Zone Conference June 2014 and Health Changes for My Mom

Elder Crossland.  Saying good-bye.  He was one of our zone leaders when we first came to Kuching.  We call him one of our trainers and he is the last of the missionaries who trained us to go home.  He is a great missionary and man of God.

At this Zone Conference the serious condition of mom's health was realized.  Mom was gaining strength and was starting to rebound after dad passed away last October.  She was taking institute classes, starting to exercise and visiting friends.  David said that mom seemed to be walking more stable.  David was managing a construction site for one of his company's hydro projects in Oregon and was able to stay with mom when he needed to be Oregon.  Mom was doing good in May.

David was gone the first few weeks of June and something changed for mom.  She lost energy quickly.  Her visiting teacher and beloved friend, Velda, visited her often. Mom would not go the doctor.  Finally with Velda in tears Mom consented for Velda to call the ambulance.  They emitted mom to the hospital with a heart beat of 33.

She received her pace maker and was released from the hospital to go home.  Mom was not feeling better.  Something was not right.  They did a CAT scan and Dr Athay called mom on Friday to give her the news that there was a 2 inch spot on her liver that looked like cancer.  John and June were with mom when she got the news.  They sent me an email with the news.  Brent and I went to Zone Conference and things started to move quickly for mom.

As we were flying to Singapore Monday, mom's stomach had been swelling and started to swell more and she was feeling horrible.  Dr. Athay was out of the office until Wednesday.  Long story short, John and June took mom to the Medford hospital, closer to their home and where mom was planning to move in June.  At the hospital they found the wires from the pacemaker to the heart were not secure and were losing contact when she moved.  They removed 6 liters of fluid from her stomach.  They also did more tests and confirmed that she did have cancer.  It was felt that the cancer did not originate in the liver but mom's condition was deteriorating quickly and no more tests were done.

During conference Brent and I decided to send me home to be with mom.  I thought that mom's decline would be a long process.  I planned to go home, spend a few weeks with her, love her up, help with her care.  

Elder Boyter and I went the Thursday of Zone Conference to let Presdident know.  He and Sister Mains knew of her condition and were encouraging me to go be with her.  We caught President between meetings and he was eager to meet with us also.  We knew that the mission was losing both of the office senior missionaries and we had told President that if we could help, we were available.  At the time we were thinking we would be staying in Kuching and taking over the housing coordinator job along with out Seminary and Institute responsibilities.  The Seminary and Institute program was in a good place at the moment, but we always felt like it was a stack of cards that could fall apart at any point.

President Mains asked us to come to Singapore and take over the office.  Elder Boyter would do the financial work and I would do the rest of the office work.  I would go home for three weeks and Brent would come to Singapore and be trained by Elder Taylor for two weeks then take over.  Elder and Sister Weichers were coming to Singapore for a couple of weeks to help before they went home.  Life can change quickly.