April 16, 2010
Dear CCAM Partners and Friends,
April 15, 2010---Buntheep's fifteenth birthday---another important date marking the unfolding of an amazing miracle! We praise the Lord Jesus Christ for His healing of Buntheep thus far! Without God's intervention through many of you (doctors, Baptist hospital staff, RMH staff, church members, Dreams Come True staff, networkers, financial donors, prayer warriors, and many friends filling practical needs), Buntheep would surely have died in 2007 at age 12 from this fast-growing brain tumor. However, through multiple surgeries, radiation, and a two-year regimen of daily injections of Calcitonin, the tumor has continued to shrink.
At the end of April, all of the medicine will have been administered. Medically speaking, there is no guarantee that the tumor will not grow back once the drug is withdrawn. And, should it grow back, there is nothing else, medically speaking, that can be done (unless some new treatment has been discovered during the past two years). Therefore, please pray for this time of transition off of any medical treatment whatsoever. Pray that Buntheep will not experience the same uncomfortable symptoms getting off the drug that she experienced when she started it in the first place. And pray especially that God will complete the healing that He has begun. We will have another MRI scan done in May to check on the status of the tumor, so pray that the results will be encouraging.
This has been a long and arduous journey of healing, although we are hopefully approaching the exciting positive conclusion. My mother has said that for the past three years Buntheep and I have been "joined at the hip like Siamese twins," since I have been the primary home care-giver during this time. It will seem strange next month not to have daily responsibilities for Buntheep's medical care, but it will also release me from that extra responsibility to return to other responsibilities set aside for a season. I know that God put us close together like this for a reason---what an opportunity for long-term one-on-one discipleship and training. And I trust that, both medically and spiritually, Buntheep is now ready to try her wings, as the Lord leads her into the future.
With Gratefulness,
Gioia for Buntheep and CCAM