Month: February 2014

Where does my strength come from?

/ edebock / 12 Comments

In the six months since my cancer was diagnosed, (yes, it’s been six months already!) many of you have commented on my strength. While I’m both flattered and encouraged by your kind words, I feel I must give credit where credit is due.

The strength you speak of is not my own. I believe with all my heart that it comes from my relationship with the living God, creator of the universe. Oh, it’s true that tough times in the past have made me stronger and I’d be remiss not to mention that I have the support of a loving husband, family, friends and community but ultimately, if it were not for my relationship with God, I’d probably be a basket case by now!

I grew up in a church-going family but by the time I reached my late teens, I’d turned my back on the things I was taught and gone my own way. It wasn’t until I’d made a huge mess of my life that I heard something I’d never heard in all those years of Sunday School and church. I heard about a God who wanted to have a personal relationship with me and that made all the difference in the world! It wasn’t about a religion and following a bunch of old-fashioned rules. It was simply about someone who could take the mess I’d made out of my life and turn it into something beautiful. That’s where my strength comes from!

Does the fact that I have cancer mean that God has forgotten me or worse yet, that he doesn’t exist? Absolutely not! I have no idea why he has allowed this to happen but I am confident that the words of Jeremiah 29:11, “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future” are as true for me today as they were for the Jews who were living in exile in Babylon in the days of the prophet.

In addition to acknowledging the true source of my strength, I must also admit that I had an amazing example in my oldest daughter who died at the age of five following a 14 month battle with leukemia. She endured so much more than I have with incredible dignity and grace. Though her wee body was ravaged by chemotherapy and radiation, her faith never wavered! She certainly knew where her strength came from and her legacy lives on in those whose lives she touched. I am inspired to fight the fight as well as she did!

Ready to go home after an 8 weeks stay in hospital

Ready to go home after an 8 week stay in hospital

A time to be born and a time…

/ edebock / 14 Comments

Hello world, I’m back!

I spent most of the past two weeks in seclusion due to the high level of radioactivity caused by my most recent cancer treatment. Yesterday was my first day of freedom and I was out of the house almost as often as I had been over the prior fourteen days! There’s not a lot to blog about when you sit at home all day every day. I rested a lot at first, read several good books and resumed my exercise routine as soon as I felt up to it. I also frittered away a fair amount of time on the internet, my lifeline to the outside world.

Now that I’m free, able to be out and about, I can’t help wondering what the next few weeks will hold. We’re eagerly awaiting the birth of our fifth grandchild and hoping to be in Calgary when he arrives. Our daughter, Melaina, isn’t technically due until mid March but the little fellow is threatening to come early and we’ve reached the point where we need to be ready to jump in the car at a moment’s notice.

At the same time, in Vancouver, my 91-year-old diabetic mother who suffers from severe dementia has been hospitalized with a gangrenous toe and we’re awaiting the doctor’s decision regarding whether or not her foot should be amputated! What an agonizing decision for my father to have to make. Mom is already confined to a wheelchair so losing a foot won’t change her quality of life significantly. It’s the surgery itself that worries us. That and the fact that gangrene is a serious and life threatening condition. Has the infection been caught soon enough or will it continue to spread? At the same time that we’re saying hello to the newest member of the family, will we also be saying good bye to the oldest, his great grandmother?

Ecclesiastes tells us “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven: a time to be born and a time to die” but the life in between can sure be tough sometimes!

Dad & Mom

My parents

Riding the roller coaster again

/ edebock / 9 Comments

Cancer is definitely a roller coaster ride! Yesterday was up and today is back down again.

I had my second mIBG treatment on Friday. When Dr. MacEwan, nuclear medicine radioisotope specialist at the Cross, entered the room for our pretreatment consultation, he started by thanking me for contacting my MLA about the delay in getting government approval for the lutetium clinical trial. It made a big difference, he said. In fact, the trial has received approval and is up and running now but there are a few hoops left to jump through before they can begin taking on new patients like myself. In the meantime though, the clinic is working overtime treating those patients who were receiving lutetium before the government cut its funding.

Though lutetium might still be my better option, yesterday’s post treatment scan showed that the mIBG appears to be working. There was no indication that the cancer had grown or spread. That was great news and we rode it to the top of the roller coaster!

Then the phone rang this morning. It was Dr. MacEwan calling with the results of the PET scan that I had before Friday’s treatment. He had ordered the scan in hopes that it would shed some light on what it was that had previously been found in the left side of my face. Apparently, it revealed that there is a growth of some sort in my salivary gland. That didn’t come as a complete surprise to me as I’ve been feeling swelling and tenderness there for some time. Dr. MacEwan is quite confident that it isn’t related to my other tumours, however. He suggested that there are a number of possibilities, many of them benign. Though he did his best to reassure me that it likely isn’t anything to be too concerned about, I felt the roller coaster begin to descend again.

After discussing options, including simply keeping an eye on it, we agreed that a needle biopsy to determine exactly what we’re dealing with would be a good idea. I’ll return to the Cross for that in about a month’s time after I’ve had time to fully recuperate from Friday’s treatment and my body has rid itself of most of the radioactivity. I have a lot of confidence in Dr. MacEwan and I feel certain that he wouldn’t intentionally give me false hope so, though I’m not feeling at the top of the roller coaster anymore, I haven’t crashed either.

It’s an ordinary common variety head cold that has me feeling really down today! 😦