Prayer/positive energy request

[DreamfulSpirit]

My mom is having part of her colon removed today...the part that has the cancer in it. We'll be leaving for the hospital in a few minutes. I know she will be fine, but we can always use thoughts and prayers no matter what!

[barbino]

Prayers for the last 3 requests.

[AGDee]

Prayers for Kathy and Mom DS.

DS: I had a pretty large portion of my colon (and several feet of small intestine too) removed in 2003 and am doing pretty darn good.

[SWTXBelle]

My husband and sons were in a car accident. My husband was trapped - side air bag went off, thank God. Boys were hysterical, but seem to be okay. And I know that's what is important . . . but his car is totaled. His 9 year old, high mileage car with the $1,000 deductible, so we'll get nothing for it. I am praying mightily for transportation for him before the new semester starts. He has some adjunct classes - good news after his job loss - but has to be able to get to the college.

[christiangirl]

HUGE prayers for your family, Belle. You guys have been through so much in such a short amout of time. There HAS to be something good for you around the corner.

[lovespink88]

^^^ Agreed. Prayers for your family.

[Tulip86]

You and your family are in my thoughts, I hope everyone is ok!

[clarinette]

Prayers for you and your family, SWTXBelle!

My school and I need lots of prayers. A friend of mine, who was a member of my school's chapter of Phi Mu Alpha was killed in action in Afghanistan recently. Please keep his family, his brothers, and his friends in your prayers.

[barbino]

Prayers for SWTXBelle and clarinette.

[DreamfulSpirit]

Posting an update on my mom. Her surgery was a week ago, and it went well! They ended up having to take out more of her colon than expected because of the area the cancer was in. She's been home all of this week recovering, but is still sore.

During the surgery they removed 17 lymph nodes, and they found cancer in 1 of them. My mom has been classified as stage 3 and will more than likely be doing chemo for 6 months and lose her hair. However, the oncologist said this morning that since she just had her surgery, they may have to wait a month or two to start the chemo.

I'm still very confident that she will become a survivor through all of this. I work for a very big, national non-profit speciailzing in research of cancer and services/resources for cancer patients. I started working for them in March of last year, and I truly know why I was meant to work here. I have learned so much that I can now use to help my mom.

I want to thank everyone for their thoughts and prayers and hope they continue through this process.

[christiangirl]

That's so great, Dreamful!! Praying for a full recovery for your mom. She sounds like a strong woman.

My surgery is tomorrow and I can hardly wait. I have been feeling so icky for so long and I'm relieved that this (hopefully) will be the end of it. Even though I'm nervous, I'm grateful that it wasn't any worse than this.

[AGDee]

Originally Posted by christiangirl

That's so great, Dreamful!! Praying for a full recovery for your mom. She sounds like a strong woman.

My surgery is tomorrow and I can hardly wait. I have been feeling so icky for so long and I'm relieved that this (hopefully) will be the end of it. Even though I'm nervous, I'm grateful that it wasn't any worse than this.

I'm also keeping Dreamful's mom in my prayers.

G is doing well. I talked to her for a while yesterday and she is handling the chemo well. She's not getting nauseous from it anymore. I don't remember the exact topic the group was talking about at one point, but she said "I would not pull the cancer card.. that's just wrong." What a sweet kid.

I hope you're doing well christiangirl and am keeping you in my prayers also.

And, I'm adding another of my daughter's friends to the prayer list here. "A" has been having seizures since October and with frightening frequency. We didn't realize the first incident was a seizure because nobody really saw it happen. They were warming up for band before a football game and she "passed out" according the kids around her. She just fell over. She got back up, was dazed for a minute and then performed the pre-game show. After the pre-game show, she said she wasn't feeling well and the band director asked my daughter to take A to the band room and call her mom to come and get her. My daughter realized she forgot her phone while they were walking to the band room and sat A down in our car and ran back to get her phone. When she got back to A, A was in a daze, not really responsive. hypoallergenic called me in the stands, I grabbed one of the band staff (a phys ed teacher who I knew was first aid certified from Boy Scouts) and we went to my car to check her out. She couldn't really move her limbs and was disoriented. Mom was called and local police who were at the entrance of the game were notified. The police called some paramedics over, ambulance was called, mom arrived and the young lady went to the hospital in the ambulance. They determined it was a combination of a sinus infection, anemia and dehydration and sent her home. None of us realized it was postictal state (post seizure recovery) because she hadn't had a seizure before and it wasn't on our radar.

A couple weeks later, A had a seizure in school and since people saw it happen, they knew what was going on. She's been through a host of tests and has been diagnosed with epilepsy and started on meds. However, Friday she had 3 seizures and yesterday, during their solo & ensemble clarinet quartet competition, she seized, about 30 seconds into the performance. Thankfully, her mom was there (her mom never used to attend any band events). She was playing and made a mistake and then made this face that looked like "I can't believe I did that" at first. Then her eyes started to change, I glanced at mom and she and I got up at the same time to get to her. The girls stopped playing, I took A's instrument while her mom "spotted" her to make sure she wouldn't fall out of her chair and I told the music judges "She's having a seizure". The judges weren't quite sure what to do and everybody just sat there. There were about 14 spectators with parents, siblings and other kids from their band. Nobody was sure how to handle the situation. They said the girls could perform again later in the day if they wanted, but mom said that A probably wouldn't be able to perform for a few hours. The judge said "I heard enough to know that they are really good." A's mom encouraged the other girls to continue without the bass clarinet and the judge kept saying "Are you sure?" I could tell hypoallergenic was trying not to cry... because she is very worried about A. Anyway, the judge ended up having them play because A wasn't ready to be moved yet. At the end, she said she could tell from the beginning that the bass clarinet had excellent tone and she was sorry she couldn't hear more of it but she'd heard enough to judge them. They received a 1 rating and will advance to the state competition.

These kids are going through a lot this year. In this band, this year alone we have had: one appendicitis at band camp leading to emergency surgery, a major allergic reaction to something at band camp leading to an ER visit, two kids diagnosed with seizures (one is photosensitive seizures, the other, A- no idea what the trigger is or if there is anything specific), G with cancer, two kids have had pneumonia and hypoallergenic went to ER twice with her asthma issues directly from football games (including the one where A left in the ambulance). The kids were nervously joking about being the disabled band and listing all these events this year. It's freaking all of us out, I think. What is up with the band kids having so many health issues this year?

[christiangirl]

Originally Posted by AGDee

I hope you're doing well christiangirl and am keeping you in my prayers also.

Thanks, Dee! Big prayers for "A" and Sen!

The whole weekend has been a highly medicated blur but I am up and about now. The surgery was a HUGE success! The surgeon removed the whole tumor (which was benign, just like we thought) with good margins and still managed to save 75% of the ovary (which he says will function like 100%). The pain is minimal, there were no side effects from the anesthesia, and today I graduated to driving and climbing stairs! It's going to be a challenge but I am excited to go to class tomorrow. My cohort sent a card and the most GORGEOUS flowers to my parents' house (since this is where I'm recovering). I can't wait to thank them all in person! I have been so loved throughout the whole ordeal and am ecstatic that it's over. Thanks for the prayers, everybody!

Even being on lockdown at my parents' hasn't been awful. The one positive that has come from all this (aside from my mom babying me for 3 days straight)...my dad and I still aren't on great terms but we aren't dead to each other anymore. According to my mom, my semi-medical crisis hit him hard. His brother had a spinal cyst and died just prior to surgery so I guess he was fearing the worst. It hasn't been a lot of change--just speaking in passing and one hug and "I love you" before I left for the hospital. That normally wouldn't be much but after almost 2 years of silence, that's a lot.

[pshsx1]

I'm adding Sen I's family!

There was a recent passing in the family, so keep him and his family in your thoughts and prayers.

[DubaiSis]

You can get your happy endings in the most unusual circumstances. I'm glad you're well (or on your way anyway) and that there's the beginnings of hope of a new relationship with your Dad.

I can't so much ask for prayers, but I would like to ask for some positive energy/mojo sent out into the world with my husband's job search. He just applied for a job that I would LOVE for him to get because 1-it's with a great hospital here in Dubai, 2-he could take public transportation to work and selfishly I could keep the car we share, 3-he really wants to work for a hospital instead of continuing to consult, and 4-we really would like to stay here and not have to move back to the states. There are 2 jobs he's applied to here and if one of those doesn't happen, we'll probably be moving to Southern California. That's not all bad, but we'd be moving without jobs, housing, cars, etc. You can imagine the stress of having to do that!

As a reward for successful universe mojo, I promise to give any Dubai visitors a first class better than any tour bus tour of Dubai!