Update-October 13

   Today I've gotten several phone calls asking how Andy is doing & I realized I haven't updated in awhile.

   The tumor on Andy's neck continues to shrink-good things are happening there! Praise God!

   There have been no repeat scans done as of yet but according to our Natural Dr., things are looking good. We are due for an update here soon so we should have more info for you all later.

I did receive a call from Andy's oncologist this week that once again confirmed God's hand in this whole journey! They had originally staged Andy at grade 3/stage 4, meaning it was an aggressive cancer, throughout most of his body.

  At this point, if we had gone through with chemo, Andy would have received 2 rounds of the most aggressive/highly toxic chemotherapy.

   We are so thankful today that God lead us down a different path!

   The oncologist had sent the biopsies to Cleveland for further-more in-depth testing & was calling us to tell us that Andy actually had grade 2/stage 4 cancer. Which would have been treated with a much less aggressive chemotherapy regimen.

   Again, so thankful we chose not to go that route! His body would literally have been pumped full of toxic drugs that it didn't really need.

  We have learned, so far, on this journey, that we may not always know why God does what He does, but He only wants what is best for us & He is taking care of us each step of this journey. All He is asking us to do is trust Him.

   This Saturday, Andy will be going in for a minor, outpatient procedure where they will be removing the port that was implanted to administer the chemo-it will not be needed!

   We were advised to do repeat CAT scans every 3months to track his progress & in the event the Dr.s would need to step in & do something, above & beyond what we are doing now(but we are praying & believing that that will not be necessary!)they would be on top of things & know what is going on.

 Thank you for all the prayers sent on our behalf-please continue to pray & we will update as we get more information on Andy's progress.

 

Andy, Ruth & kiddos