Posted on 01/04/2010 2:45:21 AM PST by DollyCali
You can find him on line at places other than here.. at Facebook he is Jeff Head
Jeff's Web Page - (check out the neat stickers he sells)
Jeff's FR Profile
Jeff's blog on his Cancer
Father we pray for our friend Jeff. May he find your perfect peace as he continues to trust you with his life. Give the surgeons and medical personnel wisdom and perfect skill in treating him. Please keep him close to your heart as his body responds to treatments and to surgery. Help us to love him as our brother and give support and strength to wife Gail and their large and loving family. In the name of our Savior and Creator. Amen.
God is surely watching over you with great love.
Keep us posted. What you are embarking upon is a huge deal; thank GOD we live in times where you were able to find a team ready and able to help you attack and conquer the disease that has attacked you. I am glad you got help for anxiety and boy am I delighted you have an appropriately outfitted place to stay and later recover within. God BLESS YOU and your wife, we are thinking about you both and praying for your complete recovery. An amazing fight is in front of you and if ANYONE is ready to go the distance, it is you. x and o's- Lynn
God bless you, Jeff and Gail! Thank you for keeping us up to date!!
Yesterday, while I was Freeping, I thought of you and said a prayer.
Today I get to read your post, and thanks for keeping us in the loop.
It’s some kind of wonderful that the apt thing worked out for you!
God Bless you, Gail. Jeff is included in my daily prayers; I will include you as well.
Thank you for keeping us posted.
Glad to hear that the Lord is working so powerfully to remove your road blocks Jeff.
This has to be a very reassuring sign.
Praying daily.
.
Please pass along my best wishes and tell him I’m praying for him and your entire family.
L
Continuing to lift you & yours up at Mass & elsewhere. Don’t stress yourself doing updates - save your strength for healing.
You have always been there for us. We are there for you. Many prayers on your behalf. God bless you and your family.
God bless you both!
My father fights Stage 4 Lung cancer which is also in his liver and brain. While my dad goes through Chemo and radiation, my mom is the warrior in the wings. You are fighting just as hard as Jeff is, and I pray just as hard for her, as for my dad. All in gratitude for the healing God is giving, creating and inevitable for my Dad. To the best of his ability he keeps himself in a state of love. So does she. I hope and pray that for you, when those terrifying moments come, that God’s peace and love may wash through you as He guides you, Jeff, and all the doctors and nurses who are a part of God’s healing of your wonderful husband. He has touched so many lives in positive ways.
Fear is the opposite of Love. Love is of and from God. And the words of the bible are so very true: “And though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear not, because thou art with me lord.” Indeed, in a state of Love, fear cannot exist.
God bless you Gail! God bless you Jeff!
Gail, our prayers are with you too. Thanks for giving us an update on Jeff.
I’m sorry, Jeff! I’ve been facebooking and neglecting Freerepublic. :( I had no idea you are sick.
I live in a Houston suburb. I need to try and come see you.
I have to go to the medical center tomorrow, but I tend to get lost there.
Where are you or where will you be on Wednesday?
Prayers continue for you both!
Get better soon Jeff and know that there is not a better place on the planet to be if you have cancer. I know because I spent allot of time there while they cured my wife Amy.
You are both in my prayers during this difficult challnge.
The Lord is kind and merciful. Remember that He will bring good from this situation.
Trust in Him with all your hearts and all will be well with you.
We have now visited with the surgical teams tht will be involved in our upcoming surgery, and have conducted and been through all of the CT scans and MRI tests. It has been a whirlwind of activity and I have to tell you, when you are feeling the tumor's effect on you, and feeling the side effects of the pain meds and other meds they have you on it is not an easy thing to go through.
But, we have done so and today we got the word back from Dr. Rhines.
No new cancer at this point! And the cancer that is there in my sacrum and the small spots in the illieum has not grown appreciably, certainly no more than they would expect.
This is good news from our perspective and we are grateful that the Lord God, in His Mercy, established His will accordingly. it means that our surgery can go forward with the best prospect available for slowing, or potetnially even stopping the disease.
In the past two days I have signed away my concent for every way imagineable that my life might be ended or severelly effected by these procedures imaginable. The Drs., each of them have now explained in exquisite detail what they will be doing. Again, I say, it is a miracle in and of itself what they can attempt through modern medicine these days. Such truths as they have gathered, in my faith, comes from God. All truth iminates forth to mankind from God through His Holy Spirit for our benefit. These dedicated professionals, who are dedicated to serving, saving, and helping their fellowman (which in and of itself is God's work), have been richly blessed with a great measure of truth which they apply to the good of others. There is a special, christ-like spirit about it that radiates from their christ-like desire to help others and I thank God in Heaven for it.
As it is now, I have a sigmoidoscopy tomorrow morning. This will take several hours and will help determine the shape and functioning and postion of my rectum for the surgery. Saurudray and Sunday we have free, but then MOnday morning we are preadmitted and then screened for the proper anisthesia for the surgery. This will be another critical process to determine what anisthesia to give me so my body will react well to it. Given what all they intend, it is important that we do not have an adverse reaction.
Then, about 5:30 AM on Tuesday (April 27th) I will be admitted and my 1st surgery will occur around noon. It will be 6-8 hours and will position my veins and vascula componenets where they are least vulnerable, and most accessabe as needed for the second surgery. They will also take one set of my abs (one of my three packs) with all three muscles, its meat and tissue and set them aside with their own natural blood-supply to be used later in the 2nd operation to fill the gap left by the removed sacrum. Dr. Rhines and Dr. Garvey (the plastic surgeon) has proven that this procedure significantly lessens infection, blood clots, and rejection. They will also take one of my thibia bones from a leg and prepare it to be structure that will back-up and fuse the metal they will put in during the 2nd surgery. That bone will need its own blood supply too, so they will strip a major vein from my ankly up to my thigh to be used for that purpose. Ultimately this will provide the needed structure...my own bone and tissue fed by my blood, to fuse and srengthen the titaniuam that otherwise, over a period of years, would come lose. Finally, they position cutting saws in precise place from the anterior so they can get at them in the 2nd surgery to make the cuts to the sacrum
Then, three days later (the 30th), they perfrom the second surgery from the posterior. After opening me up, they clear the area around the sacrum and then make the cuts...delicately working with whatever nerve roots and endings they can preserve. Once the cuts are made and the sacrum removed, they then fill the void with the flap created from my one set of abs, and then create the titanium/bone structure to rebuild the structural component to carry my wieght. This operation can take over 12 hours and if it looks to be going too long to the point of causing any fatigue with the team...then they would finish it in a 3rd surgery three days later.
So this is my path. I know it it the path the Lord has set me on...a path to bolster my faith and for me to witness His goodness in ALL things, that His WIll is best for me, for my family, for my friends...in short, His will is best for us all because it allows hearts to be touched and minds to be swayed, of their own free will, towards Him and to salvation in His Son Jesus Christ.
I hope to be able to write more before these surgeries...but if not, know I go in with my eyes wide open, and I do so praising my Father in Heaven and His Son. I know their paths lead to good. I know their paths lead to happiness and eternal joy and salvation in Jesus Christ.
"Trust in the Lord wih all thy heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy way acknowledge Himand He will direct they paths. Be not wie in thine own eyes: fear the Lord, and depart from evil. It shall be health to thy navel, and marrow to thy bones." Proverbs 3: 5-8
"I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me." Phil 4:13
"Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee, because he trusteth in Thee." Isaiah 26:3
"Come unto me all ye that labour and are are heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me for I am meek and lowly in heart and ye shall find rest to your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." Matthew 12:28-30
I testify to all...particularly to my own children and grand-children, that these things are true. They are the fundamental truths of the ages, the boon to individuals, pillars to families, and strength to nations...including the liberty of nations. Hold fast to them and be strong and be free...depart from them and fall into bondage, either personal or to tryants, it is the same.
Once again my eternal thanks and gratitude to all who have helped my family and myself as we have faced this difficulty. There are so many to name...and the crisis and its impact if far from over. In fact, in many ways, it is just now, at this date, finally getting started.
Just the same. it has been so humbling and at the same time so inspiring. We live in a good land, full of good people. The path has not been lost. Have faith in your fellow man, and in your fellow Americans! May God in Heaven bless you each for helping us, may He pour at the blessings ten fold on you and yours. I know He will...it is how He blesses His Children. I look forward to the day, not terribly distant in this life, if He so wills it, when I can again return to helping others in this same manner again, as I have been helped.
...and if not, then so be it. I will greet you in the clouds when I return with my Savior. For as surely as I breath, the great Redeemer, full of mercy, love, and charity will return to this earth one day and cleanse it of all hurt, heartache, misery and sin. I look forward to that day, whether I see Him come in the air, or whether I am there with Him.
I will write again as soon as I am able. Watch for updates from my dear, wonderful wife...the love of my life, Gail, or from others.
Sincerely, in humility, and in liberty and Christ,
Jeff Head
Dear Jeff,
I’m praying for you. I know it’s not much but it’s all I can do.
Bruce
We are praying for you.
Cancer not spreading is definately good news with the time that has passed. The Good LORD does work miracles in many ways even to the point of guiding skilled surgeons hands to give healing. It amazes me what they can do now. Still saying prayers for you and your family.
Dear Lord, guide the hand of the doctors, grant them special wisdom and insight as they care for our brother Jeff, and, if it is your will, restore him to health and allow him to inspire us as we struggle for Your land, the land which you have brought so many of your children to dwell in. Amen.
May God be with you and with your family.
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