Dear CCAM Partners and Friends,

I'm writing this email from a place at the hospital that allows folks like me to get on the internet and do email. I will send this and future reports to Joe, so that he can send it to everyone on our web email list.

Praise the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the One True God and Creator of everything! He is Lord of all! He has already performed many miracles to get Buntheep to Jacksonville, and he has already worked through the doctors to save her life yesterday on the operating table when the tumor/granuloma started gushing blood through her nose. We should keep praying for more miracles until Buntheep is well again.

Ever since the surgery yesterday, Buntheep has been kept sedated because she still has a breathing tube. Every few hours the ICU staff wake her up for a couple of minutes to check that she can communicate and that she can still see out of the left eye. So far, so good! I was there two times when they woke her up, and I translated for them. She had to answer questions by holding up her fingers, because she could not talk with the tube in her mouth. Buntheep has been so brave throughout all of this!

Last night, the hospital staff urged me to go to the Ronald McDonald House near the hospital to get a good night's sleep, since I have not been able to sleep much since two days before we left Cambodia.

Before I left, they asked me to teach them how to ask Buntheep the simple questions in Cambodian. So I wrote the transliterations and translations on the white board. They assured me that the medicine Buntheep is taking to make her sleep also causes her to forget, so she would probably not remember whether I was there or not.

That was wise advice. I had a long sleep (eight hours) and also had time to organize our stuff at our room at the Ronald McDonald house. Now I am back at the hospital and have met the doctor in the ICU. He said that Buntheep is becoming stable now and that about 2 or 3 p.m. today they will try to take the breathing tube out and stop the sedation so that she can wake up normally.

Pray hard, because whenever they wake her up, she tends to start coughing and choking. The tumor/granuloma has grown right up against the back of her nose and may still be oozing blood from yesterday's surgery. The doctors are concerned that it might start bleeding profusely again like yesterday if she coughs too hard. Pray that will not happen!

Pray also that Dr. Aldana will be able to contact the specialist (who is out of town until Tuesday) who can perform the embolization procedure to attempt cutting off the blood supply to the tumor/granuloma so that it won't gush blood when it is cut next time. After embolization, Dr. Aldana will do the surgery again to remove it.

When the time for the surgery comes, please pray that the surgeon will be able to get ALL of it out, because if any is left, it will just grow back again. This tumor is invading many different areas now. I got the feeling after talking to the doctor yesterday, that probably he feels that it is "humanly" impossible to get it all out. But we can pray that God will show this excellent doctor exactly how to do it. Also pray that all of the doctors and hospital staff will be willing and able to miss their Thanksgiving vacations, if the surgery needs to be done at that time.

A special thanks to Joe, who did an excellent job in the midst of his busy schedule to keep you updated from my phone calls. And thanks to all of you who have prayed us through all that has transpired. Please keep praying, because there is a long and dangerous road ahead of us.

In His Hands,
Gioia and Buntheep

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