Friday Update 1/28/05

Thanks to all those who came last night and prayed with us and thanks to all the rest of you who can't be here but are keeping us in your thoughts and prayers. We really needed it! For today, we feel restored and our hope is renewed. That is so often the case, when others come to pray.

The last two weeks we haven't seen any real progress for Scott and at times it does seem like things might be getting worse. Although our faith in God is strong, our hearts get heavy when he's struggling. His doctors don't seem too worried about the lack of progress but we hoped for better. He had his functional MRI today, which will tell us if more surgery could be a possibility, but we won't get the results until later next week. Regardless, in 10 days he'll be getting his regular monthly MRI and that will tell us more about what's happening with the tumors.

On another note, I'm very happy to report that we have a childcare provider for Josepine who is here three days a week. Her name is Quinn and Josephine absolutely adores her! We think she's wonderful too. I knew everything was going to be great the second day Quinn was here. Instead of crying when Scott and I left for his appointments, Josephine was blowing us kisses and waving goodbye. What a blessing!

Blessings to all of you!

Love,
Michele and Scott

Friday Update

I'm going to try and give regular Friday updates rather than waiting until some event has happened. Right now, we know that Scott is doing much better than the doctors thought so we call that our miracle but we are also very aware that we are a long way from being "in the clear". We haven't got out of the woods yet.

We recently saw Scott's neurosurgeon who was genuinely surprised at the improvements Scott has made in his language. His feeling about the tumor death is that it could be from the rapid growth which will cause it to starve itself of blood supply and dye in the center. No matter what, he's encouraged that the tumor has slowed down so much. He scheduled Scott for a "functional" MRI next week Friday. This is an MRI that actually maps the parts of the brain that Scott is using for language. They do this by asking Scott questions while watching his brain light up in the areas that are being used. Dr. Chandler thinks there is a possibility that Scott's language areas might be far enough away from the tumors that he could surgically remove some or all of the tumors. It's just a small possibility but it sounds good to us.

This past week was much harder than expected. Scott's been very tired and fatigue always effects his language abilities. That's scary because I wonder, "Is it just fatigue or is it tumor causing his difficulties?". In the last few days things have started to really improve, he's less tired and his language is getting better. We believe now that he was just getting over a cold. Wheeeeeew!

We have also started speech therapy. I say "we" because speech rehabilitation is completely a team effort. We went twice this week and will continue to go 2 to 3 times a week for a long long time. It was really surprising for me because I discovered that I was doing a very good job learning how to adapt to and interpret Scott's way of communicating. So good in fact that I wasn't aware just how many common words he's lost from his vocabulary and although he can find ways to communicate without them, it makes him a little hard to understand unless you're use to listening to him. More importantly, it makes it very hard for him to understand others who are constantly using words he doesn't know anymore. We are also working on speed and fluency in reading and writing. The speech therapist is great! She is so kind and patient. We have complete confidence that she's going to help us find tools and techniques to bringing back everything he's lost. It's just going to take time and work.

I'm so proud of Scott. This is hard stuff, humbling stuff, and he's my hero in every respect. I couldn't dream of a better teammate. Somehow, in all of this, he finds a way to continue to be the supportive loving husband and adoring father to Josephine. She's such a lucky girl to have a father like Scott. One of his strongest motivations in speech therapy is to be able to read to Josephine her silly children's books again with the expressions, rythm, and enthusiasm he once did. He was so good at that and he will be again.

Now for an annoucement on prayer nights:
Since this adventure began we've been having occasional prayer nights at our house. We wanted to announce the next two nights and invite anyone to come who would like to. We usually sing some worship songs and then spend some time praying. It's very casual. Your children are certainly welcome. We start at 7PM. Here's the dates.
Thursday, January 27th
Tuesday, February 1st
You can let us know you're coming or just show up.
1751 N. Talman Ave.
Chicago, IL 60647

Thanks for all the love and support!!
Michele, Scott, and Josephine

Hi everyone -

This time I'm going to try and just give you the facts so Scott can elaborate on them later. He's been desperate to send out an email for himself. He's worried that you all might believe I have to do all his speaking and thinking for him - - that's not true.

As you know, 5 weeks ago, Scott had two grand mal seizures that led to the discovery of 3 very aggressive new tumors. Given their location and extremely fast growth, it is true to say that none of Scott's doctors would be surprised if even right now he were in his last days, but he's not! The best hope the doctors could offer was to try and slow this thing down with a marginally effective older chemo. We know that the best chance he has at beating this is going to be a miracle from the Lord. That's where all our hope rests.

Today, January 11th, 5 weeks later, Scott's language abilities have really shown improvement and he's getting better at reading! He very rarely has any small seizures. He may have had one while we were in CO, but that seemed to be the result of exhaustion.

Today, he also had his MRI and overall we have very exciting news! The down side is it seems that the tumors have shown some growth, but not anywhere close to the rate they were growing 5 weeks ago. If they had continued at that pace, he might not be here now. The really exciting news, which we could tell has kind of baffled his doctor, is that the largest tumor is showing definite signs of death in the middle. We saw it for ourselves on his MRI and it's amazing, it's clearly dieing inside! With brain tumors, the best they ever hope for is to halt the growth but death of the tumor is a really unusual thing, especially given the agressive nature of this recent tumor. Remember, his surgeon said he 's almost never seen a tumor grow this quickly in 20 years. Now it seems to suddenly be dieing!! That's miraculous. We're so excited about this news.

We are praising God and so thankful to all of you for your thoughts and prayers. Please pray that this tumor will continue to die and any new growth would stop. Scott also received his next chemo treatment today and is very tired as a side effect. He'll have another MRI and chemo treatment in 4 weeks.

Blessing to you,
The Grays

We know that the most pressing question on everyones mind is about Scott’s health but before we get into that, we are so excited to share one of the most amazing stories. This story has encouraged us and filled us with hope these last couple weeks.

A few weeks ago we received an exciting phone call from my father who wanted to share with us what had just happened to him. This came only 2 weeks after Scott’s hospitalization and I could tell right away that my dad was joyful about something. It was great to hear his joy because I know the deep burden my father carries for us and how hard that can be for him.

He proceeded to tell me that a few days earlier he wanted to surprise my mother by replacing the kitchen sink while she was at work. This is something she’s been wanting for a long time. He said to me, “Meesh(that’s what he calls me), I’m too old to do this kind of stuff myself and I don’t have any friends who can do it.” So, he reluctantly turned to a local newspaperto find a plumber. If you knew my father’s histor with tradesmen he found in the newspaper you would understand why he was reluctant. He picked a number, called, and to his surprise a man answered and said he would be right over. Not sure if this was a good or bad sign, he told me, “we’ll just see what kind of characters show up this time.” Within, what seemed like only a few minutes, the doorbell rang and two plumbers were at the door. It was a father and son team, Raymond and Abraham.

Immediately my father noticed the older mans British accent and asked him where he was from. The man said that he was originally from England but was diagnosed with a brain tumor and moved seeking treatment. As things got worse for him, the doctors had little to offer. Then he said, "but I was healed by God and now I'm cancer free."

My father could hardly believe what he was hearing! He told them that Scott, his own son-in-law is battling brain cancer and things are not so good right now. This plumbers response was simply, “Can we pray for him?” My dad agreed and to his surprise these two plumbers got down on their knees on my parents kitchen floor and started to cry out to God. They asked for God to heal him, praying for God to “heal his servant”. It’s so precious because my dad had told them nothing about Scott. What my dad said next touched us so deeply. He said, “Meshe, when they started praying, I felt the presence of God!” I have never heard him say anything like that before and I knew without a dought that it was true, God was there and making Himself known, not just for my father but for Scott and me and all of you.

When these plumbers finished praying they got to work, no discussion needed. Then my dad said that over the next 4 hours as they worked on the kitchen sink, many more times, they stopped what they were doing, got on their knees, and began praying for Scott again. You could only imagine the emotions my dad was feeling, but best of all he said he felt filled with hope and joy. So do we.

So they finished the job, presented my dad with the bill and it was much less than he expected - - another small miracle! I love that. He even asked them if they had charged him enough. They said yes, and asked him to pass on their card if he knows anyone who needs a plumber. I think it read something like, “Angels Plumbing, 777 Heaven’s Way, Anywhere, Earth” Ok, that last part is a joke but we still occasionally wonder, could they be angels?

I'll send another email to give you our most recent update on Scott's health.