Author: edebock

Waiting…

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Actually, I quickly tired of waiting and decided to follow a friend’s very wise advice. “Please don’t be afraid to advocate for yourself,” she told me. “You will have to wait at times but there is also a place for you to pick up the phone and ask for results, action, a timeline.”

On Monday morning, I called Dr. F’s office to find out when the CT scan of my chest would happen. October 2nd, I was told! Are you kidding? Two more weeks of waiting just to get a scan done and then more waiting before I’d finally get to the cancer clinic? I don’t think so! After all, when I had my abdominal ultrasound and the radiologist thought he saw cancer, I had a CT scan done within half an hour and got the results the following morning!

I immediately picked up the phone again and called the Cross Cancer Institute. I soon learned that I didn’t even need the CT scan and that a whole series of appointments had already been set up for me at the Cross! Phew! Open ended waiting was stressful and I was becoming increasingly anxious but now that I know what comes next, I’m much more at peace again.

When next Wednesday arrives, this round of waiting will be over and life will suddenly become quite hectic as we’ll be at the Cross three days in a row! Fortunately, our youngest son lives in Edmonton and we’ll be able to stay with him. We start with a new patient orientation session on Wednesday morning followed by a some very specific tests to determine the extent to which my cancer has spread. I will be injected with two different radioactive materials, one on Wednesday and the other on Thursday. These substances bind themselves to cancerous deposits anywhere in the body and show up on scans that will be done 24 hours after each injection. “Timing is everything,” explained the nurse who called me. “Otherwise, it’s like looking for a white Cadillac in a snowstorm!”

I will be radioactive for a period of time after these tests so I hope I don’t end up glowing in the dark! I’m supposed to avoid non-essential contact with children and pregnant women for 48 hours and I need to remember to ask for a travel letter as I could set off very sensitive radiation detectors in airports for up to three months afterward! I’m not sure if we’ll be going anywhere during that time but we’re still hoping to make a quick trip out to Vancouver before long if my treatment schedule allows it.

I will also undergo a number of other lab tests next week to look at hormone levels and gather other pertinent information. In addition, I’ll have an echocardiogram to look at how well my heart is functioning. Apparently, neuroendocrine tumours can produce an abundance of hormones that can have a number of negative effects including high blood pressure.

On October 2nd, our 37th wedding anniversary, we’ll return to the Cross for a consultation where we’ll learn the results of next week’s tests and discuss a treatment plan. At this point, I’m not trying to guess what’s going to happen but I hope we come away from that meeting with reason to celebrate.

In the meantime, it’s time to learn more about this cancer of mine so that I can ask the right questions and discuss the situation with some level of intelligence. When I talked to the nurse from the Cross, she was actually pleased that I hadn’t started searching the web for information yet. So much of what you’ll find there is inaccurate, she told me. She also suggested that I stay away from most American sites as treatment protocols there are driven by insurance companies and are quite different from the approach taken here and in Europe. I’ve read through the information that she sent me and will start exploring the recommended websites tomorrow. In case you’re interested, I’ll post them below.

So what do I know about neuroendocrine cancer so far?

  • it’s very rare
  • it can appear in many different parts of the body including the bronchus, esophagus, lungs, liver, stomach, large and/or small intestine, and even the appendix
  • it’s usually slow growing
  • it often goes undiagnosed for a long period of time because the symptoms are usually vague and are often similar to those caused by other everyday health problems

In other words, I might have had cancer for a long time already without even knowing it! Isn’t that a creepy thought!

Victoria’s Quilts

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I received a gift lovingly made by a total stranger today! Victoria’s Quilts Canada is a non-profit charitable organization with branches across the country that provides hand made quilts to comfort cancer patients and keep them warm during treatments.

Victoria’s Quilts was founded in the US by Deb Rogers as a tribute to her sister-in-law, Victoria, who had herself been a quilter. With Deb’s blessing, Ottawa resident Betty Giffin, seeking a way to share her faith and her love of quilting, started the Canadian organization in October of 2000. From its humble beginning with just 12 women, the organization has grown to include more than 800 volunteers who distribute approximately 400 quilts every month to cancer patients across the land.

Each Victoria’s Quilt is unique. Backed with soft flannel, they are very durable and can be machine washed and dried. There is absolutely no cost to the quilt recipient or the person who requests it and anyone can request a quilt for a friend or loved one by simply visiting the Victoria’s Quilts Canada website.

My quilt was requested by my friend Anne, an avid quilter who volunteers with the Russell, Ontario chapter of Victoria’s Quilts. Presently battling her second bout of cancer, Anne knows first hand what the quilt recipients go through.

You would think that the person who chose my quilt knew me personally. It’s the colours of our livingroom and is absolutely gorgeous! You probably can’t see it in the photo but the darker pieces of fabric have an ancient Egyptian motif printed on them in gold which adds an exotic flair. It’s large enough to wrap myself in if treatments leave me chilly or to snuggle under if I need a nap and, like all Victoria’s Quilts, it came with its own carry bag.

A label sewn on the back of the quilt identifies it as a Victoria’s Quilt and includes the scripture that Deb Rogers found comfort in after the death of her best friend and sister-in-law, Victoria.

“Be strong and of good courage, do not be afraid or dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”  Joshua 1:9

While the quilt will keep me warm, the verse will be a source of comfort and strength during difficult days.

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Today’s package came at a perfect time when I really needed a pick me up. There’s nothing too serious going on but I’ve been getting frustrated and a little anxious waiting to hear when my next appointments will be. I know that these things take time but it’s hard to be patient! Keeping busy helps and tomorrow I’m going to do that by playing in our local ladies golf tournament which is always a lot of fun!

Is it good news?

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We met with the doctor yesterday to discuss biopsy results. Apparently, I don’t have adenocarcinoma which is what he anticipated. Instead, I have been diagnosed with a “well differentiated neuroendocrine tumour” which is apparently less common. Is this good news?

Here’s what Dr. F wrote on a small slip of paper:

Adenocarcinoma            Prognosis: poor

Neuroendocrine             Prognosis:  ?

Question mark? My whole life, my future, is wrapped up in that one small question mark!

Dr. F, not one to give a person false hope, appeared to think that the diagnosis was good news, at least better than it might have been. For now, we’ll cling to that as a glimmer of hope.

So what comes next? We still don’t have a treatment plan. All of the information that has been gathered so far has been sent to the Cross Cancer Institute. Located in Edmonton, a two hour drive from here, the Cross is the comprehensive cancer centre for all of northern Alberta. As soon as I heard the dreaded C word, I knew that that’s where I’d likely end up.

The specialists at the Cross have requested a CT scan of my chest, presumably to ensure that the cancer hasn’t spread to my lungs. I fervently pray that it hasn’t and that it doesn’t. Once they have the results of the scan, my next appointment will be at the Cross where we should finally find out what treatment is going to look like.

So… for now, we wait some more! We wait for phone calls to tell me when to come in for these appointments. We wait to find out if the news is good or not.

Waiting is getting more difficult but we’re keeping busy which helps a lot and I know that the prayers of many people around the world are sustaining us while we wait.

Apron prayers

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When we directed Vacation Bible School a couple of weeks ago, we taught the children to fold their hands and close their eyes when we prayed; not because there’s any magic in these things but because folded hands are less likely to get into trouble and closed eyes shut out distraction.

1 Thessalonians 5:17 tells us to “pray continually” but how do we do that? How can we make prayer an integral part of our busy everyday lives? Obviously, we can’t sit around all day with our hands folded and our eyes closed!

I have been humbled and quite overwhelmed by the response to my last post. Promises to pray for us as we walk this road called cancer have flowed in from around the world! I especially loved one friend’s practical approach. “I’ll put your name in my apron pockets,” she told me and went on to explain that she wears an apron at work and reaches into it’s deep pockets many times throughout the day. When she wants to remember a specific prayer request, she writes it on little pieces of paper and puts them in her apron pockets. As she finds them throughout the day, she stops what she’s doing for a  few moments and prays!

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How do you remember to pray?

A new journey…

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It looks like Richard and I are embarking on a new journey… not one that we would have chosen. It started with a phone call from my doctor on Tuesday morning.

If you’ve been reading my blog since we left for China at the end of February, you may recall that when we arrived we had to have complete medical check-ups including abdominal ultrasounds before our resident’s permits could be issued. That’s when we first learned that there was something on my liver but after having a CT scan, I was told that it was nothing to worry about. It was suggested that I follow up with my own doctor after returning to Canada.

Early in August, I went for my annual medical and took the ultrasound photos from China with me. Dr. H wisely ordered another ultrasound which I had early Monday morning. Immediately afterward, I was told that I should also have a CT scan and that was done before I left the hospital. I expected similar results to those I’d received in China but I couldn’t have been more wrong.

I was walking a nature trail in a provincial park several hours from home the next morning when my doctor called. He didn’t want to tell me the test results over the phone but since he was asking me to abort our planned trip to Vancouver and come home to meet with him, it was obvious that the news wasn’t good. I sat on the grass overlooking a beautiful lake while he told me that I have colon cancer which has already spread to my liver!

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Cancer… that dreaded C word!   Wow!   How do you respond to that?

With prayer!

I am a list maker so as soon as we got back to our campsite, I started writing a list of people I needed to call, not just to share our devastating news but also to ask for prayer. Prayer for healing, prayer for peace and prayer for the strength to walk this pathway with grace.

After dropping our daughter and grandchildren in Calgary the following morning as planned, we turned toward home and started this new journey. It all seems a bit surreal at this point as I feel perfectly fine! I saw an internist yesterday and I’m booked for a colonoscopy and biopsy on Wednesday. As long as the growth in my bowel isn’t threatening to cause a blockage anytime soon, it will not be removed at this point and I will likely start chemotherapy soon.

We believe in a mighty God who responds to the prayers of his people and we are asking for a miracle!  Whether he chooses to heal me with a touch of his hand or through the more usual medical means is immaterial to me but I am boldly asking for more time… there is much that I still want to accomplish in this life!

On the long drive home on Wednesday, as the doctor’s words rang in my head, I heard the still small voice of God’s Holy Spirit speak to my heart. I grabbed my notebook and wrote down his words so that I can recall them over and over again when things get rough and negative voices threaten to overcome me.

“I’ve got this in my hands. I know what’s going on. I’m going to take care of you.”

Where will this journey take us?

Where will this journey take us?

Kids helping kids

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We went on our second Mission to MARS this week!

That’s right! Two years ago, on the island of Saipan, we directed a Vacation Bible School program with an outer space theme. This week, we brought the same program, Mission to MARS (Meet A Risen Savior), to our own local church. Every morning approximately 30 excited children between the ages of 5 and 12 gathered for games, crafts, songs and Bible stories.

One of the verses that they learned was 1 Chronicles 16:29 which speaks of bringing an offering. With this in mind, we wanted to incorporate a Missions project that the children could identify with and contribute to throughout the week.

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The escalating civil war in Syria has left an increasing number of families in chaos. According to the United Nations, an estimated two million refugees have fled into Lebanon, Jordan, and surrounding countries while more than four million people have been displaced within the country itself.  Schools across Syria are closing as children and families flee dangerous areas, and the public schools in Lebanon and Jordan are overcrowded. They simply can’t continue to absorb the number of refugee children who are flowing in. Many Syrian children have already lost a year of school due to violence and transition.

The Church of the Nazarene runs four schools in Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon. These schools are in neighborhoods where Syrian refugees and internally displaced people are struggling to survive but they can’t operate without funding. Many displaced, traumatized families have little or no income and are unable to pay school fees.

With the beginning of a new school year just around the corner, this was an issue that our VBS kids were easily able to identify with and they amazed us with their compassion and generosity.

  • $400 will enroll a Syrian child in a Nazarene school for an entire year
  • $100 will provide books and clothes for the school year
  • $45 will support a child’s school fees for one month

My faith was small. When I made up the poster shown below, I set $100 as our goal for the week but with the help of the church’s mission committee who agreed to match the children’s offerings dollar for dollar, we surpassed that amount on Wednesday! I was going to add another column to the poster that evening but one of our older girls suggested that I’d better make that two. Even that wasn’t enough! After taking this morning’s offering and adding in the matching amount from the missions account (shown in teal on the poster), we had raised $335.10!

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In a country where we take so much for granted and where most children will soon go off to school wearing brand new clothes and carrying backpacks stuffed with shiny new supplies, it was gratifying to spend the week with kids whose hearts were touched by the plight of boys and girls in a faraway land whose lives have been uprooted by the tragedy of war.

Small talk

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After a two week hiatus, I’m finally back in the blogosphere! We spent part of that time enjoying Family Camp at Camp Harmattan, the Church of the Nazarene campsite  located between Olds and Sundre in southern Alberta. Down in the valley of the Little Red Deer River, we had no access to internet and I must admit that it was a nice break.

While telling his story, one of the speakers at camp made a statement that startled me. Dr. John Seaman and his wife, Linda, served on the mission field for 27 years. The last 17 of those years were spent in West Africa. John said that when he was elected to his present position of district superintendent of the Michigan District of the Church of the Nazarene, he felt completely overwhelmed. West Africa had become his comfort zone and Michigan was not!

That got me thinking. Over the past several years, we’ve stretched our comfort zones until, at times, it feels as if they have no boundaries. As I’ve thought about this over the past few days, however, I’ve come to the conclusion that my comfort zone has nothing to do with geography. I feel completely at home walking the streets of Asia but there are times right here at home when I struggle to step outside my comfort zone.

That’s where the book that I’m currently reading comes into play. I can stand in front of a class of any age in any part of the world and feel at home. I have no problem with public speaking as long as I’ve had time to prepare and I can put on a costume, even a very skimpy one, and act on stage before a full house but I dread social events where I’m required to mix and mingle. I’ve worked hard to overcome my incredibly shy nature but I still feel tongue tied and wish that I could disappear into thin air when I’m in a situation that requires conversation with people I don’t know well. I’m sure I often come across as a total snob! That’s why I’m hoping that The Fine Art of Small Talk by Debra Fine will help me stretch my comfort zone in a new direction.

booksFine begins her book with a “Winning at Small Talk” worksheet. If you find yourself responding no to more than a few of the questions, this book is for you, she says. I answered every question with a no!

“If you generally wait for someone else to take the initiative in a conversation, you have been self-centered,” she says in Chapter 2. Ouch! That would definitely be me.

The book is an easy read but putting it’s principles into practice will likely take a lot more effort. Fine suggests having a repertoire of icebreaking questions to use to engage someone else in conversation. I can’t actually see myself using many of the ones she suggests but maybe I should try “Have you ever read The Fine Art of Small Talk by Debra Fine?”

Do you have any favourite conversation starters?

Two questions

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Whenever we arrive home from one of our overseas adventures, we face the same two questions and this time has been no exception.

  • Are you happy to be home?

My stock answer is “It’s always nice to come home!”

As much as I enjoyed China, I am happy to be back in Canada. We are so blessed and we take so much for granted here. I’m happy to be back where the air is clean. China burns roughly as much coal as the rest of the world combined and one of those smokestacks was practically outside our window. According to a recent study, pollution from burning coal has reduced the life expectancy of the 500 million people living in northern China by five years!

I’m very happy to have my kitchen back. Cooking on a single burner got old fast! I’m even happy to have extra people to cook for. We have a young family staying with us for a little while until their house is ready to move into.

Shopping at the street market was exciting at first but the novelty soon wore off and I’m happy to be wheeling my grocery cart through the aisles of my local grocery store again. I can read all the labels and I know where to find the things I want. Heck, I even know what everything is and I don’t have to look past the pig feet and the chicken feet to find the ground beef!

Of course, the best thing about any place is the people and we’re definitely happy to be closer to family and friends again. In fact, we already spent several days in Calgary with our daughter and her growing family last week. It was especially exciting for me to be able to accompany her to an ultrasound appointment where I got my first glimpse of our next grandchild! “Baby Pea”, so called because at just six week’s gestation he/she looked like a little pea with a heartbeat, is due in mid March.

And then there’s the other question…

  • What’s next?

People started asking this one before our suitcases were unpacked and we’d fully emerged from the fog of jet lag! The answer is simple… we have no idea!

We do have a couple of feelers out concerning possible short term mission opportunities but it’s far too soon to know if either of those will pan out. There’s a great big world out there and far too much of it that we haven’t seen yet so I’m sure we’ll figure it out. In the meantime, we’re off to Family Camp at Camp Harmattan next week where we’ll park the trailer beside the Little Red Deer River and enjoy a week of fun and fellowship. Then, toward the end of August, we’ll head for the BC coast where we’ll spend some time with my parents, our oldest son and our other set of grandchildren.

Home is a good place to come back to but as everyone in our small community knows, those DeBocks don’t stay home very long!

Real China

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There’s China that the tourists see and then, just a few metres away, there’s real China. One of our table mates on our Yangtze River cruise, who had been to Beijing and Xi’an just as we had, mentioned that he was surprised at how clean and modern China was. That’s because you haven’t seen the real China, we told him.

Toward the end of our first day in Beijing, our tour guide dropped us off at a marketplace. It turned out to be a tourist trap selling low quality, over-priced goods and souvenirs; not at all the sort of place where real Chinese people shop. It held little interest for us so after relaxing for a little while in a nearby Starbucks, we went for a walk. Down a narrow alley, less than a block from the glitzy market, I stopped to use a public bathroom. It consisted of several metal squat toilets set into a cement floor. That’s all! No cubicles, no sinks, nothing but the squatty potties! I was about to take a picture when a local lady walked in so I hastily shoved my camera back into my purse and left. She was surprised enough to see a foreigner there; I wasn’t sure she’d appreciate or understand me taking a photo! That’s real China.

Later, as I mentioned in my last post, we spent an evening strolling East Nanjing Road, Shanghai’s famous shopping street. The crowds enjoying the music, action and glittering lights along this popular shopping strip were largely a mix of Chinese and foreign tourists. I doubt that many of the foreigners had any idea what they’d find if they wandered just one block to either side of the street they were on.

When we exited the subway, we accidentally took a wrong turn and found ourselves walking parallel to East Nanjing Road, one block over from where we intended to be. There it was dark and dirty and we had to walk around piles of old broken building material. It looked as if several places were being torn down or renovated. That didn’t bother me but the two men sleeping on the sidewalk in their underwear did! I’m pretty sure they were both breathing but I didn’t actually hang around to find out. That was the first and only time in our almost five months in China that I wasn’t entirely sure how safe we were but that’s real China.

Don’t get me wrong! We loved our time in China. It was an amazing adventure and I don’t regret one moment of the time we spent there but I wouldn’t want anyone to get the false impression that China is the shining face that it tries to put on for the rest of the world. It’s not third world but it still has a long way to go. As long as you’re willing to accept it for what it is, warts and all, it’s very easy to love though especially since its people are so warm and friendly toward its foreign guests.

Shanghai, city of contrasts!

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When we went to China, Shanghai wasn’t high on our list of places to visit. As you can probably guess by now, we’re fascinated by history and culture and I viewed Shanghai, with its population of 23.5 million people, as little more than a massive modern city. The only thing that actually drew us to Shanghai as a possible place to visit was the fact that we had friends living there. We got to know the Kawabatas when we attended the same church during our year in Japan and Itoshi was transferred to Shanghai not long after we left that country in 2009.

When we discovered that the tour that included everything we most wanted to see in China ended in Shanghai, we decided to go there after all. We timed it so that we’d finish our tour on a Friday afternoon and then spend the weekend with our friends before flying back to Canada from there.

As time went by, I became more excited about seeing Shanghai. I looked forward to seeing the contrast between the old and traditional in Beijing and the new and modern in Shanghai. Little did I know that I would see both in Shanghai. It is truly a city of contrasts!

Our Lonely Planet guidebook suggests that “Shanghai is best seen as an epilogue to your China experience” and I’m glad we saw it that way. It also refers to Shanghai as “the future that China has long been waiting for”.

Our tour began at the Shanghai Urban Planning Exhibition Hall which gave us a good overview of the city both past and present before we began to explore it. With its massive model of the city and its dizzying 3D wrap around virtual tour in which we seemed to float over the metropolis, we soon felt as if we were no longer strangers there. Historic photos, maps and dioramas gave us a picture of its colourful past. Our next stop was the 88 storey Jinmao Tower for an amazing bird’s eye view of the city.

After lunch, we were off to the most traditionally Chinese part of Shanghai where we toured the classical Yu Garden, founded by the Pan family, rich Ming dynasty officials in the 1500s. Afterward, we relaxed over coffee at Starbucks in the middle of the adjacent and very crowded bazaar area with its many tacky tourist shops and outdoor vendors.

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The building under construction in the background will be the world’s tallest when it’s finished.

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Our evening was free so we took the subway from our hotel to East Nanjing Road, one of the most famous and crowded shopping streets in China. The pedestrian street was a glowing forest of neon lights and crowded with people. It was a vibrant and noisy hub of activity with people strolling, singing, and dancing while others hawked their goods. We even joined one of the groups for an old time waltz!

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The next morning we were back on East Nanjing Road to see it in the daylight and do a bit of shopping. Look very closely and you’ll see the same KFC and McDonalds signs in both photos!

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From there, it was an easy walk to the Bund where we strolled along the riverfront in awe of the contrast between the two sides of the river. On our side stood stately very European looking buildings. Symbolic of the city’s colonial past, they once housed Shanghai’s most powerful banks and trading houses. Today, the Bund is a designer retail and dining area with some of the city’s most exclusive boutiques, restaurants and hotels. Across the river, is the futuristic skyline of the Pudong New Area looking like the set for a science fiction movie. Thirty years ago, that area was still farmland.

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Perhaps the most amazing building we saw in Shanghai was the one where our friend, Itoshi, works where we were dropped off at the end of our tour of China!

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