[builder5840]

I am so lucky or I should say blessed to have been led to this forum. I am sitting in my Hotel room in Panang, Malaysia. After reading your comments and talking with others that have gone over seas for surgery I decided to at least upgrade our return tickets to business class. When we left Monday evening I wasn't feeling well, my neck was really hurting and I was felling nauseous which I sometimes get when my neck is hurting so when we got to San Fran before our long flight I decided to pay for an upgrade. Believe me they made us pay but becuase of chinese new year coming up I was flying two different airlines so my long flight was Business class and then my shorter flight which was still 4 hrs long was coach. Business class was great I had lots of room and was able to get several hours of sleep so when I arrived in Taiwan I felt pretty good. The 4 hr flight in coach brought back the hurt but over all I do believe that the upgrade saved me big time!

I scheduled it so we would have a full day of rest before we had to do anything which was also great. Today we met my doctor and toured the hospital, and my wife and I were both very happy with everything we saw. I 'll check in tommorrow and do some more test, I had some blood work done today and I think there will be some other test and x-ray etc.. tommorrow and then surgery at 8:30am on Saturday. It's a day later here than at home so it will be Friday for most of you.

Panang is really nice, we are in a 5 star hotel with a 7 story mall next store with starbucks and everything you could possibly want or at least everything we need MedRetreat is the company that helped me arrange the trip and they have been so great, they arranged a limo for the airport pickup and today we met one of their volunteers who lent us a cel phone to use while we are here and showed us around the area. We can call home for about $2 for 1/2 hour of call time

It was really busy before leaving home and I havn't been on the site for almost two weeks and i've really missed it. I will do my best to keep everyone updated on my progress after surgery.

I am so blessed becuase I have so many people back home praying for us while we are here and for the success of the surgery. I really believe that the Lord is with us and will be guiding the surgeons hands, and am looking forward to a successfull surgery and recovery.

Thank you for all of your encouragement over these past few months and hopefully my story will bless someone else.

Good night for now

Richard