Emily's surgery is tomorrow (Monday April 24th). As soon as we are able to we will let everyone know how it all went. Thank you again everyone for praying for Emily.

This is a comment that I posted on Amy's blog to express my gratitude to her for organizing another prayer chain for Emily. It is also the same way I feel about everyone else who is praying and has been praying. I am just going to copy and paste it here too....

Thank you SO much Amy for doing this for us yet again. I'm just all out of words and no longer know how to express the gratitude I have for people like you and those praying for us. I am just awe stricken and it brings me and my family great comfort knowing that so many are praying for Emily and our family.

When Emily was in for her last surgery which took an unexpected 8 hours all I wanted to do was just be on my knees and pray for her. But the feeling of anxiety that overtook me and not knowing why surgery was taking so long it just took a lot out of me to pray. I just kept saying to God you know what I need and You know what I want to ask you for. I know that You know my heart Lord please just fill me up with Your love and peace and know my prayers. Also just knowing that someone somewhere was praying for Emily EVERY hour just REALLY truly brought so much comfort and just relief, I'm not sure if that makes any sense. That was just my experience. Thank you Amy and to everyone for praying for our precious daughter, His precious daughter.

My friend Stephanie sent out an e-mail on our behalf that generally explains what will be happening tomorrow. Since we have to get up so early tomorrow it just save me a lot of to just copy and paste.

Emily is having her second surgery this Monday at Loyola in Maywood. They need to be there at 5:30 am. for prep stuff. They don't know what time the surgery is to begin but it is expected to be around 5 hours long. As you can imagine sitting in the waiting room while your little girl is in surgery is extremely stressful and scary. Please pray for Crystal and Scott to have peace during the day as well as for Emily to have continued courage and that the surgery would be a success!

Crystal has been great about updating her blog with Info when she has it and I know she is planning on posting about the surgery. If you want to check it out you can click this link https://mail.willowcreek.org/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.crystalstarrs.blogspot.com/

As far as I understand it.... the reason the 2nd surgery is necessary is to help the Radio Active Iodine treatments be more successful. The Thyroid cells absorb the Radio Active Iodine which kills the cancer and that is why this cancer is so treatable. Emily has malignant tumors on the left side and cancerous lymph nodes on the right. These are made up of Thyroid cells so if they don't remove these with surgery they will absorb all the iodine and it will not get to all the smaller cells (like the ones in her lungs). Seeing as this surgery is so close to the previous one and Emily's little neck is still recovering the doctors may not be able to get to the left side in this surgery. The way I understand it is that they will be able to figure that out more once they start the surgery and can see how far her healing has progressed on the left side. Therefore, our prayer is that the Dr's will be able to get ALL the tumors/lymph nodes out in this surgery and not have to have a third surgery! That way Emily will be able to progress with her Iodine treatments and get on the road to recovery sooner!

This is the situation to the best of my non-medical brains understanding. =)

Thanks for all your continued prayers and support!