Behind the scenes update...

As I have been posting some of the general news about our move, alot has been going on behind the scenes for us as well. Yesterday we sent a postcard to many of you and tonight I sent an email sharing that we are pregnant and that I have Papillary Thyroid Cancer. Below is Nate's account of it from August 3rd. I also added a few more recent updates at the end, to not leave you worried....

August 3, 2009

Caroline and I are sitting in the office of an Endocrinologist at the Hershey Medical Center in Hershey, PA. This is our first appointment of many here in PA. I thought it would be good to write down some of what we’ve been going through, if for no other reason than to be able to look back at this point in our lives and to see what God has brought us through. In the moment this storm seems quite difficult. We are dealing with one thing after another and it just doesn’t seem real, but I am confident that God will see us through, and that regardless of the outcomes, we can know and rely on God’s love and faithfulness to us. I think we are on the path to shalom, to peace, but this part of the road is very difficult for us.

We moved down to Penn State just two days ago, on August 1st. About a month before we moved, we realized that Caroline was pregnant with our first child! This was unexpected, but our response is thankfulness, joy, and excitement. God’s timing is not our own, but his timing is perfect. Caroline says that it’s almost like God knew that we were out of debt and that he knew we were ready to have a baby.

Just a few days later, Caroline had a routine physical with her doctor in Lexington, MA. Her doctor noticed that her thyroid seemed large, and suggested they do an ultrasound. The ultrasound revealed a nodule a centimeter in diameter in her right lobe of her thyroid. The next step was aspiration, which ended up being a biopsy of sorts, and the lab work strongly suggested it was thyroid cancer—papillary carcinoma. I think we got the call that it was cancer on the Tuesday before we were moving.

On Tuesday night, Caroline showed me a bug bite she had. Over this past week, it has grown in size, and I happen to think it is Lyme Disease. It was the classic red and clear bulls-eye that you could see in images on Google. We delayed in getting it treated, because of our move and because we already had today’s appointment with the Endocrinologist scheduled.

On Thursday, we packed up the truck for our move to State College, cleaned up our apartment, and turned the keys over to Rebecca Daniels. The people who helped us move were: Rebecca Daniels, Paul and Katya Moran, Kevin and Martha Kohl, Rhiannon Baker, Hannah Daman, Rudy and Vicky brought food, and Dennis Lindblom.

On Friday, Caroline also began experiencing pain on her left side lower abdomen. This is the same side as her tick bite. We’re still not sure what it is, and I guess we’ll find out whether or not it’s our baby tomorrow at our appointment with the ObGyn. *We found out the next wednesday that it was probably soreness from moving or my growing uterus and nothing to be worried about. In order to check though we saw our first ultrasound of the baby- alive and well! Kicking and moving:) Absolutely amazing!!!!*

On Saturday, we drove down to Penn State, but it took a lot longer than we had previously expected. I decided we should both gas up in Sturbridge, MA, about 45 minutes into our journey. When Caroline went to start the car, the engine wouldn’t turn over. We called AAA, and they sent someone out to check the problem. After poking around and hitting on the starter with a hammer from under the vehicle, he concluded that our starter was dead. We called AAA again to see if they would send a tow truck.

While we were waiting for the tow truck, Caroline, seeing the camera in my hands, decided it would be safer in its case. The camera slipped from her hands and hit the pavement pretty hard. It doesn’t work anymore.

AAA did send a tow truck, and we left the truck at the Mobil station in Sturbridge. On our way (the opposite direction) back to Auburn to Firestone for a new starter, we were stuck in traffic for about a half hour. Turns out we were waiting for people to clear what remained of a fatal car accident. It’s amazing how short life is. I can’t imagine how devastated any remaining survivors from the crash might be. Life is so short.

We ended up at Firestone Tire, and they gave me a quote for $380+ dollars to replace our starter. I refused to sign the work order. Our AAA tow guy wasn’t allowed to leave our car. I went over to AutoZone next door to price starters. Firestone was going to charge me $220 just for the starter, and AutoZone told me it would cost $185 or so. Went I went back to Caroline, who was just eager to get back on the road, she asked if I wanted to check with Sears Auto, which was across from the parking lot. I ran over to check their prices, they quoted me installed for *around* $200. I decided to go with them. It turned out to be a lot more than they thought, but they took off about $40 for us because of their misquote, and they got us back on the road a whole lot faster than I thought they would. All in all, our delay took from around 9AM until around 1PM. We got lunch at Arby’s across the street from Sears (and across from the Auburn Mall), and were there when Sears Auto called to let us know our car was ready.

We went back to the Penske truck in Sturbridge, and soon after that we were on the road again. I think our delay cost about 4 hours and just over $310 for the tow and the repair.

We arrived in Penn State with no other incident on Saturday night, and were greeted by other Nav staff. Our truck was unloaded in minutes! It’s amazing to move into such an amazing community. They all are so friendly and kind and serving and loving. It’s a great place to be in such a crazy time.

Today we had our first appointment with the Endocrinologist. It went OK. They gave Caroline a prescription for antibiotics to treat her possible Lyme disease. They seemed concerned about the pain in her abdomen and told her not to lift anything. We’ll find out how worried we should be tomorrow at the ObGyn appointment.

Our Endocrinologist was also able to get us an appointment this afternoon for an ultrasound for Caroline’s thyroid. He wants to monitor it himself, and thinks that the best thing to do is to postpone surgery until after her pregnancy, and the second best thing is to have the surgery in the second trimester. We have another appointment with him 8 weeks from today. He’ll be monitoring her nodule for any changes.

That’s where Caroline is at the moment—getting her thyroid ultrasound.

Next up: 2 hour drive back to State College, then more painting or prep for painting???

We went to Hershey’s Chocolate World in between. *We still have been able to laugh and have fun through the midst of it all- Praise God!*

Back to Caroline, just to update. The cancer seems to NOT be growing right now- Praise God. Please pray with us for it to continue NOT to grow ever, but at least till after the baby is born. We are due February 21st. My thyroid is functioning normally so although there is cancer on it, it should not be affecting the baby. I'll be going back to the endocronologist in about five weeks to see if it has changed or not and we will go from there.. And our next baby appt is in September.

Thanks for being in this with us!