No nausea, lots of pain in its place

Dear Family and Friends,
First off a huge thank you to Sylvia for coming early and staying late, for her many successful attempts to encourage Nan to try frozen gatoraide, for being so faithful in her care of Nan and for taking on the corner lazy Susan in the kitchen. No one has ever dared go there before and its looks great tonight and now offers useful space. Wow! Thank you Sylvia for sharing your day with Nan.

Nan is having to cope with some pretty severe pains from the surgery, the tube passes through her skin, her muscle layer and then through the wall of the stomach itself. And all those layers have to heal and begin to feel better. Nan has had a pretty good day overall with some naps, some awake times, munched on a whole ice tray of frozen gator aide (what a good idea), munched on gummy worms to get the taste out and of course had ice chips.

The wound care nurse came to call and the delivery from Critical Care was made also. Plus the new modem for our switch from cable internet to dsl if we decide to go through with it. Our Comcast has become so unreliable, it takes little breaks in service all day long which play havoc with our attempts to connect and stay connected.

Because Sylvia came so early this morning I was able to be in Oakland by shortly after 10 am, did a duplex then another duplex, then drove to Richmond to do a review and then just 4 blocks away did a full appraisal. It was 4:30 when I finished and it was with pleasure I took a call from Nan to check up on my arrive home time. I dealt with traffic, took back roads and got home as quickly as I could. During the day I talked to Marilyn who is our Rhode Island friend and we confirmed her coming in on Sunday evening at around 8 pm to Sacramento. We are so much looking forward to her being with us and to catching up on what her kids are doing and how her life is going. Marilyn is a dear from from early ministry days in Sacramento Central and came to visit Nan every week while we were recovering in Boston. She treated us so well and helped out so much during our stay there.

We got word today that one of our main clients had their office closed today by the home office. Everyone is fired and of course no more orders will be coming our way. Our hearts go out to the people who work in the office. We are sure that God will send us the orders we need but we will miss their faithful checks every few days.

Nan slept all night last night and I did not come down until about 6:30. She asked when I was going to use the suction pump. It had arrived too late last night and I did not want to wake her. We figured out how to make it work and turned it on, at first nothing and then suddenly the tubes became alive with fluids and in seconds the canister was totally full. Nan warned me it was full. So I emptied it and came back and we got another 1/2 canister out. Syliva has faithfully used it every hour or two during the day and Nan has felt NO nausea at all. Pray the loving Lord for that.

As I drove today (in Nan's nice van) I kept thinking over our options. Somehow we need to find the source of the blockage and get it fixed, we need to find a way to deal with the tumors, need to access the new drug AMN107 and I'm no closer than I was to submitting all the paper work and CDs etc. Frankly I'm not sure how to collect all the stuff they need on the list and I'm not sure who to turn to for assistance.

I did take the 40 minutes on the cell while I was driving today to talk to the IRS and things worked out better than expected, still I need to finish up my prep work for the 2005 year redo and soon. Just one more thing for the agenda.

Today 6 of you took time to respond to the blog. In a minute I am going to print the messages out and read them to Nan. She is too ill to operate the computer and has not checked her email messages in many many days. So when I can I print things out and read them to her and she smiles or nods her head in response. She is touched by the many many kindnesses and expressions of love and support.

I am facing another minor storm over finances, seems there are more bills to cover than income to offset, yet we are thankful for having this kind of job where I can be with Nan for days at a time and give her the help she needs. Tonight I am just tired, worn out and working to maintain a smile for Nan, she needs to see that. I just pray for relief in the blockage, for tumor control and for recovery.... broken record I know but its our reality. I met such nice people today at the properties I appraised, they are all praying for Nan and one nice guy sent home a bottle of water from a faith healer, Leroy Jenkins. I got to see him preach and heal once in Ohio with my sister Sibyl and this gentleman sent the bottle of water home saying it has God's anointing on it. What a sweet thought.

Sending our love to each of you,

tim and nan