Courage and Hope... I can tell you these words have run through my mind several times each day since I wrote you last.

It appears that God is calling Gary home for his final healing. [...]

There are several saying in the cancer world, living with cancer is a roller coaster ride, this is the new norm and the one that describes this week is, as long as a cancer patient is alive there is HOPE.[...]

It is an early Wednesday morning and I am sitting in the hospital room Gary has been in since last Monday night. The ongoing battle with the g tube Caleb described in his post was fixed and then last night stopped working, so Gary is back to throwing up until it can be looked at again. He is on day two of the new Chemo and we continue to pray that the chemo will kill off enough cancer to get his bowels going again.[...]

Hi friends and family, I have had several days off from work to spend time with my mom and dad. I have a better grasp of what's going on so I wanted to write an update. Dad has a G-Tube in his stomach that is supposed to suck the stomach fluids out and into a plastic container. This G-Tube is very important because if it doesn't work dad has to throw up several liters of this harsh stomach fluid everyday. This is dangerous! If he swallows the fluid down the wrong pipe he will aspirate like last time he was in ICU. The doctor that put the tube in has said there is nothing else he can do, leaving dad to vomit large amounts of fluid. We have sat patiently for several day with no answers to why he can't fix the tube. The oncologist has held off chemo because of the dangers of vomiting so much. However, he decided to start chemo treatment tomorrow with the hopes the it will clear his bowels enough to get the G-Tube to work. We are praying for this to happen and for the tumors to respond to the chemo. Tomorrow, Monday, we will aggressively seek treatment from a cancer center like the University of San Fransisco which is a top 5 cancer center in the world for traditional treatment and because of the location his insurance should accept. Other options are, City of Hope, UCLA and Stanford. Please pray that dad can get the best treatment possible. To me UCFS seems to be the best bet and its location is great. Pray that tomorrow we will talk to people who we find favor with and are willing to help us. Pray that we find the right doctors and the best treatment wherever that may be. It would be a miracle to find a surgeon who would be willing to operate and attempt to cut out the tumors and chemo wash the cancer. This would be an effective way to deal with so much cancer but one of the top surgeons has said he could not operate. This a difficult time for us all, to see someone you love suffering so badly. My mom is overwhelmed with grief at the thought of living the rest of her life with out her husband. In such severe grief and pain common Christian phrases and highly quoted scripture seems to fall dead on the heart. 'All things work together for good' is no comfort when your husband and dad is being torched to death. God often feels distant in the midst of great suffering. David cried out in Psalm 10:1 "Why Lord do You stand so far off ? Why do You hide Yourself in times of trouble?" Mahalath writes in Psalm 88 "Lord You are the God who saves me. Day and night I cry out to You. May my prayer come before You; turn Your ear to my cry. I am overwhelmed with trouble and my life draws near to death... But I cry to You for help Lord; in the morning my prayer come before You. Why Lord do You reject me and hide Your face from me? Job cries out to the Lord in 30:20 "I cry out to You, God, but You do not answer; I stand up but You merely look at me." Even Jesus, facing the pain caused from separation from the Father ask if there was any other way. C.S. Lewis communicates this beautifully when he said "We are not necessarily doubting if God will do the best for us; we are wondering how painful the best would be." Sayings like "God is good" or, "He will bring good out of this", even "trust in God, He is in control" can be offensive during times of great grief and can cause someone to feel guilty over not feeling any good at all. God has revealed through His Word and gave the ultimate example during His life on earth that it is normal and ok to morn and be overwhelmed by grief in times of great trouble. Jesus was so overwhelmed He almost died in the garden. So our family is morning a great tragedy and praying for a life to be saved. But for now it is very hard for my mom and others from being so overwhelmed by grief.

This morning i wrote you a nice long update to have it disappear. Well I guess God wanted a shorter version! Gary is back in the hospital...the drainage tube would not work when we got home yesterday so he was throwing up and in pain. As long as the bowels are locked up with the cancer and fecal he will need to drain the fluids from his gtube. The prayer is the Chemo would work and clear our enough cancer so the bowels can do their job. Our son Caleb and his wife arrive today and our son Paul talks with me each day helping to try and make decisions about the car....and day to day things that need our attention. ..even when someone you love so much is so ill there are those things that must be taken care of. Gary is not able to make decsions like that right now. Our friends from the desert. ..our santa cruz friends. .our friends from all over the world...are the hands and feet of Christ....and there are not enough words to express our gratitude to each one of you. With a heart full of love.....and thankfulness. Please pray the chemo would work. the house would sell. Thank you everyone for cleaning the house up...and thanks to our nephew who is going to stay in it. That would we be able to replace our car with a newer dependable car that is big enough for a walker...maybe a wheelchair and the i will throw in a stroller! Our God is an awesome God. That i know. Blessings Team Barton

It seems like weeks ago when i wrote the post from our warm hotel room in Chicago. But it has only been three days....three long bumpy days. First thing Saturday morning we recived a call back from one of the surgeons the surgeon Dr. Block felt would be the most likely to do the surgery. The surgeon reported Gary was not eligible for surgery due to his cancer being a very rare cancer that is very difficult to treat.[...]