Hello everyone,
Just wanted to fill everyone in on Blanca’s breast surgery. She had her surgery yesterday, Thursday Dec. 3, and it went well.
Blanca had discovered a cyst in her right breast, and when she had it checked out, the tests found a cluster of spots on her left breast, too.
The cyst was benign and they removed it. The spots did turn out to be cancer, but in the earliest stages, so that section was removed, too. The lymph nodes showed no infection whatsoever, which was a good sign. They removed one for testing, which is standard procedure.
Blanca was sitting up, talking and eating when I left. She said the worst part was the biopsy in the morning, in which she almost fainted from the pain. They had put a local anesthetic, but Blanca tends to be impervious to sleep pills, local anesthetic, etc, so it hadn’t taken full effect when they did the biopsy.
The doctor said she won’t know whether Blanca will need radiation treatment until the last test results are ready around Tuesday. Please pray she will not need this painful treatment, once a day for 25 days.
In addition to the successful surgery and the lack of infected lymph nodes, we are grateful to the many people who have been praying and helping us. We know that many, many people were praying in Mexico and the States, several people from church here have agreed to help with watching the kids and watching Blanca for a couple times when I need to leave, and my mother is coming on Sunday to help for about 10 days. God bless them all.
I came home to get the kids in bed last night, get them off to school this morning, but am headed out very soon to pick her up. Thank you for your prayers and encouragement,
Dave Gifford
Update, 12-10: Blanca will need follow-up radiation treatment for 5 weeks soon after Christmas, giving her body time to heal. However, we are grateful for three things regarding radiation treatment:
- It is not painful as we thought at first. Thank you to those who wrote to encourage us in this regard.
- Since it will not be for a few weeks yet, we will all be able to attend a retreat in Acapulco with the Jesús el Salvador church from Dec. 23-28.
- Praise the Lord that Dave is not teaching until the end of January, so he will be more available and less pressed for time when he takes Blanca across town for daily radiation treatments in January.
We also ask your prayers for us as we look at the possibility of a visit from Blanca’s mom (in Miami) and three nieces from Honduras, who all hope to visit us, possibly in January or February. This will be the first time that anyone from Blanca’s family has visited us here, so we are excited about that. However, the radiation treatments would limit our possibilities with them, so we need discernment as to the best way to proceed.