Bake Sale for Susie Q!

Hi friends and family,

My mom's dear friends at the surgery center where she works are hosting a bake sale to raise money for her and to promote Melanoma Awareness. Please feel free to stop by! Here are the details...

You're invited to: A Bake Sale!
When: 8am to 3pm on Wed. March 4,2009
Why: All proceeds being donated to the McCracken family. There will also be info on hand about melanoma.
Where: Carmel Ambulatory Surgery Center
13421 Old Meridian
Carmel, IN. 46032
We have lots of baked goods coming, we just need people to buy them!

I don't have time to give an update right now, but my mom's spirits are really good. We are awaiting the second half of treatment for the week, which will still require hospitalization, and should start in the next couple days. We are hoping that she will be able to come home for a little while after recovery from the treatment.

Please continue to pray for us. It has been such a roller coaster of emotion the last couple weeks. Though I was encouraged when I read a posting on our friends, The Fogleman's, blog that when we're wondering WHY this is happening, that's when we really do have to walk by faith as God tells us to do. If he told us why this was happening, we would be walking by sight and not by faith. So we continue to trust in the Lords unfailing love for us and pray that He will draw us so much closer to Himself as we continue to walk this road...by faith.

We love and the thank God for you all so much. Hope to see you at the bake sale next Wednesday!

Molly

Pressing On

Well, here's the latest. Q's liver seems to be fairly stable again with the bleeding stopped. A few days ago, however, it was discovered that she had fluid in her lungs and they drained them off and found no cancer cells in the fluid...that's good news. Most of the pain in her upper body places is gone now. The newest problem is that Q has a couple of blood clots in her legs (due to eliminating the blood thinning drugs so her liver would stop bleeding). Her swollen legs are pretty sore and they have put her back on blood thinning meds at a reduced dose to try to get rid of the clots.

Susie is really doing a remarkable job of dealing with all of this stuff, but admittedly, the delays and new problems that have been happening is pretty tough on her because she wants to get started with the chemotherapy that was supposed to start a week and a half ago.
On the up side the doctor said she will probably begin chemo tomorrow (Thursday). He is going to start with what would have been her outpatient treatments, but will keep her in the hospital to keep an eye on her.
So...here we go.

Please pray for things to go well with all of this.
- For Susie - healing (even miraculous healing); peace; sensing the love of God and His very real presence with her
- For the girls & Josh- comfort; the encouragement of the Lord; peace in their hearts
- For me - wisdom (Lord, show me what to do in all this); strength (Lord, help me do it)

We are constantly blown away by all of the continuing love, words of caring, acts of kindness and prayers of all of you. We are so blessed by it all.

Thank you from our hearts,
-Scott

Status Report

As of this post Susie is still in the St. Vincent oncology ward resting and trying to get healed up from the bleeding in her liver. Morphine has been her friend for the pain, but it leaves her with a mind and memory that is less than the finely-tuned machine that it normally has been. We are still primarily dealing with trying to manage pain in her abdomen area and allowing the liver to heal since she has gone off the anti-coagulant meds she had been taking prior to this episode. The filter in her vein seems to be doing its job of keeping out any dangerous blood clots to her lungs.

Apparently, some mis-information was propagated that led people to believe that Susie's condition was more dire than it really was this week. I don't want to minimize the seriousness of Q's condition, she IS in the cancer ward of a hospital being treated for internal bleeding, but no, the McCracken family has NOT been saying their "good-byes" to Susie. A word from a parent to parents: Beware of the "telephone game" scenario that can happen in our children's world of texting and Facebook.

The chemotherapy regimen that was scheduled for this week will remain on hold until Susie is in a better place physically. I don't have a guess on when that will be.

An aside:
I have stumbled upon a song/version of a classic hymn through which God has really touched me. Amy Grant's album: Legacy...Hymns and Faith has a cut entitled Fields of Plenty which includes her version of Be Still My Soul which I highly recommend for his children who are walking in deep places. I don't know if you can wear out an mp3 file, but I'll probably find out on this one.

"Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God which transends all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." Philippians 4: 6-7

Love,
Scott

Another Hospital Visit

So late last night, my mom started experiencing sharp shoulder pain.  A few hours later it had traveled to her side.  My dad took her to the ER around 5:30 this morning where they waiting until after noon to hear the results of a CT scan.  We found out that the cancer on her liver has started bleeding due to her blood-thinning medicine mostly.  The good news is that instead of waiting until tomorrow, they were able to put a  "metal basket-like thing" in an artery in her groin area to trap future blood clots so that she can be off of the blood thinner.  She is sleeping in the hospital tonight and we hope will be released tomorrow.  Please be in prayer that this new "basket" will work and that she will still be able to take her chemo treatment which will start Monday.  This is the first FULL week of treatment (Monday through Wednesday she'll have out patient chemo then Thursday through Sunday she'll be in the hospital having more treatments).  Please continue your prayers that the treatments will be successful and a continued renewal of energy for Mom.  Maybe we could have a complication-free week??  Probably not. :)

We love you all!

Molly and fam