. So for now, I do not even want you to have to hear what it is like.

Instead, I would rather think about happier things. I thought I might share with you from a "joint journal" I started when Andrew and I were dating less than five hears ago. It was for writing notes to each other in it, verses that were impactful to us, and recording ways God was working in our lives. We lost track of it, though, once I got pregnant with Gracie, but I finally found it after our most recent move in January.

This is a passage I wrote after three months of marriage when Andrew was on a business trip in San Antonio. With the exception of two three-hour periods, we had literally been inseparable since we were married until two weeks prior to that, because Andrew had not started working and we traveled that whole time. Suddenly being apart for an entire week, it was like we had separation anxiety. Andrew immediately got a cold and I felt fear wherever I went (I'm not even sure exactly what I was afraid of.) I read this to him just now and it seemed to encourage

Wednesday, April 14, 2004 

When we were engaged, I knew that most of my love for you, as powerful and as compelling-to-do-anything-to-be-with-you as it was, was more like infatuation. I knew that solid love could only come with the commitment and abandonment of one's self to "oneness," to marriage, and nothing less.

The day after we were married, I felt as if I were a new person - and we were. I loved you in a whole new, almost tangible way. And now, after three months, my love for you cannot even compare with the love I had for you before. And I loved you pre-marriage. I loved you probably from before we hardly knew each other. I loved you as if my gut was attached to you and you held my lungs in your hands. Now, you are my lungs. And I am your lungs.

Clearly, the Lord wants to teach us something this week, as we are both struggling with tremendous fear.

Bless the Lord, oh my soul
and all that is within me.
Bless His holy name.
Bless the Lord, oh my soul,
and forget none of His benefits.
who pardons all your iniquities,
who heals all your diseass,
who redeems your soul from the pit,
who crowns you with lovingkindness
and tender mercies.
- psalm 103:1-4

The Lord has made you my husband. I love you because I love Him.

Dear Father, I pray You would strengthen Andrew tomorrow with Your Holy Spirit. Grow his view of You that his view of people might shrink. Help him to truly fear You that he would not fear men. Help him to truly love the people he is with, so that rather than fear them and be timid, he might minister to them. Help him to be a light, brightly shining before them. Dear Father, help him to put You on display. Please also allow him to learn a lot and make him into an excellent engineer for Your glory. We praise You, Father, for being all-sufficient, and that when we are weak, then we are strong as we depend on You. Help us to depend upon You and not ourselves tomorrow. Sustain and strengthen us. Protect us from evil, temptation, or mishaps. Help us to love you first. We love You, Father. In Jesus name, Amen.

Please pray:

- Complete healing. That he would be as good as new and that he would be completely cancer-free

- that we would believe and trust that God is faithful and good no matter what. Pray I can be an encouragement to Andrew.

- that all of the skin grafts would continue to work successfully