Dear Praying Friends,                                                        January  2010

    We received a letter January 4th from the hospital in Bangkok that test showed Kannika had cancer. The way the three page letter was written gave the impression she had two types of cancer (a cancer dealing with the womb and a type of skin cancer). They advised us to come to the hospital right away.  Kannika called the doctor and her advice was to come immediately which implied it was rather serious. We drove to Bangkok on the 5th and had doctor appointments on the 6th and 7th.

  During our first doctors appointment we found out the diagnosis was malignant melanoma and the word ‘womb’ was inadvertently added to one of the pages during the typing.  They were afraid that because of the location and size of the melanoma that it might have entered the lymph nodes therefore the immediacy. Kannika checked into the hospital on the 10th, PET scan on the 11th, and surgery was to be on the 12th.  As we checked into the hospital on the 10th Kannika wasn’t feeling well. She thought it was stress related. Five hours after her PET scan her fever shot up with flu symptoms. It turned out to be a virus so the surgery was put off a week and we were moved to another ward as they thought it might be one of the newer strains (which turned out negative). The surgery was scheduled for the 18th. All together she spent 11 days in the hospital. We were able to return home on January 28th. During this time Austin came down with the same virus.

The first couple days had its ups and downs as different doctors had some different prognosis, mainly because of the size. Chemo therapy would follow surgery, the chemo won’t help with this type so might have to go with radiation. Finally, if lymph nodes test are negative then no therapy after surgery. After the surgery the doctor said the lymph nodes were a little discolored so he went ahead and took them out. The next day they said the test were negative. The day we were leaving the hospital the doctor set up an appointment for Tuesday and said the last lab test on the lymph nodes should be in by then. They had not said anything in the last three days about any pending test. The last tests were negative and she is on the mends although still quite sore.  Thank you for your prayers

Thomas and Kannika Tucker