Special Prayer Request

A wonderful young woman, Naomi, and her family very much need prayers from everyone. If I can in any small way help build up the posse, here is what Caminante, Naomi's pastor in Vermont, asks:

26 March 2008

Get your prayers going

As Kris Carr author of Crazy, Sexy, Cancer would say, Get your posse going.

So, you all, you are Naomi's prayer posse. She needs your prayers. Spread them far and wide. Put her on whatever prayer list you know. Just pray. Pray for her, her mother, father, four sisters and brother.

She wrote tonight on her website:

So, not so great news. I’m going to finish radiation and try a chemo for two weeks. The chemo wont cure it but we’re hoping that it’ll slow or shrink it a little. It is Ewings and it is growing and being very aggressive. After radiation and chemo they will do an assessment but after that they said that there is nothing else they can do. After the assessment they will be labeling my case as terminal. My parents and I have talked about it and decided to try everything out there to fight this beast. We’re going to research alternatives and holistic approaches. If anyone has suggestions or knows anything please let me know. I’m hoping things work out but now I really begin my fight.

I can't believe they told her that they would be calling her case 'terminal.' It's so harsh.

If you all know of anything that might help, write me [Caminante] in the comments and I will pass it along.

Our prayers can make a difference. I don't know for what to pray but God knows. Thanks.

The story goes back awhile, but Caminante first wrote about it here:

12 September 2007

I lift up my eyes to the hills

From where is my help to come? (Psalm 122.1)

I reach out to the blogging world asking your prayers for a 24 year-old in our congregation, Naomi.

Three weeks ago, she went to the doctor's, thinking she had a stress fracture in her foot. The radiologist saw a spot on her foot and called the orthopedic surgeon. They thought it was an infection, so they cleaned it out and sent off a specimen. It came back as Ewing's sarcoma, a cancer that is caused by part of the 11th chromosome moving to the 22nd. It mostly afflicts 10-20 year olds, 85% Caucasians.

She went to the doctor’s yesterday and found out the following:

-- the Ewing’s cancer has spread to her lungs, shoulder and spine but so far they don’t think it is in the bone marrow;

-- she will start next week a ten-week course of chemo that is rigourous (six hours, one day on, one day off, or two days a week);

-- at the end of that treatment, she will have her third toe and metatarsal removed and the rest of her foot will be joined together (they are trying to avoid amputating the whole thing; the next course of action would be to remove the top of her foot but keep her heel);

-- after that, she will undergo another ten-week treatment of chemo;

-- that will finally be followed by radiation.

The whole treatment is expected to last two years but the doctors say there is a 78% chance of her being cured and that is their goal.

This is an awful lot for a 24 year-old to absorb as well as her family. Her next-in-line sister (17), is having a really hard time with it. So do keep them in your prayers long-haul.

For updates or further information, please go to http://caminantesi.blogspot.com.