On August 14, 2009, a good friend, Bruce Stanford sent me a forwarded email. Bruce was always sending me forwards. One was an email from a mother in Westerville, Ohio, that for some reason touched my heart. She has a son 8 years old at the time and he had just been diagnosed with osteoscarcoma. Osteo as families fighting always call it, is one of the most deadly of cancers occurring most often in teens. Seldom survivable if it has spread to the lungs, but can be conquered if all things are just right. It attacks the bones usually in the limbs.
Cindy Bish was a desperate mother; she did what all mothers who are cornered do, she fought with the only weapon she had. A belief in the Lord God Almighty. She sent out a simple email to 15 friends asking for prayers and asking that they pass it on. She pulled her congregation together, she organized prayer groups and she begged for those of us who had gotten the email to pray fervently, A mother cannot diagnoses, cannot treat, cannot perform surgery. She can be there and she can beg. I saw this same determination once before up close and, as they say, in living color, when our daughter in law was determined that cancer would not take her sweet daughter, Annde. She held that baby as the doctors did spinal taps; she held her as they did bone marrow tests; she, along with the help of so many your prayers, and with God's will, won that battle.
With those 15 persons, the email was sent to others and on and on and on. It went around the world. Posted on the Caring Bridge site are 399,000 plus messages for the Bish family from every state and from Australia to Canada and from Japan to England.
I was sceptical at first but checked it out with the Church mentioned, Westerville Christian Church (formerly Westerville Church of Christ) It was obvious that this was genuine. She had called on her fellow Christians for help. She had no hesitation in doing that. She was at war. She created a web site in Caring Bridge which I will post on the bottom of this and invite you to go in and send a message with a prayer in your heart for this fine family. It was through this congregation that I first heard about doing a prayer in the yard and if you go to that web site and look at the pictures you can see the members surrounding the Bish home.
The day finally came when they had a big decision to make. Do they authorize an amputation of Sam's leg or not. They were sent the name of a doctor at MD Anderson in Houston and arrangements were made to fly there with Sam.
In case you wonder if people are still caring in this world, let me tell you about a family in Houston. Never met the Bish family but like Jim and I had followed along on Caring Bridge because someone had sent them the Mother's email. The Houston family contacted the doctor in Ohio, made the flight arrangements for Mike, Cindy and Sam, paid for the tickets, met them at the plane, kept them at their home, took them to eat real Tex Mex food and drove them everywhere they needed to be staying with them through the testing at MD Anderson. This did not cost the Bish family a penny. They even sent Texas presents home for the two little girls, Caitlin and Aubrey. Pictures of this fine family are also on the site.
Decision was made for amputation. Sports teams visited Sam in the hospital. His story has been on TV in Ohio many times. ....... spots were discovered in the lungs.
Never giving up, they got ready for lung surgery not long after the amputation. Many nodules were discovered, many removed. The outlook was good. There would be one more round of chemo, it looked as if they were winning the battle.
The Bish family prepared for a trip to, you know.......... DisneyWorld in Orlando. Make a Wish foundation had stepped in. They went just a week or so ago and were scheduled for five more days in the hospital beginning today for the last round of chemo. They were dreading it but again it was part of the battle plan. I cut and paste a paragraph from the posting on Caring Bridge this afternoon.
"It is with a very heavy heart that I write this journal entry. Sam is at home tonight. He was admitted this morning and was taken down for a CT scan first thing. Sam's doctors pulled me over to the side (away from Sam) and told me that the CT scan showed a relapse of cancer in Sam's lungs. Several nodules have shown up in both of Sam's lungs ( I do not have an exact number...ju
Please make a trip to Sam's Caring Bridge page and post a comment as you say a little prayer to the Father for Sam and Cindy, Mike, Caitlin and Aubrey. As Christians, its what we do,
http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/sambish/journal?jid=5826121
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