Health Update

Everyone,



I had my appointment with the infectious disease doctor yesterday and we were somewhat encouraged although it could take some time to pin things down. He kept looking at my scans and files and saying "This is weird, this is just weird." This is the same thing I have heard from every doctor I have seen. He said the main thing that is weird is that you usually don't see anything like this - cancer or infection in both kidneys, usually it is just in one. He asked me a lot of questions and then said that he wished I had not been taking the antibiotics prescribed by the last doctor because while they would not kill whatever it was they would make it harder to grow in a culture. He told me to stop taking them right away. He said he had three ideas of the kind of infection I might have. I can only remember the name of one of them, it is Mycobacterium bovis and he said it is a cousin to TB. It comes from eating unpasteurized milk or cheese and could be from feta that I had in Greece. I told him that I get my feta at the grocery but Kent reminded me that we eat out even in small villages and don't know where they get their feta. Dr. Crislip said that because of my compromised immune system something that wouldn't make someone else sick could make me sick. Anyway that was one possibility. There were two others but I can't remember their names. He said he was going to do a blood test for one and that he was sending tissue samples from my last needle biopsy up to the University of WA where they have a molecular lab and can do some DNA testing on some of these infections. He said "we might luck out and get a hit but I think we are probably going to need more tissue and that will mean an open surgery to get a chunk of the tumor to biopsy". He said he would like me to be off the antibiotics for 5 weeks before the tests so I have a feeling they will wait until then to do the surgery which would mean beginning of May - wait, wait, wait....He said he is pretty confident that it is not cancer but is an infection however. I said okay so when we find it what do we do? He looked and me and said "WE KILL IT!" I like that answer! He said "if we find out what it is I'm going to find a way to kill it." He said most likely that would be with oral antibiotics but we wouldn't know until we knew what it was. I said "how will we know it's dead?" and he said "that will depend on what it is - we need a diagnosis." I am supposed to call a week from Friday if I don't hear from him - he said "If you DO hear from me it will be a very excited phone call because it will mean we got a hit." He also said he was going to consult with a colleague who had a special interest in kidney infections. So I feel like once again we are on the track but the wheels are turning slowly. If we do the surgery it will be a major surgery rather than a minor laparoscopic surgery and we don't know what the diagnosis will be, so we still feel Kent needs to be here. We have been filling our time recently helping the McCrackens redo their large yard at their new home in Portland. It has been good for both of us. Kent is busy and I have worked outside and am feeling stronger although I DO spend quite a bit of time sitting and resting while bossing Kent and Vic around. We may help out some others with this kind of thing just to keep us out of trouble.



I would like to share just one way God has blessed us recently. A couple in the church at Willamette Christian had generously lent us a car which we have been using for the last month and a half. They found they needed it back and guess what the Lord provided for us through dear friends and supporters - a pickup! Right when we were doing yard work and needing to haul wheelbarrows, and dirt and pavers. It was perfect! God is good - all the time.



Again we want to thank you for taking this journey with us. Many of you have been with us since the beginning. There have been times along the way when we may have been tempted to "hurry" God. In the two years when we were fund raising and longed to be in Greece it was hard to understand, but I look back and know that God brought us to Greece at just the right time. Just last year when they were slow approving our visa - it meant that we got our temporary papers later which made us legal until just the right time for us to return from our furlough. We may not understand this latest detour but God has His own timing and his own purposes and our job is just to "stay the course". Thanks for being on our team - we love you.



Kent and Myrna Morley
Tripoleos 76
Elliniko 16777
Athens Greece
011 30 210 96 38 625
backhoeboy1@gmail.com
http://kent-uniquelymorley.blogspot.com
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