Marshall

The time has come to start catching up on last week’s activities. Despite the circumstances, it was a good week. Last week’s entry about the tower tour gives a bit of an introduction to the long time friendship between Marshall Fritz, my dad and myself.

I had already started to plan this trip when I received an email from Marshall indicating that there were new and not good health developments him. I was able to reply right away that I was planning a trip out there and could likely come see him if he would like.

I arrived Monday night in Fresno. I don’t recall exactly when the conversation was that caught me up on Marshall’s status, but the news was along the lines of what I was afraid of but expecting. He has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer which is inoperable. While I had hoped that the news would be better, it’s not.

Even so, there is a bit of ‘better’ news. The thing that likely landed him in the hospital, causing symptoms affecting his blood sugar among other things, was a gall stone. It sounds as though it was causing a partial blockage and its removal appears to have made a significant positive impact on his condition for now.

On Wednesday morning I went to visit Marshall and he was more energetic than I’ve seen him in several years. His brain was cranked up to ridiculous and we covered a lot of ground in a short period of time.

One of the topics we discussed was the rather fragile nature of the pancreas. Edi had a head on encounter with the pancreas almost 3 years ago which also involved gall stones (in her case, an army of them). Her first hospital stay was 15 consecutive days (more than you’d get for something simple like quadruple bypass or brain surgery). Obviously, we have a new respect for the pancreas these days.

One of Marshall’s sometimes great features is that he doesn’t like to settle for an unsatisfactory answer. True to form, though his doctors told him the best they could do is rush into a treatment which helps 1% of patients a little bit, he decided there must be a better answer out there. Whether there is or not remains to be seen, but he’s seeking out a second opinion likely to come from Cancer Treatment Centers of America. They have had a couple of cases where patients have been given a similar prognosis (make a will and go to Disneyland) and they were able to send the pancreatic cancer into remission. We might hear more about that later.

One thing I’ve heard many times before is that it’s better to see friends and family alive than to see them for the first time in a long time at their funeral. My visits with Jerry and Marshall were better than expected in that they weren’t just alive, but doing quite well. It was a joy to spend time with them. I don’t know if I’ll get to again, but I do hope so.

Of course, most importantly, Marshall says he’s ready for prayer (if your so inclined) or ‘good thoughts’ (for those not inclined to pray). As I’ve thought about all of this, I’ve wondered how to pray. The obvious prayer in this case would be for healing, and I think it would be good to pray for that. The answer to that prayer might be yes, or it might be no. What’s probably more important than the answer to the healing prayer, is what our actions will be regardless of the answer. In addition to praying for healing, I think it would be good to pray that Marshall and everyone around him would make the best decisions they can with the goal of loving God and people (or, as Jerry put it, glorifying God).

If anyone wants to send along well wishes or a comment or warm fuzzies or something along those lines, feel free to just comment here and I’ll be sure that gets to Marshall.

V-