Funeral Arrangements

Visitation will be Thursday Jan 17 fro 4- 8 pm at Westside Church of the Nazarene, Indianapolis In
Funeral - Friday, Jan 18 at 10:30 - Westside church of the Nazarene

memorials made be made to Westside Church of the Nazarene Children's and Youth ministry

Tom loved his church and was very active on several ministries at the church.

Tuesday, January 14

As many of you may know by now, Tom went to be with Jesus yesterday afternoon at 4 pm. His short battle with cancer was fought hard. Many many people were praying for a miracle and that Tom's life would be spared. Although we did not get the miracle we expected ; I believe God did give us miracle, it was the miracle of Tom's life. Although not a perfect man , he was one the best men I have ever k own.

He loved all of you - his friends, family , and coworkers. His desire today would be that you celebrate with him his home going to be with Jesus who he loved so very much.

James, Cindi, Brad,Tonya and II can not express enough our thanks to all of you for your love and support during these past 8 weeks. Although there are some tough days ahead we we will be fine because we have each other, we have you , and we have the strength and grace from The Lord.

Sunday , January 13

Today has been another challenging day for everybody, but things appear relatively stable right now. His white blood cell count is very high, but doctors have not been able to pinpoint the cause yet. How serious this is depends on the cause and we hope to either see improvement in that area or pinpoint the cause soon. His dialysis seems to be doing its job and other vitals are pretty steady. Another critical 24-48 hours lie ahead of us, there appears to be at least a couple of small encouraging signs emerging to counter the more discouraging signs. Thanks again to everybody for your continued support, it means a lot to the entire family.

P.S. we just got the latest WBC count and it has come down some. We want to do a happy dance!

Jan 12 PM

It has been a long day for everyone. We couldn't see my dad from about 9:00 this morning till 4:30 this afternoon. That was hard but it forced us to go outside and enjoy a nice walk to lunch in 60 degree weather. Thanks for the little things Jesus. Dialysis finally began around five. They will do labs every six hours to check that. Two major concerns tonight: his white cell counts are REALLY high. Possibly inflammation related not infection. Pray it is not an infection. Also, he really needs to maintain his BP on his own. This is the real biggie right now. Hopefully dialysis will help with that.
We are praising The Lord for a good ultrasound of the heart. Doc said his heart looks great. We continue to be amazed by everyone's support. My mom's college roommate drove almost eight hours round trip to visit my mom today. Tomorrow Drake family will trade off with the Coppenger family. We are so blessed with wonderful family all around. Speaking of family, Grandpa Drake spent his 85th birthday today with us. :)

Prayer request

They are starting dialysis now. We really need for this to work. Next 24 hours are very critical. Please pray for this specific request.

Friday, January 11

Tom has made it through the crucial first 24 hours after surgery and he is holding his own. He lost a lot of blood during surgery and it has been hard for his body to adjust to that loss . He will remain in ICU for the next several days. He remains in critical condition but there are some positive signs. He is no longer bleeding and that is huge.

If you would like specific things to pray for - we have two immediate needs : pray that Tom can maintain his B/P on his own and pray that his left kidney will start to function. Last night we prayed the bleeding would stop and it has!

Toms sisters, James, Cindi , brad, Tonya, and I are rotating time with Tom so someone is always with him. We have had lots of support and is its from friends. One especially surprise visitor was from one of Toms college friends - Randy James and wife.

We are tired but hanging in there!

Debbie

Thursday , January 10

I wanted to thank all of you for your support as my dad has gone through cancer diagnosis and initial treatment in the last few weeks. He had his major surgery today. It lasted about seven hours and they removed his right kidney, about half of his liver and part of the diaphragm, most of this was expected. The surgery was very high risk, they replaced 23 units of blood, but he is recovering now and we are very thankful he made it through the surgery. The procedure itself went about as good as it could have given everything that was involved. He is still on a ventilator in ICU and probably will be for a day or so and the next 24-48 hours remains a time of high risk. Most of the acute pain and difficulty breathing he has experienced this month should be basically resolved when he wakes up, so that's great news.

Unfortunately, they were not able to remove all of the cancerous tumor because of it's involvement in the diaphragm and inferior vena cava. While this isn't the news we had hoped for, we won't know what the long term prognosis or treatment path will be until the pathology report comes back early next week.

Thanks again for your support, I'll keep you posted as we learn more.

James

Wednesday, January 9th

The first procedure well. They did a kidney embolization and the original plan was to embolize one artery , the right real artery . They ended are you up having to do a total of 4 vessels. But, everything went well and Tom s resting comfortably with a PCA pump, this is a pain control button he pushes when he needs more medicine.

His nurse in the Recovery room was Wendy, Sam from Bentcils girlfriend. So - Tom was happy to see a friendly face.

All of Tom's siblings, even Bob his brother from PA are here along with his dad. James,Tonya, and Cindi have been with me all day and Brad will be joining us tomorrow . Stan Martin from Bourbonnais drove over to be with us and several fiends from church have stopped by - so we have been well supported.

The kids and I ave felt your prayers. God has been faithful to get us to this day and has supplied our needs for today. Thank you for your heartfelt prayer!

Tomorrow is the big day! One of us will try to post tomorrow evening. Surgery starts at 7:30 and could take are you up to 8 hours. Blessings to all!

Debbie

Monday, January 7th

Tom is sleeping a lot - I think a combination of the pain meds and pain. Sitting puts a lot of pressure on his right shoulder where most of his pain is. I am thankful he can find a position of comfort while laying down.

James, Tonya, and family arrive tomorrow from Boston. Tonya's parents are driving up from Nashville, TN to watch all the grand kids so the kids can be with me at the hospital.

I continue to receive emails, comments on the blog, FB messages, cards from wonderful friends and family. Your payers and encouragement are sustaining us. A good friend recently sent me song about God's presence in the "waiting". This month of waiting for surgery has been hard, but Tom and I know God has been with us in this time of waiting. We have learned a lot and are excited to see the purpose for this part of our journey.

Let me just finish this post my telling all of you that I am blessed to be married to Tom Drake. His handling of this difficult time of extreme suffering has been amazing. He is a strong man, an excellent patient, and continues to have a strong faith which I am amazed to watch. I love him immensely.

Saturday, January 5

Thank you all for your kind comments and thoughts. Being at home is going pretty well - it is so good to be in our own surroundings. Tom is resting pretty well , but continues to be in considerable pain. He is on pretty strong pain meds, but thy don't seem to always last long enough. Tom is being a real trooper. Five more days and the tumor is history!

Tom's sisters have come to Indy and have been so much help! God has sure blessed us with wonderful families and friends.

Wednesday, January 2

Finally- I am writing this blog from home! Tom was discharged from the hospital about 4:30 this afternoon. It is so good to be home and we give thanks to have a week at home before Tom' s surgery.

Although it is good to be home, it is also a bit scarry. Tom gained 25 pounds while in the hospital - all fluid. So he has a lot of edema and other symptoms of fluid overload. I will be watching him closely to say the least!

We hope everyone's 2013 is off to a great start and going back to work was not too painful! :-)

Debbie

Tuesday, January 1

We will try again tomorrow. Tom had a minor set back during the night so the doc decided to keep him one more day. They re also going to try to get him on a pain med regime we an do at home , so new pain meds tonight - lets hope they work! Happy, Happy New Year!