June 17th - Doctor Appointment

Dear Friends,

Thank you so much for your concern for us. We are grateful to you for bearing this trouble with us through your prayers (Nahum 1:7). Hannah is doing well and her back and leg pain is manageable with her medication. She was scheduled to leave today for her job as a counselor with Summit Ministries. She loves this work but the doctor told her that the surgery is urgent. He said that she should stay home so that we can continuously pursue the surgical process.

We met with a neurosurgeon this afternoon. I’ll refer to him as Dr. J. He is thought by our doctors to be the best neurosurgeon in this area. We prepared 6 pages of questions for him because the location of Hannah’s tumor at the base of the spine is somewhat rare and we weren’t sure that he would be experienced with resection of this type of tumor. Dr. J was so gracious and humble. He told us very early on in the appointment that he probably would not perform this surgery. He said that he had done less than one of these per year and we got the impression that he had not performed this surgery on anyone as young as Hannah.

Dr J said that he would like for us to go to Vanderbilt to Dr. Joseph Cheng. Let me tell you why this is amazing then you will know that your prayers on our behalf for guidance were answered.

Eddy and I and others have spent the last two days researching and making contact with lots of people. A number of friends suggested Vanderbilt as the place to have this done. Vanderbilt is out of our insurance network, and that will be a prayer request later in this email. As I was researching, I found Dr. Cheng’s credentials and believed that he had experience in removal of this type of tumor. Today while in the waiting room, we received a call from a doctor’s office in Utah, recommending…… Dr. Cheng. When we got home from the appointment, Eddy received an email from a friend who knew of a very complicated tumor removal performed by …….Dr. Cheng.

Dr. J knows Dr. Cheng personally and agrees with his philosophy of neurosurgery, which is “you don’t sacrifice nerves in order to gain total resection of a tumor.” (That is also our philosophy of neurosurgery. ;) If a portion of the tumor is left, it may grow back. Either way, Hannah will have to be followed medically for this condition for the rest of her life.

The neurosurgeon said that he will write a letter to our insurance company referring us to Dr. Cheng. Here is the much needed prayer request. Our insurance coverage is such that we can go to Vanderbilt ONLY as an out-of-network hospital. We will have some coverage, but it will probably cover less than half of the expense.

Will you please continue to pray for us?

1) That our insurance company will be persuaded to cover this as though it is in network. Proverbs 21:1

2) That Hannah & the rest of the Lees will be wise stewards of this trial and this process, bringing honor to Him whom we love. Matthew 25:21; James 1:2-4

3) For Dr. J’s son who needs a liver transplant. Eddy told Dr. J about our faith and about all of you who are praying for us. I plan to send Dr. J a thank-you card and let him know that we are praying for his son.

Thanks again,

Lisa, for all the Lees