Thursday, January 10, 2013

1/10/13 It Begins...



Gabrielle Dudley is a wonderful wife, mother, sister, daughter, and friend to all. She is a strong Christian who loves the Lord with all her heart. Her family, friends/coworkers, and church community are extremely important to her. Gabrielle loves gourmet food, exercising, spending time with friends, watching TV/movies with her family, reading great books, and taking family trips to Cannon Beach and Hawaii. Although she has been battling lupus for 9 years, she remains optimistic, confident, and good-humored. Everyone of us can learn from Gabrielle's humility, generosity, compassion, selflessness, and courage. 

After going to the ER on the night of January 8th for severe abdominal pain she had a CT scan which showed inflammation of her ileum (the terminal part of the small intestine), and two masses on her ovaries. She was immediately admitted to the surgery/oncology floor of Northwest Hospital where she has been meeting with a team of highly trained and compassionate doctors, nurses, etc. who are doing everything they can to treat her. On January 9th she had an MRI and a colonoscopy. The results of the colonoscopy showed that the small intestine did not have cancer, which is very good news. In fact, it is a good thing the small intestine caused such severe pain that she went to the hospital (where she hasn't been since she had Renee and me in 1988 and 1990 respectively), because she was able to get the CT scan she may have otherwise not gotten for some time. She is scheduled for surgery with a highly trained oncology surgical team on Friday January 10th. The surgeons believe they will be able to remove all of the cancer, and after she heals from that surgery for about 4 weeks she will begin chemotherapy. 


Gabrielle and her family would appreciate your prayers and notes of encouragement. This is a big battle for her to face, but the prayers and support from friends and family will be very beneficial to her fight against this awful cancer.

If you would like to visit Gabrielle, please contact Steve, Renee, or myself to find out when would be a good time. It is also great for us to read her notes and kind words that people have been sending. Please leave any comments, prayers, or well wishes below. If you prefer to email, you can send an email to Steve, Renee, and Daniel and we will relay them to Gabrielle:

10 comments:

  1. We are praying and trusting God with you on this journey! Loads of love from Jan and FFMC gang.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Gabrielle,
    Praying for you and your family---trusting that God is holding all of you SO tightly during this time. Your courage, faith, energy, can-do attitude, and remarkable network of family and friends will carry you through. We'll be praying for a very successful surgery tomorrow.
    Blessings,
    Jennifer Perrow

    ReplyDelete
  3. Gabrielle you are one of the strongest, funniest, most faithful woman I know! Praying for you in this journey.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Gabrielle,
    We are all praying for you - please don't hesitate to let me or my Mom know if you need ANYTHING at all. We will be thinking of you tomorrow and praying for a successful surgery.

    Dani

    ReplyDelete
  5. Thanks for giving us a way to hear about how our wondeful friend is doing. I am praying that God protect and give peace to Gabrielle tomorrow during that surgery, and I am thankful that the Lord has blessed Gabrielle with a wonderful family and positive outlook on life. I'm looking forward to sneaking her copious amounts of dark chocolate and eventually some Molly Moons.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I having been thinking of your family a lot the last few days & praying often for you all! Sending LOTS of Love to you guys!! <3

    ReplyDelete
  7. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  8. I love you big sis! You've got what it takes to conquer this thing! And oh by the way - don't forget the MIRACLE God has already blessed us with: a painful stomach due to nothing-to- worry-about-in-your-intestines! And that brought to light the cancer in the ovaries! Wow - that says to me God's got awesome plans for you ... and His plans are always the best. I'm sad, thankful, sorry & happy for you all at the same time.

    ReplyDelete
  9. All of us over here on Bainbridge Island are thinking about you, Gaby. We trust that all will go well with the surgery, and hope to visit you as soon as you are ready.
    -Mark

    ReplyDelete
  10. Sending good thoughts to you and your family and I will be thinking of you all today.

    ReplyDelete