a difficult day - update as of 11pm

first of all - thank you to anyone and everyone who prayed for julie today. i don't have the words to express how much it means.

after julie got out of 8 1/2 hours of surgery tonight they moved her to recovery. after they administered some pain medication she stopped breathing and coded in recovery. they were able to bring her back and she is stable now and resting in the ICU. it was a very difficult and frightening experience for all of us, most especially gerald. thank you to all who responded to the urgent request for prayer.

now here are the results of the surgery. as most of you know, the doctor did exploratory surgery to remove the 2 tumors showing up on the PET scan and any others that were in there. when he opened her up he found hundreds of small tumors all throughout her entire abdomen. many were in the fatty tissue around her belly, and many others were in the lining that holds the intestines and other organs inside. the rest were scattered throughout. he surgically removed many and cauterized others. in the end he was able to get rid of every tumor with the exception of one larger inoperable tumor. they will use radiation to shrink this one, and chemo to prevent the growth of any others. we were told before the surgery that they would biopsy the tumors and send off to grow and then test multiple types of chemo to see which kind they respond to best. and by best i mean which medicine will destroy them most effectively. we will know more after talking to the surgeon and the oncologist over the next few days. and of course i will keep you posted on anything we find out.

julie is groggy right now, but alive. the gracious God we serve has continued to breathe life into this magnificent woman and i pray he continues that because i came as close tonight as i ever want to losing julie. she means so very much to me, and to so many of you. and of course to her husband gerald. the terror we faced not knowing what was to happen paralyzed all of us for about 45 mins- but through the prayers of those sitting at CTCA and the rest of you out there, Christ heard us and responded and she is with us still tonight. i thank you so much. and i will blog more tomorrow from the hospital.

in Christ - tobra