Surgery and After - Comments (1)

Category: Behind the Lines
Author: John Malone
Date: 27th June, 2007 @ 12:25:11 AM

For as traumatic as the news of Karen’s cancer and its immediate consequences was, the surgery itself was pretty anti-climactic.

Two hours, and she’s done. The eye is gone. As one brother said, “It’s like removing a tooth.” The surgery itself was so simple, the doctor said “I can do these in my sleep.” Karen said, “We want you to stay awake.”

The eye removal surgery – enucleation – is apparently a simple one. Karen walked herself into the operating room. The doctor took the eye out, and placed a plastic steering device in its place, wrapping her right eye muscles around it. They place a silicon “conformer” in the eye socket to retain its shape during a six-week healing process.

In the mean time, we will find an ocularist who will hand-design a prosthetic eye that will be moved by the steering piece powered by her muscles.

Her removed eye will be studied in pathology during the next week, and we will get some information about the cancerous tumor. It was large: “very large.”

Karen has been ambling around with the sight of one eye for six weeks, so the advice she was given about dealing with loss of vision was very hollow. They taped a huge bandage on her right eye, and it was too tight, pinching her skin. I mentioned it, and they said, “The doctor can fix that tomorrow when you come in.”

But the doctor said we didn’t need to come in “tomorrow,” and we elected to just leave Iowa City and come home. Home to our family, and responsibilities. While I drove the 4 hour return trip way too fast, Karen adjusted her bandage until it no longer pinched her, listened to music, and rested her eye.

When we got home, she used a mirror and a pen to write “Jesus Is Lord” in blue on her bright white bandage.

She’s not taking her pain medication. Her blood pressure is very high.

We are hoping the grand children will understand, because this all is complicated for them We have 18 of them 8 and under with two more on the way.

Karen Will Lose Her Right Eye. - Comments (0)

Category: Behind the Lines
Author: John Malone
Date: 24th June, 2007 @ 01:27:03 AM

Monday afternoon, my wife Karen will be losing her right eye to ocular melanoma by surgical means.

I would hope that all of my friends, near and distant, would pray for her about that time.

Karen was diagnosed with this malignant cancer six weeks ago. For all we know, she has had a tumor growing in her eye for decades. On the other hand, it could have been only for years or months.

We are greatly puzzled by all of this, and are seeking God’s will and glory in the matter.

Karen is truly remarkable through all of this. Very courageous. She actually is taking in much better than I am.

We do not know what this holds for her and our future, and we will not know much more about her condition for another week, when the pathology reports come back to us.

Karen and I have 24 grandchildren with 2 more on the way.

Needless to say, this has had an enormous impact on our lives, and we continue to look for and share the grace of God in this life.

We continue to hold on to the {Scripture|Psa 118:7} God has given us.

Dealing With Doctors. - Comments (0)

Category: Articles,Behind the Lines
Author: John Malone
Date: 19th May, 2007 @ 03:11:40 AM

“The Lord helps those who help themselves,” the physician told us.

My wife and I looked at each other, but she only saw me with her left eye.

That’s because she has lost nearly all vision in her right eye, a large “choroidal ocular melanoma” obscuring almost all vision in her right.

I do not often mingle with doctors.

My father died from cancer at 65 – when I was 36 – largely at the hands of incompetent physicians.

One of my very best friends became an M.D., but our relationship was built upon our fellowship in the Scriptures after I had led him to Christ while he attended medical school at the local Jesuit institution.

He died from cancer when he was barely 42.

My next door neighbor was a brilliant neurosurgeon. We used to talk about technology, medicine, and the Scriptures. We were real friends. He died of cancer when he was 45. Before he did, he was restored to his early faith in Jesus Christ, and wrote hymns on his Alabama death bed.

One of my heroes, Dr. J. Vernon McGee, began his radio career after cancer treatments, and went home shortly after my father.

Since those men were taken home by the Lord Jesus, my only contact in the “medical world” has been a brilliant research physician who is remarkably unorthodox, and a chiropractor: someone distinctly NOT in the “medical world.”
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My Wife - Comments (0)

Category: Articles,Behind the Lines
Author: John Malone
Date: 8th May, 2007 @ 10:46:37 PM

Today my wife was diagnosed with a serious malady.

I am asking my brothers and sisters who read this web site to pray for her in this matter.

The Lord is able to deliver her.

And me.

======

We are grateful to the Lord today to learn that my wife’s (Karen’s) prospects, though very serious and damaging, are not as dire as they could have been.

The Lord is taking our part with {those that help us.|Psa 118:7}

Getting Tricked in DC. - Comments (1)

Category: Behind the Lines,Venture in Africa
Author: John Malone
Date: 2nd March, 2007 @ 04:35:01 AM

So, at the invitation of Senator Hagel’s Chief of Staff, our Managing Director from Kenya and I fly out to our nation’s capital.

Our arrangements were incredibly efficient, and so we remarked to each other. Everything was trouble free. We left the airport, cuaght the train, and before we knew it, we were at DC Union Station, taking a very short walk to our hotel, which maintained excellent arrangements for us.

Having discarded some of what we were carrying, we walked back to Capitol Hill and the Russell Office Building where, in room 248 and others, Senator Hagel offices.

We kept our 4:30 pm appointment promptly. Although I had asked for an appointment with Senator Hagel, his Chief of Staff Lou Ann Linehan had her assistant call me the week prior and set an appointment with her for this time. So, we kept it. Linehan had made a concerted effort to keep me from meeting with Hagel for seven months.
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Being Inconvenient. - Comments (1)

Category: Behind the Lines,Venture in Africa
Author: John Malone
Date: 19th February, 2007 @ 04:06:02 AM

It’s an unhappy experience to be inconvenient in large affairs.

I had received an anonymous phone call in 2003 from a longtime employee of the US State Department who told me that the expropriation of my investment was going to be ignored by the State Department due to the diplomatic primacy of the “war on terror.”

At the time, I could not fathom the connection, but as matters played out, I had to consider this analysis was correct. I had turned to Senator Hagel’s office for help, knowing that he was well-placed on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, but never considered this could represent a “wag the dog” scenario.

The lights went on for me after getting to know Lou Ann Linehan the hard way.

Lou Ann Linehan

Rexon Ryu had deceived me and others. It was clear by now there was another agenda at work in my matters. I had called Linehan before when having problems coordinating matters withe Hagel’s staff, which turned over in mazing numbers. I had learned of her reputation, and knew of her connection as Powell’s former Chief of Staff, and therefore she had to know everyone who wa anyone in State.

What I didn’t know was the kind of nasty, manipulative schemer she is!
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Who, Oh Who, Is Rexon Ryu? - Comments (1)

Category: Behind the Lines,Venture in Africa
Author: John Malone
Date: 18th February, 2007 @ 12:28:35 AM

Enter Rexon Ryu, a well-placed fellow who worked at the highest levels of the State Department, and who was added from there to Senator Chuck Hagel’s staff after his superior John Bolton accused him of insubordination.

Subesequently, John Bolton was named Ambassador to the UN over the objections of the Democratic party leadership, and Nebraska’s Chuck Hagel. Here is what Senator Hagel said to CNN’s Wolf Blitzer about Rexon Ryu:

“Well, first, Rexon is a fellow over in my office from the State Department. He is a highly regarded State Department official. He worked closely with Secretary Powell, Deputy Secretary Armitage and others when he was there.
He never mentioned this to me, to his credit. He’s a professional. He never once tried to influence my sense of where Bolton was or anything about Bolton.
This came out independent of any allegation that Rexon made to me or any information he gave me about this. So, there’s no question about how well thought of this young man is.”

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