6 p.m.

Thanks for checking in.

Irene experienced a BIZARRE morning.  Extreme DIZZINESS caused her to stumble from side to side as she got her day going.  It has never reached this degree of concern.  It eventually leveled out…and of course, she didn’t tell me until this evening after she had driven herself back and forth to dialysis.  She reported that by mid morning she was doing better and felt strong enough to drive.  Thankfully the dizziness is not present now.

She’s having a really rough afternoon on other fronts…reporting that her face seems more DRAINED than usual; the nausea RAGES…she’s trying to REST and RECOVER.

Hoping for a REBOUND as she tustles this evening.

Thanks for caring,
Dave

A New Year’s E V O L U T I O N…adjusting our lives to KNOWING HIM more deeply…to TRUSTing and OBEYing His Purposes.

Much of our difficulty as seeking Christians stems from our unwillingness to take God as He is and adjust our lives accordingly. We insist upon trying to modify Him and bring Him nearer to our own image.
A. W. Tozer

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!  In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade.

This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.  In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.

These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.

Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

1 Peter 3-9

R E M I S S I O N defined:

•  Abatement or subsiding of the symptoms of a disease

•  The period during which the symptoms of a disease abate or subside

GREAT news from UCSF: the Primary Amyloidosis remains in REMISSION.

Thanks for caring,
Dave

The very real EMOTIONS describing Irene’s Journey of Faith:

SURREAL defined: having the disorienting, hallucinatory quality of a dream; unreal.

DISORIENTED defined: to confuse by removing or obscuring something that has guided a person, group, or culture, as customs, moral standards, etc.

HALLUCINATTION defined: a false notion, belief, or impression; illusion; delusion.

DREAM defined: the general term for any such succession of images. A NIGHTMARE is a dream that brings fear or anxiety: frightened by a nightmare. VISION refers to a series of images of unusual vividness, clarity, order, and significance, sometimes seen in a dream.

UNREAL defined: imaginary; fanciful; illusory; delusory.

FACTS to BELIEVE on Irene’s Journey of Faith:

“…for everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith.  Who is it that overcomes the world?  Only the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.”1 John 5:4-5

Thanks for caring,
Dave

6.30 p.m.

Thanks for checking in…!!!

I’ve come up with a new but familiar name and/or theme for Irene:  “The Comeback Kid”

The surreal, up and down, YO YO type journey continues…

After feeling “mostly good” over the weekend she had another episode at dialysis today.  The pain was so intense that they disconnected her from the machine 30 minutes earlier than scheduled.  This evening she’s wrestling with the usual, intense, nausea…and has to return at 6.30 am tomorrow for what they hope to finish from today…2 more hours of dialysis treatment. Oh, gee, yay…

Thanks for caring,
Dave

10.30 a.m.

Despite the really encouraging report @ UCSF yesterday, Irene had a very rough dialysis treatment this morning.  The needle PAIN was outrageous.  The technicians released her 30 minutes early because the pain was intolerable.

The journey continues…thanks for caring,
Dave

Irene had a FANTASTIC day @ UCSF ....

We visited and prayed with Jack Cauwels who is hospitalized at this time.  Jack’s facing his ordeal with inspiring optimism, trust and faith in God…!!!  We were also able to share lunch with Phyllis, Jack’s wife, and their daughter, Karen Schuler.

Irene was later greatly encouraged by her Oncologist appointment, meeting with Doctors Lloyd Damon and Amy Moore.  We should receive the actual AMYLOID blood test results next week but they are confident that this hideous disease remains in remission!  They also believe that because of Irene’s experience to date she falls within a sub-set of patients whose life expectancy is perhaps a decade beyond the stem cell transplant which was in June of 2007.  This is an amazing news development; we are rejoicing…!!!

We continue to praise God for all of the professionals at UCSF who are giving of their lives…to save lives.

Thanks for caring,

Dave

Strength Through Adversity, by the late Ted Engstrom

Cripple a man, and you have Sir Walter Scott. Lock him in a prison cell, and you have John Bunyan.  Bury him in the snows of Valley Forge, and you have George Washington.  Raise him in abject poverty, and you have Abraham Lincoln.

Strike him down with infantile paralysis, and he becomes Franklin Delano Roosevelt.  Burn him so severely in a schoolhouse fire that doctors say he’ll never walk again, and you have Glenn Cunningham, who set the world record in 1934 by running a mile in four minutes and six seconds.

Call him a slow learner, retarded, write him off as unable to be educated, and you have Albert Einstein.  Have him or her born black in a society filled with racial discrimination, and you have Booker T. Washington, Harriet Tubman, Marian Anderson, George Washington Carver, and Martin Luther King.

We could add many others to that list. People like Corrie ten Boom, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, whose incarceration in a concentration camp or prison cell became their classroom.  Or Joni Eareckson Tada, whose wheelchair has become her platform for an amazing worldwide ministry. I could tell of others whose names you wouldn’t know, just as you could add names from your own life.  Each is proof of what Charles Spurgeon said: “The Lord gets His best soldiers out of the highlands of affliction.”

Remember - “in all things God works for good for those who love him.” But He does ask us to stay faithful and hopeful (“be thankful in all things”). 

For especially in the tough times He is building into us supernatural strength, wisdom and courage (as long as we do not abandon the Journey).

7.15 p.m.

Thanks for checking in…!!!

This evening I’m meditating upon these verses and reflecting upon Irene’s journey of faith. 

Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial because, having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him.

James 1:2-4, 12

Irene’s recovering from today’s dialysis treatment and, as is the usual routine, challenged by nausea this evening.  Hoping for a full recovery tomorrow…!!!

Thanks for caring.
Dave

8.30 p.m.

On THANKSGIVING Eve…......thanks for checking in.

The nausea is raging this evening, 8 on a 1-10 scale and Irene’s hoping for a full recovery to celebrate THANKSGIVING tomorrow. 

We’re grateful for all the support on this surreal journey.

God is Faithful.

Thanks for caring,
Dave