Cindy's birthday visit from Lillian

Well, it’s been a week and a half since I last wrote. I keep holding off because Cindy wants to do it herself but never can get around to it. So I will again take the risk of updating it myself.

The major events since the last entry:

We were blessed by a visit from old Dartmouth friends Greg and Lillian Lennox and their son Chris last week. Lillian and Cindy were each other’s maid of honor and have remained best of friends all these years. Amazing! Greg and I were roommates at the famous “71” for half a year prior to their wedding. Lillian really lifted Cindy’s (and all of our) spirits – thanks so much for extending your visit, what a gift! She arrived last week just in time to spend a day with Cindy at the hospital receiving another couple of pints of blood. Tears were shed when Lillian left yesterday.

Cindy celebrated her 54th birthday on Sunday. Her overriding desire was to make it to church to worship with our church family, and she did it! The whole church spent quite a bit of time after worship praying for her – I cannot express what a blessing that was! This is the only outing that she has had in the past two months other than chemo/hospital visits.

She started with round 4 of cisplatin/5FU yesterday. She spoke with her mom this morning. She also sat up and actually read her own email (it may not sound like much, but that was a pretty big deal). She had some fruit and cottage cheese as well. There was less bilirubin in her urine today. Swelling in her lower extremities went down some today as well. The swelling has been painful and has made it difficult for her to fit into her normal clothes.

She is due for a CT scan next week to evaluate her progress.

Prayer requests:

Frankly, we have not seen much positive change from the chemo thus far (stamina, energy, acuity, etc). Please pray that it will start to do something. Of course, join with us in praying for God to heal her when we know that the chemo cannot. Pray with us that the chemo will not debilitate her further.

Please pray for decreased swelling, improved nutrition, mental status, pain management, courage, strength, hope, peace. These are all big ones.

The rest of us keep chugging along. Our house has never been cleaner (thanks, Lillian)! We are grateful for every moment we get to share with Cindy. Your support has been so wonderful. I can’t respond personally to all the notes, emails, and blog entries, but please know that they do lift our spirits a lot! Thank you so much. God is good!

Love, Bob