Prayer Requests

I had breakfast with my half-brother this morning, and he had some bad news: he's been diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma. The diagnosis was a big shock for a couple of reasons, mainly that he is twenty years younger than most people diagnosed with this, and that there is absolutely no family history of cancer of any kind. Virtually everyone in our shared background (Dad's side) has had diabetes, and there is some heart disease, but no cancer. It's perhaps doubly scary because his wife has a chronic health condition (which isn't currently making her sick, but could at any moment), and they have three children under the age of nine. Fortunately, his lymphoma is not currently causing symptoms, and the long-term prognosis is pretty good: highly treatable, and even a chance of being cured, provided that it has not spread to his bone marrow yet (they are testing for this next month).

My dad's younger sister is in the hospital. She had a stroke earlier this year, and for a while was doing well, but she has been back in the hospital for a couple of weeks now. She had pneumonia, and they anesthetized her to drain the fluid from her lungs. She has not been responsive since then (although no one has said she is in a coma), and her kidneys are failing. Relatives who have been able to visit her in the hospital have said that she does not seem to be fighting for her life--she seems to have given up.

Please pray that if it is God's will, my aunt will pass peacefully and be taken swiftly to heaven. She is not Catholic, but she has always been a good and kind lady. Please also pray for my brother's peace of mind; he feels a bit as though he is waiting for the axe to fall.