Here is the latest directly from Rich:

This morning is the third surgery in 19 days.  Left eye surgery is scheduled to begin at 7:00 am at Mease Dunedin Hospital, Dr. Morgan, technically as an outpatient procedure. It should result in improved vision and better/tighter closing at night. They will also remove the staples from my neck!

God is teaching me a lot about submission, what He values most, and trusting in Him alone.

Thankfully, my family and I have been blessed by generous support from our friends/family at Digital Lightbridge, church, and throughout our community. Thank you seems inadequate, but thank you all! Your notes, calls, visits, food, and flowers are a HUGE encouragement to the entire Hayes family. We’ll try to update again post-op and before radiation begins. Ironically, my surgeon wants me to gain about 15 lbs. I’ve lost 60 lbs. intentionally before the cancer diagnosis. Ice cream, sweet tea, oatmeal cookies, and sushi—here I come. No rabbit food for a while!

Love, Rich

Good morning! I got this yesterday:

Today is the kind of weather that Rich loves: lots of thunder, lightning, and rain. Today has been a good day. Rich’s sister came for lunch, and Rich was able to visit and eat with her before heading to bed. It’s a great day to nap, so he is resting well.

The pain meds have been working well as long as he doesn’t go more than 5 hours. Here’s where we need your prayer: nothing is allowed after midnight tonight for tomorrow’s surgery. Yikes!

Tomorrow’s surgery is pretty cool in a thank-God-this-exists kind of way… Rich cannot properly close his eye due to the nerve being removed. His ability to blink is permanently gone. During the day he puts in artificial tears every two hours, and at night he currently has to put in an eye lube and tape it closed so he can go longer than 2 hours. Tomorrow he will have a gold weight placed in his eyelid so he can close it at night—no more tape or lube, ahhh, that will have to feel great! He will also have a brow lift to open his vision up where the eye drooping is causing his vision to be blocked. The doctor will use an existing eyebrow scar that Rich got when he was 15 years old-God was working even then—for this season. How great is that!

Isn’t it cool how God “presses on” even when we don’t know it? Hmm…