The Martin's Blog

Greetings to all our family and friends!

Earlier this week Tony had a stomach virus and on Wednesday Gwen complained of pains in her abdomen that kept her up all night. We assumed she had simply caught the same bug Tony had. Wednesday night she started throwing up and couldn’t keep anything down – this continued until Friday afternoon. When Gwen has any stomach issues, we are always concerned because of her surgery to remove her cancerous large intestine almost 3 years ago. We got in to see the doctor Friday afternoon and he immediately sent us to the hospital emergency room for a CAT scan of her stomach and blood tests. After her CAT scan, the doctor decided to admit her because he was concerned there may be some kind of blockage due to scar tissue building up. So, at 11:00 p.m. Friday, they did the first CAT scan x-ray and have been doing them about every 3 hours since to carefully track the dye injected into her stomach as it moves through her system. They are continuing to do the x-rays and we assume the dye is moving along well as they are just monitoring her at this point.

Though we were totally caught off guard by these events and are obviously concerned, we have several things to praise God about:

• we believe God allowed this blockage to be found early enough to be easily treated. Similarly, in 2009, God allowed Gwen’s cancer to be discovered and totally removed  before we even knew she had it! Isn’t our God amazing?
• the doctors are aggressively treating these symptoms before they lead to a major problem. Thanks God for being pro-active!
• a wonderful couple from our church has taken our girls for the weekend. When I came home tonight, they had also prepared a homemade salmon and pasta dinner for me. Thanks God for providing for all our needs!

No, we weren’t expecting this. However, we thank God for being in control of all things in our lives! Would you please join us in asking God to heal any problems in Gwen’s stomach and to release her from the hospital quickly? Thanks for standing with us!