Marie Joel

Welcome to our CaringBridge site. We've created it to keep friends and family updated. We appreciate your support and words of hope and encouragement during this time when it matters most. At 93 years old we all feel blessed and grateful to still have our dear J. Marie Joel alive. She has lived a long, productive and spiritual life.  She has been active and volunteering up until a month ago.   In the spring of 2016 she started having extreme fatigue, slowing down, have having shortness of breath.  She was hospitalized with atrial fibrillation but it corrected itself before more intervention was needed. Then she had a chest x-ray / CT scan / MRI in June that showed a blood clot in her right lung, pleural effusions and pulmonary nodules in her left lung, a mass on her kidney and enlarged lymph nodes in her sternum.  Now, if you are not a medical person, this might all sound like Greek. We are assuming this is a cancer process but as of yet, she has not had a biopsy. She was started on oxygen 7/6. We will meet with her oncologist on Wednesday, 7/13 to determine if a biopsy is indicated and what treatment might be helpful for her (palliative, comfort care only). Marie does not want surgery or curative treatment but feels ready to go and meet Jesus when it is her time.  Most of you know this medical history but just to re-cap: Marie is legally blind with Macular Degeneration, is hard of hearing, has had (mostly asymptomatic) chronic leukemia for over 20 years, Parkinson’s Disease, arthritis and restless leg syndrome. To know her, you might not know she has so many ailments because she always focuses on the positive, on others, and on her Lord.

Marie asked me to write the following message directly from her:

“I want to thank you all for your love, concern and for your prayers.  I am doing OK.  The Lord has been with me all these years and will be with me through illness, death and resurrection.  Praise the Lord!”