How You Can Pray With Us
Family and Friends,
Thank you for your continuous endurance in prayer on our behalf. Your intentional intercessions for us mean more than we could ever express. We believe that the Lord has been using your prayers as a means of grace to strengthen us. We have seen the grace of the Lord to us and to others as we’ve been able to recount our prayers and hear those of others for us and find that we have seen the Lord move in specific ways and answer prayers to the encouragement of His people and to His glory. We stand in awe of His intimate care for us.
This morning Sawyer completed his fourth round of chemotherapy. We are scheduled for a CT scan next Wednesday, September 30th and will be notified of the results the next day, October 1st. This scan is going to be used to evaluate the effectiveness of the current treatment regimen. His oncologist will make changes accordingly. We will be diligent to share those results will you all.
Specific prayer requests:
1. For Sawyer’s cancer to respond positively to the chemotherapy + Nivolumab and for his body to tolerate the treatment (specifically, please pray against neuropathy which often sets in following the fourth round).
2. That we would keep our eyes FIXED on Him to whom we are completely dependent upon.
3. October 1st: Sawyer has an appointment to review the CT scan results. The basic goal is that there is any type of improvement. Barring any new side effects or cancer progression, the current goal is to stay the course until we kill the cancer that has spread to his lungs so that his team can add on radiation therapy to attack the main cancer in the esophagus. This scan is the first step to determining objectively if the current regimen is working or not and if/maybe when we are going to progress into the next phase of treatment. We are hopeful that there will be improvement given his improved ability to swallow and eat, and we are very excited to learn how things are going! However, given that we can’t know the effects thus far and that a CT scan is really step 1 of an unknown number of steps, we are striving to not place too much weight in the happenings of next week.
4. That we would not place our ultimate hope in chemotherapy (which we are very thankful for), Nivolumab (which we are very thankful for), and the wonderful MD Anderson doctors and staff (who we are very very thankful for), but that we would place our hope in the King of Kings who conquers all of our fears and who is the true healer of our diseases-whether in this age or the one to come, even when he chooses to use some, none, or all of these things to accomplish it.
“I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In this world you will face tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.” –Jesus in John 16:33, bold emphasis added. We are grateful to know the end of this story even without all of the in-between, and we are grateful that one day, cancer and tears and sin and death will all be wiped away. Finally, we are grateful to see the glory of God displayed in the details along the way with you.
May the grace and peace of our Lord Jesus be upon you,
-Sawyer and Amy
