Meet Grandma Joyce (Updated)

I always considered Grandma Joyce as my ‘glamorous grandma’. She always had her hair done and was wearing the nicest clothes. When I was little we would all go to her house for Christmas Eve. It was always exciting because Grandma would buy each of us grandkids a new set of pajamas for Christmas. These weren’t the adult size t-shirts that mom and dad would have us wear… one year we even all got silk pajamas! You can imagine what a treat it was. All of us kids would get our picture taken on the stairs in our Christmas clothes and then again in our pjs. I remember eating ‘fancy’ ice cream with Grandpa Don that Grandma Joyce would scoop into bowls for us to eat out on the patio.

                           

Awhile back my grandparents moved from southern California to Texas, so that Grandma could be closer to here sister and mom. We went out to visit as a family a year or two after they moved, and I flew out one other time… so our visits have been few and far between. Having spent so much time overseas doing missions it’s been even less than the rest of my family. I will never forget the first time I told my grandpa that I was going to New Zealand for missions, he said, ‘well that’s ok. Just don’t be going to China or Africa.’ Of course that’s where I went next, and in that order no less. My grandparents have always been encouraging in my ‘job’ choice which is a huge blessing.

But last week, Friday, May 16, 2008, word spread through the family that Grandma Joyce has stage 4 live cancer. Seeing that much of the family is in other states we are all making arrangements to go and visit soon. My request for all of you is this… please pray. Pray for Joyce that she will feel loved, cherished, special & beautiful, that the doctors will do what they can to help her be pain free, that if the Lord chooses that He will even heal her completely, that she will be closer to the Lord and more at peace now than ever before. Pray for Don, her husband, it could never be easy to watch the woman that you love go through so much and have your children and grandchildren so far away. Pray for my mom, aunts, uncles, and cousins as we all struggle through this process together. They are heading to the doctors tomorrow, Friday May 23, to hear the prognosis. I am hoping to be able to take some time away from the office and go visit my grandparents, but the question of when is yet to be determined.

Like so much else in my life, I don’t know what the Lord is trying to say or do right now… but I do know that He is moving, and for that I am grateful.

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Upate

Friday, May 23, 2008 – here is the prognosis – with chemotherapy Grandma Joyce will have 6 months to 2 years, without chemo she will have only 3 to 6 months. She has decided that she wants to go through chemo, but wants to wait three weeks so that she can go on a trip. (My grandparents used to drive around the USA quite a bit, and she wants to make sure she can go one more time.) In between her MRI and CT scan only a couple of weeks passed and another tumor had grown, giving it three more weeks there is a good chance that more will continue to grow. My Grandpa Don doesn’t want her to go through chemo again, but would rather try more holistic and eastern medicine, but as Grandma said, ‘this is my life’ : ) So she will go through chemo and look into other options as well. Please continue to pray for my grandparents and extended family. Pray that God would be glorified through this situation and that they would all turn to Christ with all of their thoughts, concerns, worries, and fears.

Thank you all so much for your prayers, words of encouragement, and support for me and my family,

Casey Wells