Immediate Prayer Request and Travel Plans

We are writing to let you all know of an immediate prayer request. Ruthie, Joel’s mom, will be having surgery tomorrow at 10:15 a.m. EST to remove a malignant tumor that is on her third vertebrae of her spinal cord. The tumor is called a chordoma and is a rather rare form that has more than likely been growing in the back of her neck since she was an infant. Recently, for some reason, it has been growing much more rapidly and has been causing problems for her and thus why she started getting checked out by doctors. A recent MRI and subsequent biopsy revealed the findings and the surgery was scheduled immediately.

The biggest prayer request is for the surgery. It is a very dangerous and complicated surgery mainly because of the location of the tumor which is in the back of her neck in between many nerves and blood vessels. The surgery can last anywhere from 5 – 8 hours. There are small possibilities that the surgery could result in paralyzation, mutism (inability to talk), and other less tragic side effects. Please pray for strength, wisdom and precision of hand of the surgeon and those attending to Ruthie.

But in addition to this prayer request, please pray for the recovery. After a very complicated surgery like this, the recovery is quite difficult. It will be even more difficult than what it was for Earl’s open heart surgery. Ruthie will probably be on a ventilator for 2-3 days and a feeding tube for 2-2.5 weeks. She’ll more than likely be in the hospital for a couple of weeks.

Because of the difficulty of the surgery and the recovery process, we have decided to travel to help my parents with everything. We’ll be flying out this coming Monday, the 16th, and returning Sunday, May 29th. We decided to wait until Monday for a couple of reasons. I (Joel) have a very important meeting on Friday for the Camp that I really can’t miss. And it is the way it worked out with our tickets. We were blessed to basically have all of our tickets paid for completely through vouchers we acquired through American Airlines by “volunteering” to stay an extra night in Miami on our original trip down here. We haven’t been sure what exactly we were going to use these tickets for, but now we know what God had in store for them. We wouldn’t be making the trip without them.

We learned that with everything that was going on with Earl that it proves invaluable to have a medical professional in the family to help with the care and understanding of everything that is going on so we are very much blessed that Kim will be able to be there for this recovery process. We both are looking forward to help take care of mom and dad in the hospital and as they transition home. We want to help Ruthie recover from this as quickly as possible as they are waiting for all this to occur before scheduling Earl’s hip replacement that he is needing very badly.

Below is a picture of Ruthie with Simeon. Your prayers are very much cherished in this time.