This morning when Amy woke up, I asked her, "How do you rate your headache pain this morning?" "It doesn't hurt at all!" she said. "And I'm not nauseated!" She felt good. She still can't walk without assistance but she feels good and even ate some mango, leftover birthday cake, and a cup of coffee. You can probably imagine how encouraging this is to me! Thanks for praying specifically for her headaches.
Amy has been sleeping most of the day. She's been rejecting food, though I found some Fuji apples that were so good that we got her to eat 3 or 4 slices anyway. We take turns sitting with Amy. I'm typing this with her curled up by my side. I read her a few emails that made me cry and after 2 or 3 she had to sleep some more, so I stopped reading them to her. Thanks for all of your words of encouragement. Sorry if I don't reply to all of your emails.
Since Mia was at camp on her birthday, we are celebrating today by having friends over and eating icecream and angelfood cake with green frosting (family tradition). A couple of weeks ago, Mia wanted to have a sleepover, but wisely decided that sleep-deprivation and emotional events could be an unpleasant mix and changed it to an afternoon event.
Yesterday about 10 people from our church showed up with a birthday cake for Sarah (12th), Amy (8th) and Mia (19th). We sang some hymns and ate cake. Amy sat with them, but was too nauseated to eat any cake.
Last night after our family devotions we told the kids that the neurosurgeon confirmed our fears that there wasn't really anything to be done at this point. We spend the next two hours crying and praying on the bed with Amy as a family. My heart goes out to any of you who has had to tell your small children that one of their parents is dying.
Amy doesn't want to be taken to a hospital, and since I have lots of help and I'm not trying to do anything else at the moment, we'll take care of her here at home. Last night she had her first seizures since the surgery. Her head is causing her severe pain despite the Oxycontin. If we were in the USA, she'd be in hospice care.
The current plan is that when she dies we'll have a quick funeral here (they tend to do them within 24 hours in Peru) and then we will go back to the USA as soon as we have all the proper paperwork done to have a memorial service at Christ Community Church and then return to Peru until Ben finishes his last year of highschool in December. Mia, Paul and I will return to Peru after Ben is settled in America.
Yes, we are pretty shocked, since 3 weeks ago, she was doing super. But we know God is in control.
This morning Sarah arrived in Arequipa at 6:30. We are soooo glad she is here. She is such a great help taking care of her mom. Amy is doing better today, with less headaches and little nausea.
Today is Mia's 15th birthday. In case you haven't heard, a girl's 15th birthday (La Quinceañera) is a big deal in Latin America. Some girls have fiestas that rival weddings, except one doesn't have to bother with a groom. Mia has been at camp all week, so we went out to visit her and surprise her for lunch. She didn't know Sarah was going to be here!
Since we were at camp with its 50 acres of private property, we took advantage of the time to teach Ben to drive a manual transmission (our truck, not the tractor in the picture). After 20 minutes he was really getting the hang of it.
Amy has been suffering terrible headaches from her brain tumor and she ran out of her pain pills from the States. The director of one of the ministries we partner with in Peru was sure she had some pain meds in their warehouse. The problem was that they were in a collection of over 100 boxes that each had to be gone through. Ben and Paul went with Amy and me to try to dig through the boxes. What a nice surprise when we were met by a team of about 10 missionaries and 10 Peruvians to help carry boxes and search through them! It took just over an hour to go through them all. We found some Tylenol 3's, which isn't as strong as we had hoped for, but they should help until we get something stronger.
Somewhere in there might be some pain meds!
We got the results of Amy's MRI today, which unfortunately were what we expected: Her tumor is growing and pushing against the center of her brain, causing her headaches and loss of coordination. I sent some of the images to her neurosurgeon in Nebraska and we'll wait to see if he thinks there would be any benefit in operating again.
Why does this happen to such a wonderful person as Amy? I'm her husband, so I know just how wonderful she is. It's not just a front that she puts on in public! I've been incredibly blessed to have her as my wife. I wonder if God is sparing her from something worse that the rest of us will have to endure. I look at the Middle East's escalating tensions and can't help but wonder if we're getting close to the times prophesied in Revelation. Regardless, no matter what happens, her fate is secure in Christ.
Today Amy got a follow-up MRI of her brain. She was scheduled to have it done on Wednesday, but yesterday she had a very bad day of nausea and vomiting, heachaches, ataxia (staggering) and lethargy so I called and asked them to do it today. The nice thing about getting an MRI in Peru, is that it is that easy. Plus it was only $254. In the US, the 'retail price' for Amy's last MRI was $3700, but the insurance company haggled them down to $2700. Still 1/10 the price here. We will get the results tomorrow, after 4 pm. Amy felt much better today (hardly any headache) but found that she can't send emails without help because her fingers don't go where her brain tells them to go. Thanks for all of your emails telling us that you are praying for us.
Dogs are so common in church in Peru that they appear in several of our pictures we've taken almost as if they were an unintended game: "Can you find the dog in this picture?" Last night we had our first duck. For reasons that I can't quite understand, one of the couples brought their duck to last night's Valentine's Eve marriage seminar. They did explain that their daughter has made it a pet so now they don't feel like they can eat it, but they didn't explain why they brought it to church. I couldn't think of a way to tie a duck into my talk about forgiveness and serving one another. I couldn't even think of a biblical reference to ducks to make a joke about. But, it was a well-behaved duck. It didn't interrupt by yelling 'Aflac!'
As a Nebraskan, any time I feel the earth shake, I call it an earthquake. Since they happen so frequently in Arequipa, the locals scoff at calling a shaking sensation an 'earthquake' until it reaches 6 or 7 on the Richter Scale. "That's just a 'tremor'," they'll correct. So far we've had two in the two weeks we've been here. They always seem to happen at night when one is lying in bed wondering if he should put on clothes and run outside (or first run outside and then put on clothes!). I have the US Geological Survey earthquake website as a bookmark on my browser so that I can check how big the earthquakes were and how far away they were from here. Here is last night's 5.2 earthquake located about 50 miles south of here:
Today Amy has a Bible study with young women from our small church and in the evening, I'm doing a special 'marriage seminar' that our pastor had scheduled even before we came back.
Amy's been having more headaches and has been really tired lately, so pray that she feels better. Her headaches had gone away, but have crept back in, and she's had more ataxia (unsteady gait) lately. She is scheduled for her next MRI on Wednesday.
Thanks for praying,
Allen & Amy
