When He's 64...

Just a quick post today to share some birthday weekend pics, and also share a little medical update (here’s to the joys of getting older!).

First the fun stuff! In honor of a certain person’s 64th birthday, it only seemed appropriate to have the Beatles as the soundtrack (minus the bottle of wine haha).

He makes 64 look fun! On Saturday morning we went on a beautiful hike in a place called Wendover Woods (much better than the Wendover we’re used to driving through!).

Then we spent the afternoon at Bletchley Park, the home of the WWII codebreakers who cracked the code of the Nazi “Enigma” machines. It was so fascinating to learn about the people who used their talents and genius to make it possible to turn the tide of the war against Germany, estimated to have saved millions of lives!

This is the office of Alan Turing, one of the main creators of the codebreaking machine, played by Benedict Cumberbatch in the movie “The Imitation Game” (sadly many of the details in the movie are not historically accurate, but it’s still a great movie).

This is a re-creation of the codebreaking machine called “Colossus”, showing how it worked. Don’t ask us to explain how it worked, that’s beyond our brain capacity, but it was still very cool to see.

Then for dinner we met up with one of the legal coordinators in the office, Sharon, who lives near Bletchley Park. She is, as they say in England, brilliant!

And finally a quick health update—we’re not usually ones to publicly announce any health issues, but because we believe in the power of prayer and also the power of good friends, we thought we’d let you know that Jon has been diagnosed with prostate cancer. While it was not the happiest of news, we actually feel like it has been a blessing in disguise.

When we first arrived, we started looking to get set up with a GP so that we could get any prescriptions and have someone if we needed anything. We got connected to a doctor in London whose office is very close to the church’s Hyde Park chapel. He’s not a member of our church, but he has treated all of the Mission Leaders and many of the missionaries over the past 10+ years, and is also the physician for any performers at Royal Albert Hall. He came very highly recommended by everyone we talked to.

Our first experience meeting with him was amazing—we have never had a doctor spend so much time with us, be so thorough in his questions, listen so intently, order so many baseline lab tests, and just be so kind and patient. One of the tests he ordered for Jon was an MRI because he noticed his PSA numbers were a little elevated. Our doctor in California had been watching them, but wasn’t concerned and had never talked about doing any further screening unless the numbers increased or there were other symptoms. The MRI showed a tumor within the prostate and our doctor immediately referred us to a urology oncologist. After a “fun” little biopsy procedure, it was diagnosed as cancer, but thankfully it is contained within the prostate and is very treatable. (Public service announcement, guys—don’t ignore prostate stuff!)

So to celebrate our 5 months in England tomorrow, because we know how to party in style, he’ll be having a procedure that will destroy the tumor without surgery or radiation and hopefully without any of the not-so-fun side effects. The procedure is called HIFU (high-intensity focal ultrasound) and our urologist is one of the pioneers of the technique. We’ll leave all the details of the procedure either to your imagination or your power of Googling, but we’re grateful we’re here in England and in such good hands and we feel so blessed that it was discovered early and is able to be taken care of long before it could have grown to be worse (which this particular tumor most likely would have). He should come home from the hospital tomorrow and then he’ll spend the next week resting and recovering, while doing a little of his legal work from home.

So we’d be grateful for any prayers on his behalf. We have already felt them and will continue to feel them as we exercise our faith to keep doing whatever it is the Lord wants us to do. And if you know Jon, you know he can find the humor in just about any situation, so feel free to send him anything that will give him a laugh about the indignity of it all. :)

♥ Until next time, we love you! Cheerio! ♥