With Jesus

I write this with joy and with grief. At 11:30 this morning my dad went to be with the Lord. My mom was with him when he passed away and I'm so glad that she was able to be with him. The Lord has such good timing in that right now there are some conferences going on in Dallas, so some of our good friends are here and able to attend the memorial service. The memorial service will be held on Thursday evening. If you would like to send cards our address here is:

402 Meadowlark Ln.

Duncanville, TX 75137

We'd like to ask you to not spend money to send us flowers (or other things), but if you would like to give something, please donate it to cancer research in memory of Ken Ghent. Thanks so much for all of your prayers! I will be staying down in TX for a while longer. 

Saturday in TX

Well, I arrived down in TX yesterday morning and came straight over to the hospital. Dad was doing pretty well yesterday, and we were able to chat some. We were also able to talk with the hospice people and I think it was helpful to talk through some of the details for what to do at home. I slept for a while last night since I'd been up so early, so I'm feeling pretty rested today. I'm back at the hospital now (hooray for wireless internet :)) and Dad's definitely more out of it today. From what I understand it's going to be like this from here on out. So I'm glad I was able to have some chat time with him yesterday. Anyway, thank you for all of your prayers & notes!

Thursday Night

I'll keep this short as I have to get up very early to go to the airport, but I wanted to keep you all updated. I was able to talk with Dad today and he definitely sounded much more like himself than he did last weekend. As far as I know his blood values were better today and he said that he felt better today. Tomorrow the physical therapist is supposed to come in and evaluate Dad and get him out of bed. So there is definite progress and hopefully dad will be able to come home soon. I will try and post again once I'm down in TX.

Wednesday

So today has been a day of praises and prayers. I'm very thankful that Dad is much more coherent today, his labs have been much better and my mom and he were able to have some good conversations about where we go from here. Another praise is that my dad was able to talk with his regular oncologist about what's been going on. After talking with the doctors we agreed that it's best to stop the chemo and enjoy the time we have left. So our prayer is that we would trust the Lord, be content with His plan, and that we would turn to Him for our comfort and strength during this time. So I'm also very thankful that I made plans to go down there for a visit this weekend to spend time with my family.

Tuesday

Well, today seems like a bit of a step backwards. Now Dad's sodium is too high, so that has made him very out of it (to the point that he doesn't really make sense). I guess this is not surprising since he's not eating (your electrolytes get out of whack) but it's not good. Also, he still has no white cells, so they are trying to figure out if there is something they can do to stimulate the bone marrow to produce more cells. It sounds like the doctors are thinking of giving him more blood today to help his cell count. This makes me really glad that I decided to go down to TX on Friday. I know that Mom and Garrett are very tired, so pray that they are able to get some good rest tonight. Thanks for your prayers! 

Sunday/Monday

Well, each day has brought a bit more progress. Dad is still definitely very sick, but today he was able to eat a little (the first time in over a week) and his blood levels are coming down as his kidney is slowly recovering. Besides his kidney, the other lingering issue is that his white blood cells (and other infection-fighting cells) are really low. So the big prayer right now is that he doesn't get an infection.

I did decide to go out to TX, so I'll be leaving this Friday and coming back to State College next Tuesday. One praise is that the Lord provided a great airfare from State College to Dallas (it was even cheaper than Philly which was running at $400+ round trip)! Also, Garrett has decided to stay in Dallas for the rest of the semester. He'll take an "incomplete" for the classes, but then be able to pick them back up which should allow him to graduate next year as planned.

Saturday Afternoon

Well, I think that we finally have some good news! My mom was able to talk to an oncologist (who's covering for Dad's regular Dr.) and the nephrologist (kidney specialist) and both were encouraged by Dad's lab results. The oncologist said that what he's thinking (which my mom thinks makes a lot of sense :)) is that the reason he seemed to get worse the last couple of days is that today is 10 days after his last chemo treatment. Which is typically when people show the worst symptoms, so the Dr. thinks that Dad will start improving over the next few days.

The nephrologist said that the kidney is working better and his blood toxin levels (from the kidney) are going down, albeit slowly. Apparently this is also not surprising and normal for someone who's gone through what he has. They haven't talked with the hematologist (blood specialist) yet to see if his red blood cells, white blood cells, platelets, etc. have gone up. So hopefully he will stop by today too. 

So this latest news is definitely encouraging and puts me at ease with staying here for now. I do think that I will want to head out to TX sooner rather than later (at least for a short visit) but it can probably be planned versus an emergency. I'm very thankful to the Lord for answering my prayer of at least having some direction as to what to do. I would definitely appreciate your prayers for wisdom for what to do and strength (emotional, physical & spiritual) for my mom & brother who are at the hospital all the time.