Nap Time And Such

As I wake up from my nap....Thank you God for the sun, moon, and stars. For the birth of a new born. God I thank you for a warm place to curl up for a nap and for the pillow which cushioned my head. For the joy in my soul and the peace in my body. I praise you God for the work I have.

Mom and dad were in the city today and still might be here. I can't get a hold of them. Earlier today I phoned their cell and talked with mom for a bit but their cell lost signal. She had said that they were admitting dad for the start of the last round of chemo. Only thing is, they didn't pack anything for dad because his counts spiked up from yesterday (and there is usally a wait for a bed). So he is withought his meds, clothes, and such. Anyway, pray for strength for dad as he will probably start chemo tomorrow (if he hasn't already done some today). Pray for mom as she travels back and forth and takes care of absolutely EVERYONE. She is amazing!

First Step

Praise God that dad did not experience any pain after this last GCSF injection! This has never happened before! Usually the pain is too much to bare. This morning dad and mom are at the cancer clinic in the city (@ RUH). This is the first step in the dreaded stem cell procedure. They are going to test dad's blood and see if he has enough stem cells to harvest. The next step would be to harvest them. That will start either today or tomorrow if he has enough.

TAKE IT TO GOD:
*Please continue to pray for dad as the stem cell procedure progresses. God's will be done.
*The most aggressive chemo is yet to come. We need God to comfort us as a family.
*Mom will be driving dad in and out of the city today, tomorrow, and Wednesday. She doesn't like driving to begin with. Pray for strength for mom in this and safety for the both of them.

We love and appreciate you all. This past year would have been so much more difficult without you standing behind us! Thank you.

Exhaustion and Infection

There is a virus making its rounds. The Norwalk virus. I don't know much about it and I don't have time to google it. It has shut down the Royal University Hospital in Saskatoon to visitors and has now made it's way to Battleford's Union Hospital. Dad has come into contact with it during his three and a half hour wait for blood test results that he never ended up getting at BUH. Dad's body is in no state to fight it off if he were to "catch it." He has has no symptoms so far and this encounter was yesterday. Please pray against this and the different infection they already suspect dad has. Mom is also exhausted to say the least.

Dad starts his stem cell harvest on Monday. Hopefully it will work out for him to stay in Saskatoon instead of mom driving him back and forth Mon, Tues, Wed. Please commit all these things to our Lord in prayer. Thanks.

On The Rise

Dad had a fever yesterday and almost had to come into RUH, but we prayed his fever down and he's doing alright now. He went into Battleford's Union Hosp. today to get some blood work done, he might have another infection. Mom was going to phone and update me but I worked until late tonight and I didn't hear from her before work. Hope all is well with everyone that reads my blog.

God contiues to supply my daily needs. It is a profound thought for me each day when I think of what God has done for me in my life. A few years ago I asked God to bring me to a point where I would have to rely on him for all of my needs--and He has. It's been a tough year struggling through different things but my trust is placed in God and God alone. Nothing else in life will do! And God is faithful, he has supplied me with everything I need each day. He has given me so much! My family and I are so blessed! I look forward to what God has in store for me each day! He will never cease to amaze me with his blessing and provision for each and every problem or situation that I face each day. As G.K. Chesterton put it, "here dies another day, during which I have had eyes, ears, hands, and the great world round me. And with tomorrow begins another. Why am I allowed two?" May God bless you today and continue to supply all your needs!

The Usual Talk

I talked with dad today. He's a little on the weak side, regaining his strength after the three days of chemo last week. He started GCSF injections today to build his system back up again. But he is expecting considerable pain to come along with it so pray for him about that. We talked about usual things like dvd writers, HDTV, Al Gore's documentary ("An Inconvenient Truth), and the relentlessness of Time Warner, MGM, and Paramount to shut down the perfectly legal act of downloading TV shows off the internet. Anyway, if you have a spare hour and fourty minutes you should definately watch "An Inconvenient Truth" (AIT) I have always been a skeptic of people who claim global warming is going to change the face of the earth but Al Gore has presented some undeniable facts. Watching AIT has caused me to seriously consider my own consumption of resources. There are many changes that can easily occur in my everyday use of non-renewable resources. The decision is mine; and the decision is yours.

Dad's New Friend Ralph

Dad's having a rough go at chemo this week. Pray for strength and the nasea to subside.

This Just In From Dad

"Well, the final phase of my second round of chemotherapy is upon me. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday (January 15-17) I go to the Saskatoon Cancer Clinic at 8:00 am for chemo. Two of those days will be an all day thing ... not that they are giving me a lot but just administering it in small amounts over a whole day. (Makes it easier on my body). I should mention that a CT scan done before Christmas showed no sign of the tumour in the lymph nodes or spot on my lungs. So in this final phase they are after what may be there but not capable of detection.

The chemo will lower my blood counts which makes me very susceptible to infections/disease. So they will administer what is called GCSF the following week which stimulates the bone to rapidly produce white blood cells to get my counts back up quickly. This has always resulted in excruciating pain for me. Last time just before Christmas I had to go to Battleford's hospital emergency to get some morphine to deal with the pain. Basically, it took the edge off the pain but it was still bad enough to keep me awake for a good part of that evening. Hopefully they can find something to deal with this problem this time.

On January 30th and possibly the 31st they will do a stem cell harvest. This will take the better part of the day and is similar to dialysis. The stem cells are collected from the blood, counted and analyzed for viability and the good ones are packaged and frozen for later transfusion. The next step after this is hospitalization. Further chemo is administered after which the collected stem cells are infused back into my body (like a blood transfusion). These stem cells then go about repairing the damage done to good cells by the chemo.

My hospital stay will involve at least two weeks and possibly as long as four depending on how quickly my body recovers from this final bout of chemo. The end result is, hopefully, that the cancer will have been completely eradicated from my body. While we have always had good hospital care and good, emphathetic care from our physicians and nurses (which is amazing because they are so very busy with many, many patients), yet our hope is not in what man can do but what God will do to give the "increase" that only He can give. Ps. 20:7 was given to me at the start of this whole process one year ago: "Some trust in horses, some trust in chariots, but we will trust in the Lord our God." We are very grateful for all that our doctors have been able to do for us as we see this as God's provision and we continue to look to Him for His healing touch, making up whatever is needed so that my health can be completely restored.

As you can well imagine, after a year I am "chompin' at the bit" ... longing to get back into church ministry. It's been so long and I have many sermons created during my time "off" that I would like to share. We appreciate your prayers as we go through this final phase and are very grateful for your ministry in this way. It is such a blessing and we know that it makes a difference in terms of the final outcome that is experienced. God bless each of you and thank you for your interest in our progress."

- Lyle

Blizzard!

The "Blizzard of the Century" just passed through Saskatoon yesterday and early this morning. With 90 km/h winds and just about 10 inches of snow, thousands of people were stranded either at work, school, on the road, in the airport, or elsewhere (besides home). I heard about some people that had to sleep at Wal-Mart and Costco. Christy was almost stuck at school as her car was burried in a snow drift. Her roomate came to the resuce and they were able to make it home (somehow). She said a guy in a 4x4 truck pulled her over and told her to follow him, so she followed him along a short-cut through the city and made in home within an hour or so. Meanwhile traffic was backed up so much that people were waiting 4 or 5 hours just to get home (within the city!). The visible realities of the storm were evident this morning as I passed cars and trucks in the ditch or out of gas on the side of the road.

I went to work at noon yesterday despite barely making it due to zero visibility. The drive was enjoyable though, I love driving in "horrible" weather. People were hitting the ditch, each other, and anything the slippery roads led their vehicles to impact, left, right and center. But I kept on plugging along, for the simple fact that if I slowed down I would inevitably get stuck in the snow drifts. Only being a few minutes late for my support time was an achievement in itself. I suppose it only took me 20 minutes to travel that distance. Through the course of my shift, I was informed that nobody was going to be able to make their shifts at the house until the next day. And so I ended up supporting our clients for 20 hours! All in all it was a relaxing and quiet time together and I managed to get 6 hours sleep. This morning coming home took over an hour because my truck was stalling every time I slowed down enough (I believe the CO2 sensor is shot). When I got home there was nowhere to park so I left my truck in the middle of the road and shovelled a spot (our street isn't busy--this is also why the city only plows our road a couple times each winter, apparently!). Oh, well! Praise God my family and friends are all safe!

Dad is coming into the city next week and will probably be staying all week either at my house or Christy's. He has some treatments and needs to be in the city in case he needs extra care that is not available in North Battleford. Anyway, happy shovelling across the country!

Update coming soon....

Seeing mom and dad tomorrow....will update after that.

Work And All That Jazz...

I made rice crispy squares for my first time today. They turned out pretty good. I started my new job on Monday. It's great, I really like the people. I'm a support worker for two guys, with disabilities, that live in their own home. They need someone to help them make decisions, take them places, just hang out, and some basic cooking/cleaning. The two guys are really fun to work with and do things with. I also still have a casual job mentoring a young boy. And come spring-time my business will be up and running again. Everything seems to be set. I just want to praise God for working it all out despite my doubts.

Dad is doing fine. Him and mom come into the city early next week for some tests.