Prayers, please

These last couple of days have been some of the most painful I've ever experienced. Tuesday the nursing girls and I went to this hospital but we couldn't get in because of this huge influenza outbreak, so we sat playing this game in the reception area for a while, and like always, Molly was making me laugh so hard I almost wet myself (thankfully, my parents did bring me my Vesicare...yes I'm aware that it's for 80-year-olds thank you) so I made it to the (nasty) bathroom okay. Anways so normal day, but when we got back to the SI office and Molly was checking her email, she had one from her sister saying that during the surgery for gall stones that her mom had gone in for, they found cancer. It was in the gall bladder and the liver, and they weren't sure about the lymphatic system. Molly was out in the courtyard just hysterical. It was absolutely awful. We couldn't believe it. We all sat with her as we waited for calls from her family, and then came the news that it was in fact in her lymphatic system and they predicted that she would only make it 2 more months. Her dad's a doctor and he said he agreed with the diagnosis. This is the mother that seemed perfectly healthy to everyone else. I can't explain how much pain I felt for her. And what could I say? You can't tell her that God's gonna heal her, only that He's in control. We set up a flight home for her and she left on Thursday morning, but in the meantime she held up amazingly. Tuesday night she talked with her mom on the phone before her mom knew anything about the cancer, which I can't even imagine. Kala and I made her this photo album with literally hundreds of pictures that had her in them from this whole trip and we all wrote in it, including her teachers and some of the friends we've made down her. We all went out for lunch and tried to support her as much as possible, but what can you do other than be with her and pray with her? I'm such an action-orientated person that it killed me to be so helpless. I cried so hard when she left. It was half for her pain and what I knew she'd have to deal with upon getting home, and half for the selfish loss that I felt on her leaving. She was one of my best friends down here (not that she won't be when I get back in the states), and one of the most incredible people I've ever met in my life. She has this presence that is so selfless and loving and hilarious. There's nobody that doesn't always want to be around her. Dang I'm gonna start crying again here in the internet cafe. So anyways she's doing well, I talked to her on the phone. They brought her mom to Mayo and are having this gall bladder specialist look at her soon. So prayers for that please. Her mom's name is Anita and her dad's name is Tim. Please pray. Please. It's all that we can do and we can't have too many people praying. I have to keep reminding myself that although praying is the "only" thing I can do, it's also the most powerful thing I can do. Even though I'm halfway across the world our prayers are just as powerful as if we were physically with Anita. When I talked to her yesterday she was so strong. She said her mom is physically feeling better now that they drained some of the bile from her liver but that they're losing her. That was so hard to hear. What she asked me to pray for her for is that the time that they do have with Anita will be the best that it can be and that they will really get to know her as much as possible. They have family all over the world right now, sister and brother-in-law and niece in Pakistan, sister in New York, everywhere. We're trying to find ways to support her from down here, so we each signed up for a week to write her an email filling her in on what's happening down here, we pray for her together every day, we're gonna make this thing called "Flat Molly" which is a pic of her on a popsicle stick that we'll bring to places with us so it's like she's there, but not really. We'll send her the pics then to show her hat she's doing down here. Oh my gosh, ok here's something she always does. She'll see some nasty guy and be like "Hey Crista, what's your boyfriend doing over there?" I can't explain how funny it is cuz sometimes the guy will wave then or something. Or it'll be some creepy statue or anything. So anyhow we're gonna take pictures of all of her "boyfriends" down here and send them to her. It's so different down here I don't even know what to do. I'm just grateful that she can be with her family. They need her so badly right now and she needs them. I'll keep you updated with anything I hear about her family. Thank you so much for your prayers. Miracles do happen. They do.