Updates: Keeping on the Fight

Dear friends,

I pray that all is well for each of you and you have had a blessed beginning to 2022!

These last three months have been challenging yet good. I have had to battle impatience and discouragement at the slow pace of recovery, while dealing with ongoing side effects of the diagnosis. I have also had to battle the peculiar feeling of being so dependent upon the intercession, love, and support of others after having long taken too much pride in my ability to work hard and be a successful student, scholar, and professional. Loved ones around me have been encouraging me that my continued fight for life and recovery is of invaluable encouragement to them and is especially important for my family. 

Thus I do keep asking God for strength and healing, and I choose to keep on fighting the fight, which now is also a fight of patient endurance.

Yet I do have so much to be thankful for! I was told a year ago in December that the average life expectancy for the diagnosis was 12 months. However, in my last visit, my oncologist said I was looking better than I have since he's met me. I am alive, gaining strength, and doing great. The tumor has been stable since January a year ago. For Thanksgiving 2020, I could only manage to eat some sweet potato puree because of the severely constricted duodenum. This Thanksgiving, as a result of the gastric bypass surgery, I was able to chew and savor most dishes on the table. What an amazing gift of God!

A contact in the medical profession recently said that my life is proof that there is a God. I am grateful that God is bringing blessing through this trial.

I have had several adventures over these last three months, including getting COVID-19 at the end of November. God healed me of that. I had four GJ feeding tube changes in five weeks at one point. I have had more frequent biliary drain changes. The side effects of radiation were to keep appearing for six months following the radiation treatment last May and June. Indeed, many of the symptoms I fight may have also been exacerbated by radiation, including some tissue thickening in the abdomen. 

I appreciate your ongoing prayer, support, and encouragement in this journey. May God encourage and bless each one of you!

God continues to encourage me with his promises:

I shall not die, but I shall live, and recount the deeds of the Lord. -Psalm 118:17 

The life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. -Galatians 2:20b

Again, may each of you be blessed and encouraged in every aspect of life!

Blessings and love,

Tim

Comments

  1. Diane in the Vegetable PatchApril 4, 2022 at 2:48 AM

    I haven't forgotten you Tim! My prayers & thanks continue as I know God is continually working in your life. I want to send my love & special greetings to you and your family for a blessed Resurrection Sunday! Keep us posted as you are able.

    In Jesus' Name,
    Diane Turner

    ReplyDelete

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