Dear Friends and Family,
First, we would like to offer our thanks to all of you who joined in the prayer request for the Melton family. As you will recall, we met Pastor Melton and his wife at Glorieta last week and a couple of days later they asked for prayers for their son.
We received the following letter late last night (this morning). While the surgery went about as planned, the situation is far worse than anyone expected. Bro. Melton writes in his letter about what was found and some of what is ahead for Jeffrey. At this point we can only request your continued concern and prayers for Brother and Mrs. Melton and Jeffrey and his family.
This will obviously be a long, complicated, and painful process. We earnestly solicit your prayers for healing for Jeffrey, peace and comfort for the family, and God's wisdom and guidance for the medical staff and caregivers throughout this time.
We have no understanding of how and why something like this happens, but we must have faith that God's grace and mercy will carry the family through this time, and their faithfulness will glorify Him.
Thank you again for your prayers and concern.
Love, Jim & Barbara
As you can tell it's late/early and I'm, not asleep yet. By the time we picked up the girls and got them to sleep I was too worn out to sleep.
We will be keeping the girls for a while. Jeffrey appearance will scare them. This prevents me from being with him, but that is best for now.
First of all thank you for you prayers.
The doctor said the surgery went well, but it was bad. After 4 hours in surgery, they had to put him under deep because it was more than expected and long. The tumor is like a scrambled egg with fingers like spider webs. It was on top of his skull around to the back of the skull and down to the jawbone. The nerve to the facial area and left eye had been stripped and was laying their open "raw" he called it. Jeffrey could have problems with that. It may paralyze and cause the eye lid to not open or close at any time.
He said the tumor is everywhere and there is no way he can get it all out. So he will have to have this reopened in 6 months.
Dr. McGee can't believe this was as bad as it is. There was a lot of infection so he is still in the hospital on IV antibiotics and heavy pain meds. He tells us because he had to remove and rearrange so much Jeffrey will be very sick and in a lot of pain.
He took grafts from above the ear for tissue and bone to reconstruct the ear canal. As Dr. McGee said God has been with Jeffrey for years. It's amazing to see what he has had to go through. God's hand is on his life.
He knows you all are praying for him and he said to tell you to keep it up, Jeffrey is going to need it.
We just can't thank you enough for your love and support of our family.
God bless each of you for being there for all of us,
Bro. Charles & Kathy Melton
Again, we thank each of you who continue to lift the Melton family up in prayer.
"Faith is, at one and the same time, absolutely necessary and altogether impossible." Stanislaw Lem (1921 - 2006)
