Jim went into town, to the hospital and visited with Martin. Martin is recovering from oral surgery to remove the cancer on his tongue and walls of his mouth. While there Jim talked with the surgeon who said that the cancer was at stage 3 (stage 4 being the worse). The surgeon is fairly confident that they removed it all but cancer being what it is there are no 100% guaranties so post-surgery chemo and radiation therapies are needed. However at this time there is NO radiation therapy available in the country.
Martin is doing okay but struggles with the complications. What’s left of his tongue is very sore and excess salivating is hard for him to deal with as he cannot swallow it yet. So he has to constantly catch the saliva on a towel, at times blowing it out of his mouth. How he sleeps at night is a wonder. His speech is affected for now and he is hard to understand. Hopefully in time he will be able to speak better although he may never sound the same.
He has a feeding tube in one nostril and is surviving on liquids like Milo (a malted chocolate drink in this part of the world). There’s nothing for him to do thru the day except read and talk with his brother who is staying with him in the surgery ward.
His wife and two children went to visit him last week and we hope that was encouraging. It’s an all-day affair to go to town and come back so his family visits are few.
Jim assured Martin that despite all these things the surgery saved his life. If he hadn’t undergone the procedure the cancer would have spread in his body and killed him. Jim stayed as long as he could and prayed with him before he left.
It’s hard to see a friend and brother in Christ suffer like this. Why God allowed this we don’t know but we trust Him in it and pray that Martin will continue to do the same. Pray for him as he really is tired of the hospital and all the saliva but the doctor said they cannot remove the tube yet. Pray he won’t get discouraged.
We will be away for almost 4 weeks but our coworkers will keep us updated. Thanks for praying for this brother in Christ.
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