Re: URGENT PRAYER FOR ANDERSON CHEN!!!

[Tiffany Chen]

Hi all,

Not very good news to report.  If you haven't already heard, we found out today that there is a tumor on Anderson's spine which is likely the cause of his numbness from the chest down.

There is quite a long story about how God has been caring for us and has been working through our circumstances leading up to today... I will gladly write it all out to you soon, but not right now.

We're OK right now... the initial shock has worn off and we're just waiting here in the emergency room to be admitted to a regular hospital room.  They aren't putting him into the ICU right now so that means that it's not COMPLETELY URGENT but it's still a very serious matter. 

I will try to keep you all updated as I can. 

Thank you so much for your prayers for us and our families.  Everyone should be coming to Houston soon... Anderson's parents from Brazil and my parents from LA.  Please pray for their safety as they fly as well.

Anderson will be on a very high dose of IV steroids which we know in the past gives him hallucinations, bad dreams and nausea... he's also getting dilaudid which also makes him feel nauseous... so we're in for a pretty rough night once again.  Please pray for the minimization of the side effects from these medications too.

So far the nursing staff has been pretty good... not 100% to my liking but I have pretty high standards for the love of my life.

Kelly and I are in the room with him and we're all talking fairly calmly.  Anderson is still talking, he can still move his arms and legs.  He's numb from the chest down but it feels like pins and needles like it fell asleep. 

K, just wanted to let you know that we're doing OK and we're in prayer with you all.

Love you all,
Tiff

On Fri, May 22, 2009 at 2:34 AM, David Chu <david...@yahoo.com> wrote:

Dear Prayer Partners,

I just got the news through the attached emails that Anderson was admitted to the hospital tonight and the doctors found a tumor in the spine area.  His condition is very critical.  Let's spread the news and pray to our God for our brother Anderson and sister Tiffany.

David Chu

From: Emily Kam [mailto:esk...@gmail.com]
Sent: Thursday, May 21, 2009 11:37 PM
To: David Wang; David Chu; Dennis Chan; David Chu-Work; Gordon Chow; Allan Kam; Ed & Khong; Leonard Ng (W); JK Lee; Joe Indrawan; Anita chu; Emily Kam; Ina Indrawan; DAVID & MAUREEN WANG; Pauline Ng; Lynn Khong; Maureen Wang; Bev Lee; Susan Chow; Susie Chan; Lau Jackson & lily; KenBow Chen; Jackson Lau; Steve Loo; Jesse Hur; Hanley Liu; Alice Chin; Wilson Tsoi; Joseph Tang; Oliver Lung; Mike Tsai; Vivian Szeto; Susan Tao; Christina Huang; Ruby Hsieh; Su Ning; Jeff & Jocelyn Loie; Annie Owyang; Shirley Hsu; Katie Shea; Lynn Zhou; Cathy Yu; Imelda Yen
Cc: Emily Kam
Subject: URGENT PRAYER!!!!!!!!!!!

 

After this below email sent, Pauline called and said that Tiffany text saying

that the "tumor is in the spine", cannot do any surgery, possible coma upcoming....

...everyone crying....

Please PRAY FOR MIRACLE and peace.

 

On Thu, May 21, 2009 at 11:21 PM, Emily Kam <esk...@gmail.com> wrote:

PLEASE PRAY THE BELOW from Tiffany's mother, Pauline.

 

The LORD bless you & keep you,

Emily 

 

From: Pauline Ng <lpt...@yahoo.com>
Subject: URGENT PRAYER
To: "ipray4anderson" <ipray4a...@googlegroups.com>, ipray4ande...@googlegroups.com
Date: Thursday, May 21, 2009, 11:07 PM

Hi all:

I just got off the phone with Tiff, and here is the update on Anderson:

Anderson is admitted to the hospital, he has finished his MRI, waiting for his doctor to see him.

Please pray:

1. God's Mighty hands be upon Anderson to perform a miracle, we need a miracle! 

2. God to direct the doctor to make the right diagnosis and proceed with the treatment plan.

3. The steroid will be effective to get rid of the dead tissue and relief the fluid in the brain.

4. God to give Tiff emotional stability, physical & spiritual strength, cast out all fear, peace and rest on the Almighty King.

 

God is mighty to save!!!!!!

Please put Anderson's name in Psalm 121and pray!!!!!!!!!!............ 

 

IHN

Pauline

[Tiffany Chen]

Hi everyone,

Once again, more bad news.  I seriously feel like Job when people keep coming and telling him more and more and more bad news...

There is not just one tumor on his spine, there are many all along his spine and they are not operable, possibly radiation, but all in all, it's not looking very great for Tifferson.

Our hearts are devastated, but our faith is strong. Do not worry about us, just pray and pray hard for a miracle.

We love and miss you all,
Tiff

[Tiffany Chen]

Hey friends & family,

Sorry I haven't sent any updates lately... After getting virtually no sleep since the 20th... we really needed some time to rest.

I'll try my best right now to tell you all an overview of what happened to us since the 20th.. also for myself so I remember the order of events because everything's getting kind of foggy nowadays.  It's gonna be really long so if you don't wanna read it.. you don't have to, but just in case you want to know exactly what went on.. here it is. 

May 20th

• 12am - Anderson says the sides of his chest feels weird.  He has a hard time describing it to me... so we just decide to try to sleep and if it gets worse to go to the emergency center at MD Anderson. 
• 2am - Anderson says that he feels numbness across his chest.  We go to the Emergency Center and he's admitted to a room right away.  I thought we'd just go there, get checked out and be back in bed hopefully in a few hours.  Little did I know...
  
• 3:30am - Triaged, EKG came back normal, order for IV fluids but no nurse yet to start the IV.  The doctor had come, assessed him, and told us that they were going to do a Chest Xray to rule out a blood clot in the lungs which sometimes causes numbness in the chest and also maybe to see if his recent fall in the bathroom (on 5/13) could have caused some spinal damage.  CXR done... waiting for results.
• 7am - still no results from the CXR yet.  Harassed (politely) the nurse a few times.  Waiting, waiting, waiting.  
• 8am - doctor comes back in, tells us that CXR is negative for spinal abnormalities, gonna do a chest CT to confirm.
• 9am - found out that the night nurse put in a 22ga IV in the forearm which is too small for chest CT contrast and not in the right location.  Without even looking at his veins, the nurse calls the IV team to come in to start the IV.  I'm a little miffed that she was so lazy.
• 10am - IV team comes, starts a 20ga IV (a bigger one) in the right place (the AC).  We go to CT a little while later.
• 11-ish - at CT, the nurse there tells us that for PE protocol, they need an 18ga (even BIGGER) IV.  We're miffed again that they didn't check very well before they put in the IV.  Thankfully, the nurse there was able to use the 20ga, but we had to wait longer for her to get the OK from the doc on call to use the 20ga.  He gets the CT.
  
• 12pm - we've been there for 10 hrs, mostly waiting and not knowing when things were going to happen.  The chairs there are for sitting and not for sleeping and the wheelchair is more comfortable than the chair in the room. I slide the chair and wheelchair together and tried to sleep that way, but I really couldn't.  Neither of us had slept very much since we woke up at 9am on the 19th for an appointment.  The doc comes in and tells us that the CT was negative for clots but she'd like to do a spinal MRI.  So they take him to MRI.
• 1pm - someone comes to the room to tell me that I need to go upstairs.  My heart stops and I anxiously get to the MRI holding station... only to find that he hasn't even gone into MRI yet.  He just had to pee and he wanted me to help him.  So I'm relieved, but he is clearly agitated.  The most agitated I'd ever seen him.  He only got 2mg of dexamethasone (steroid) by mouth at around 10 or 11, never got the ativan they'd ordered to help him calm down, and he hadn't eaten since dinner last night.  They didn't deliver him any food for lunch because he wasn't in the room when they came.  Anyway, so he was yelling at everyone and saying that he just wanted to go home.  He couldn't take it anymore.  No sleep, no food, he was starting to feel nauseous and almost throw up (which happens when he doesn't get sleep and also when the pressure in his brain is high) so I also push for us to go home.  At this point he said that he felt numb from the chest down to his feet.  I didn't really think that we should leave but I did want to sleep and i was really really tired and just didn't want to be there anymore either.
  
• 2pm - we're back in the emergency center, the nurse practitioner there urges him to stay and get the MRI but Anderson just won't have any of it.  He's pissed off so bad, he just wants to go home.  We find out now from the nurse practitioner that she had ordered him IV steroids, anti-anxiety medication... and some other stuff that the nurse had no idea about... and so he never got them.  We're pretty annoyed at the nursing staff at this point for #1 not keeping us in the loop and letting us know what's going on, #2 for not being on top of it and for letting Anderson get to this point of being so tired and hungry that he's agitated and almost in hysterics and #3 for not giving him the meds he was supposed to get. So we sign the form that we're leaving against medical advice and we go home.  He eats a little, takes another steroid, and sleeps.
• 6pm - he'd woken me up every hour to help him go to the restroom so even though it was not continuous sleep, it was still rest in our bed in the apt.  He still hadn't really gotten better.. he was still numb from his chest to his feet.  Maybe 20% numb, but he was feeling better overall after having slept and eaten a little.  I told him that we should probably go back to get the MRI.  He doesn't want to go b/c he doesn't want to wait there for another 12 hrs.  I make dinner and we eat.  Kenneth and Clara (friends we met here in Houston... Clara's sister goes to our church back at home and Kenneth is a cancer survivor and a volunteer at MD Anderson) come over and bring us dumplings and come chat and pray with us.  Anderson was pretty much calmed back down to normal.
• 9pm - we decide to go back to the emergency center.  Waiting, waiting, waiting in the busy waiting room.
• 11:30pm - finally get to see the triage nurse.. who remembers us from our 2am triage.  She said that she could try to just get us in for the MRI and not be admitted to the rooms... (which we're happy about) but she called around and found out that MRI closed at 11pm and since it wasn't a medical emergency... (according to the doc on call in the emergency center), she gave us a number to call at 8am the next day to see if they could squeeze us in for the MRI scheduled earlier.  We go home.  A little miffed that nothing was scheduled but we're pretty tired and want to sleep.

May 21

• 8am-ish - call the number they gave us and get the run-around... transferred from dept to dept and in the end, they tell us to leave a msg with the Brain and Spine Center to have them schedule the MRI because they don't schedule with patients.  Duh.  I leave a msg with the Brain and Spine Center, email our doctors, call the emergency center (EC) a couple more times and find out that we either go back to the EC to get the MRI done or have the oncologist schedule an outpatient MRI. 
  
• 10am - Oncologist's nurse calls and tells us that we should go back to the EC and that they'd tell them that we were coming to help speed up the process.  His oncologist would like the MRI to rule out spinal cord issues.  Anderson's still really tired so we decide to sleep some more to prepare us for the wait in the EC.  We hoped to get there before noon.
• 12pm - Anderson's still tired so we just decide to let him sleep more.  Kelly, Anderson's sister, was arriving at 1pm so we decided to just wait for her to get here and then go to the EC together. 
  
• 1:30pm - Kelly arrives, we eat, chit chat a bit while Anderson sleeps... I catch her up on what happened.
• 2:30pm - we wake up Anderson for him to eat and get ready to go.  He eats and gets dressed.  I pack up in preparation for another marathon wait  in the EC (just in case... if you know me, I'm definitely prepared for stuff when I can be... I pack 2 bags of stuff to do, food, etc. etc.). 
  
• 4pm - we're at the EC again, but this time there's a pretty long wait.  We wanted to hopefully get our story straight with the triage nurse before the Brain and Spine Center closes at 5pm.  So we harass the receptionist staff... who pretty much bites our head off (semi-politely) and doesn't let us get a word in edgewise.  We finally get in to see the triage nurse just as we were walking over to harss HER... and we tell her the story and she calls our oncologist mad b/c she feels that he's trying to bypass protocol to get the MRI... but in the end, she's fine and the nurse practitioner on call tells us that we're on the wait list for an MRI... basically like standby at the airport but with a little higher priority than outpatients b/c we're in the EC.  So we wait in the waiting room for them to call us to go to MRI.  He also gets an IV done by the IV team. 
  
• 7pm - we eat sushi from the cafeteria, go to the restroom... someone takes us to MRI.
  
• 8pm - we're waiting at MRI, filling out paperwork, changed into scrubs... waiting in the holding area.
• 8:30pm - he's in the MRI and Kelly and I are waiting in the waiting room... Kelly watches the Playoff game on the computer in the waiting room.
• 10:30pm - he's done with the MRI, we change him back into normal clothes and the MRI nurse says we could probably just go home... but that maybe we should go back to the EC to sign discharge papers before we go.  So... back to the EC we go.
• 11pm - the EC is once again crowded and by that time, the receptionist doesn't want to see us anymore... we can't get in to talk to anyone because they're so busy and unavailable.  We were just about to go home... but I ask Anderson to go to the bathroom b/c he hadn't gone in a while.  We go... and he can't pee.  It's not coming out.  So now I'm concerned b/c he's got contrast dye in him AND he hasn't peed in a while.  So now I'm more urgent in tracking down the triage nurse and letting her know that he can't pee.  She's still running around a lot, but she agrees to scan his bladder and also maybe to catheterize him to empty his bladder... but we have to be admitted for all that to happen.  Anderson's NOT happy about that, but I pretty much make him stay.  He tried to pee again a few more times but couldn't do it.  All the more reason I tell him that we need to stay.  Kelly agrees.  

May 22

• 12am - bladder scan done, he only had 300 cc's in his bladder according to the scan. It's not a whole lot, but since he can't go... she agrees to catheterize him... but she's so busy... running around...  never gets around to doing it.  By that time the doc comes to see us... she assesses him quickly and says that she's waiting for radiology for his spinal MRI results.  
• 1am - Radiologist calls with partial results from the spinal MRI.  He saw a lesion in Anderson's spine and the EC doctor puts him on strict bedrest, no eating/drinking, and high dose steroids and pain medications.  He's admitted to a room in the EC right away. 
  
• 2am - they're unable to start an IV on him... they tried 3x unsuccessfully.  4th time, the triage nurse gets it in and he gets his fluids, steroids, and pain medication.  I can't remember if it was before or after the IV... but Anderson pees... finally... about 400 cc's.  But the docs are not satisfied and they want to see if he can empty his bladder completely.  They catheterize him and find out that he's holding on to another 400 cc's. 
  
• 4am - Neurosurgery comes by to tell us more bad news.  There isn't just one tumor on his spine... there are more.  He has smaller lesions also at the very end of his spinal cord... the area that innervates the bladder.  He also tells us that the way the lesions are growing... it seems like they metastasized from his original brain tumor and they are inoperable because they're growing inside the spinal cord.  Surgery would definitely mean paralysis.  He suggests radiation oncology to come to tell us about radiation options. 
  
• 6am - no one's slept... we cry.  we cry and we cry.  But we also talk.  We've had the best talk we've had in a while. Our hearts ache, but we are still hopeful and trusting that God has His plan for us.  Though death may part us earlier than we had hoped... Anderson's had a lot of peace and wisdom in his situation and he's comforting me a lot.  I'm a wreck. 
  
• 7:30am - he starts making some phone calls.  Sorry if you were the "victim" of Anderson's calling back at home.
  
• some other stuff happens in between here and 10am. Oh yeah.. .the oncologist team comes in to let us know what's going on with them.  They also suggest radiation.  They do a lot of assessments and try calling radiation oncology again and again. They don't answer. We wait. I think he pees one more time on his own.  They want to put a foley catheter in, but he doesn't want to.  They let us wait on that for a bit so we can get some rest.
  
• 10:40am - we sleep.  I remember distinctly telling the chaplain wearing a bowtie that we'd like to see him, but later b/c we're tired.  We sleep. Kelly sleeps in the chair/wheelchair and I squeeze onto the EC stretcher with Anderson.
  
• 2:40pm - I open my eyes after what seems like 5 minutes.  The nurse tells us that he's going to ultrasound to do a doppler on his legs to make sure he doesn't have clots in his legs.  I think radiation oncology also came (can't remember what time) and they told us that they were going to get Anderson in for treatment today... at 4pm. Kenneth and Clara are in the waiting room so I go out to chat with them a bit.  
• 3pm - Anderson's awake and a little agitated.  He needed to pee and no one was there to help him, the nurse wasn't coming or answering the call light and he woke up and neither Kelly or I were there.  So we calm him down, he tries to pee.  He can't.  So he gets catheterized. 
  
• 4pm - Anderson goes down to radiology to get his mask made, and he's going to ultrasound after that... so Kelly and I decide to go home, shower, eat, pack up some more stuff and come back to the hospital. 
  
• 6pm - we're back at the hospital... we go to the EC room and throw open the curtain without knocking... and... it's not Anderson.  Oopsies!  So we find the nurse and she tells us that he's still in ultrasound but that they have a room for him on the 12th floor.  They send us up there.
• 6:30pm - we're waiting for Anderson in the new room... P1212 is the room number.  Anderson's "lunch" had arrived in the EC and they brought it up to his room.  It's a nice room.  Much bigger with 2 comfy chairs for me and Kelly.  AND a bathroom.  yay.  :)  Anderson comes back and we're waiting for him in the room.  He's happy that we're here.
• The nurses get him settled in, get his vitals, give him some medication.  He eats a bit, I think.  I really can't remember.  Oh wait... I think we sleep a little.  That's why I can't remember. 
  
• 9pm - they come to take him down to his first radiation treatment.  I go with him.  It took so long that I finished making a berry basket craft. 
  
• 11:30pm - Anderson and I are back in the room.  We eat his "lunch".  I cry.  He comforts me.  We both cry.  We pray. We don't want to be sad anymore... so he eats more, I look for the Dodger score on ESPN (BOO they were losing to the Angels at that point), and then we find Sister Act on TBS and we decide to just snuggle and watch it. 
  

May 23

• 1am - my parents arrive from LA and they come to the hospital to see us.  We chat and pray really quickly.
  
• 2am - We sleep.
• 6am - something happens. I'm too sleepy.
  
• 8:30am - Neuro Oncology comes in to check on Anderson.  The oncologist is a funny guy... who doesn't like the lakers and calls California the land of La Bray (that's how he said it) Tarpits.  Anderson's supposed to go get his 2nd radiation treatment at 11.
  
• 10am - transport comes to take him to radiation, I order his breakfast. 
  

And that pretty much brings us up to the present.  I've been writing this email for a while now.  So in case you wanted to know what happened to us and why we're so tired... this is what we've been through in the past few days. 

We're both very thankful for so many things... so many ways that God was watching over us and working things out in his perfect timing.  For example:

• We're glad that we didn't leave the EC and go home after his MRI.  We're very glad that I asked him to go pee right before we were about to leave... if I hadn't asked that, we would have gone home and then we would have had to come right on back.  Or maybe the radiologist wouldn't even have called that night... he might have waited until the morning. 
  
• We're glad that he was admitted on the 22nd and not on the 20th.  The nursing staff from his first visit to the EC was NOT very good and NOT on top of things and horrible with communication.  The room and the nursing staff the 2nd time around was much better, much nicer and they made a whole world of difference to us when we were there. Also, Kelly was able to be with us the 2nd time around... and especially that she was there for us when we heard the horrible news that they found tumors on his spine.  Who knows how we would have been able to handle it if she weren't there.
  
• We're also glad we got a chance to go home in between the EC visits and get some rest and eat... and also for Kenneth and Clara to come by and have a chance to pray with us...
• We're glad that were in Houston and are able to be at the hospital in less than 10 minutes.  We couldn't imagine having to go back and forth to UCLA... especially with the traffic and being so tired. 
  
• We're super glad that we're at MD Anderson.  We're glad that Pastor Ted moved to his new church, we're glad that I went to visit a Sunday service there, we're glad that I ran into my elementary school 3rd grade best friend, Allison Nakagaki, and that we decided to all facebook and then Alli planned a reunion with anyone in our year that went to Stanley G. Oswalt Elementary School.  We're glad that I got a chance to reconnect with my elementary school friends... that we all bonded and that some were able to come to our wedding.  We're also glad that one of my elementary school friends, Mark, has a brother who used to work for an oncologist, Dr. Hamid from the Angeles Clinic.  The day of our appointment with Dr. Hamid, he told us that he was on his way to MD Anderson the very next day and that he would bring Anderson's case with him to see what they could do for him at MD Anderson.  We had been interested in a clinical trial with Dr. Lang and we were happy to get a contact who would take his case there. Dr. Hamid kept in touch with us and gave Anderson's case to the doctors at MD Anderson... and then we got a call from Dr. Weinberg about the laser trial... something completely different than what we had originally been interested in.  in fact, we'd never even heard of the thermal laser ablation and we have no idea how he got Anderson's case, but either way, we're glad that he found us.  It took a few weeks to get everything in order.  We almost went to Minnesota for a similar laser therapy treatment, but that fell through (some of you might remember that).  In the end, we ended up coming to Texas and we're SO glad we did.  Dr. Weinberg has been wonderful to us and he made the process so much better.  The actual timing of the surgery was also pretty perfect because he did a prep MRI right before the laser therapy and that was when they found the big big tumor in Anderson's frontal lobe.  Dr. Weinberg was kind enough to add the craniotomy to the laser thermal ablation procedure the following day... which turned a 2 hour procedure into a 16-18 hour procedure.  It was also a blessing that we had to wait a few weeks to come to Texas and that the tumor was as big as it was.  If it was smaller, he might have done the laser therapy on it.  If he had done laser therapy on it and NOT the craniotomy, Anderson would have been paralyzed on his left side b/c the tumor was wrapped around a huge blood vessel.  If he hadn't opened up Anderson's skull, he wouldn't have seen it and might have burned that blood vessel and cut off blood to Anderson's right frontal lobe.  After the surgery and after we were discharged, we were glad to find an apartment closeby... about 1.5 miles away from the hospital.  Radiation treatments ... everyday for 6 weeks were only 5 minutes away.  It would have been hell trying to go to UCLA everyday for 6 weeks for a 20 minute treatment.  There was also free valet during radiation at MD Anderson.  It would have been $11 each time we went to UCLA.  Another blessing.  Also, MD Anderson was pretty good about making sure that Anderson went to PT/OT which had a large part to do with his great recovery after the surgery... which also helped us to know right away when things weren't wrong.  We're also glad that Anderson was doing really well in his recovery because that gave his parents a little bit more incentive to go back to LA/Brazil and give us 2 whole weeks to be alone together and to actually get a glimpse of what it may have felt like to live together as newlyweds.  The 2 weeks prior to his admission to the EC were the best 2 weeks of our lives and we're so thankful for that precious precious time we had together.  We're also thankful that Texas is much much closer than Minnesota and that people have been able to visit us pretty easily here.  Also thankful for Southwest flights to Hobby airport (the closer airport to where we're at). 

OK... I'm pretty inspired to write more.  I will end this email and start another one.  A more fun one. 

Stay tuned.
<3,
Tiff

[Tiffany Chen]

Prayer requests for Anderson

• Radiation - pray that it would be effective, minimize side effects.  his spine is being radiated in 3 different places and it may affect his bowels and esophagus. 
  
• Elimination - pray for good bowel and bladder function.
• Brain - pray for preserved function, no more growth of tumors, lower the swelling, any necrosis, any residual tumor, and especially that his brain stem would be protected.
• Numbness - he's still numb from his chest down, his feet and legs have gotten a little more numb since yesterday. He's having a hard time moving his legs now.  They say to wait for radiation to kick in.. maybe after a week.  Hopefully.  We're really really really hoping that feeling will come back.  They say it might be the last thing that comes back, but they really can't say. 
  
• Alertness and orientation - he's been very alert and oriented and his thinking is very clear.  Pray that it continues.
• Arms - his arms are still functioning.  pray that they continue to be protected. 
  
• Spirits - overall, he's been in good spirits.  pray that it would continue and that his motivation to get better will continue to be a blessing to him.  Also, not to lose hope.  We pray constantly. Hope that continues.
  
• Infection - pray against infections.  there are so many ways you can get an infection in the hospital. especially with the foley catheter and his IV.
• Immobility - pray that he would not suffer from the side effects of immobility such as blood clots, pressure ulcers, constipation.  We were hoping for PT/OT to come today but they don't do assessments on weekends so they might not come til Tuesday.  We'll try to do some exercises in bed today.  Maybe get up in a chair.  I'm so thankful I'm a nurse.  It has been the most practical, the most valuable, and the most heart changing education I've ever gotten. I highly recommend it.  
• Rest - for everyone here, especially Anderson.  Good, rejuvenating rest.
  
• Safety - for everyone as they travel to visit. For all of us here and back home.

<3,
Tiff

[Tiffany Chen]

Oh, I forgot to attach the icon I drew in paint.  Since my last icon was so popular... here's another.

Tiff

On Sat, May 23, 2009 at 12:32 PM, Tiffany Chen <tiffany.g.ng@gmail.com> wrote: