Cancer

Shoes of hope

/ edebock / 11 Comments

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Sometimes a pair of golf shoes is just that, a pair of shoes designed to provide comfort and stability while playing the game of golf. The pair I bought today, however, are much more than that. These shoes, purchased to replace a very old pair that are literally falling apart, are a symbol of hope. Hope that the ugly weather that has been giving us below average temperatures, rain and even snow far into what is normally spring, will someday come to an end but also, hope that the surgery that I’ll be having the day after tomorrow will go well and that I’ll soon be able to get on with life!

I really have no idea how long it will take to recover from the operation to remove a cancerous tumour from my salivary gland. That will depend on how difficult the procedure is to perform, something that even the surgeon can’t determine ahead of time. Regardless of whether I’m only in the hospital overnight or have to stay much longer, I expect to be swathed in bandages for awhile afterward. If you’re out on the Sedgewick golf course and see someone who looks a bit like a mummy wearing shiny new golf shoes, that will be me!

Look Good, Feel Better

/ edebock / 16 Comments

There is no question that when a woman looks good, she feels better.

When I walked into the Cross Cancer Institute yesterday, it was nice to know that I wasn’t there for a test, a treatment or a consultation with the medical team who care for me. This time, I was there for a two hour Look Good Feel Better workshop sponsored by the Canadian Cosmetic, Toiletry and Fragrance Association. The program, which is free of charge to all participants, is designed to help women with cancer feel better about themselves and thus face their illness with greater confidence.

When I registered for the workshop, I was told that I would receive a kit containing a variety of cosmetic and personal care products. I expected a small collection of samples from the various CCTFA member companies but I greatly underestimated their generosity and was completely blown away by what I actually received.

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In addition to many cosmetic companies, Look Good, Feel Better has several other corporate sponsors including Shoppers Drug Mart, Winners, WestJet and The Globe and Mail. Over 1800 volunteer cosmetic advisers and hair alternative specialists give generously of their time to bring the program to cancer care centres across the country. The ratio of volunteers to participants at yesterday’s seminar was almost one to one!

The session started with tips and techniques for properly cleansing skin and applying make-up. I have been meticulous about skin care for many years, cleansing and moisturizing every morning and night, but when it comes to make-up, I’m a minimalist. If I’d joined the recent craze and posted a no make-up selfie on Facebook, it wouldn’t have looked very different from my usual day-to-day appearance. I feel naked without mascara and I often use a bit of blush to add some colour to my otherwise pale complexion but that’s about all unless I’m going somewhere special. Then, I might use a tinted moisturizer and add some eye shadow. When I was teaching school, I always used an under eye concealer but when I retired, the dark circles under my eyes magically disappeared and I quit using it! It was actually fun to follow the 12 step program and put on my full face yesterday and I was quite happy with the results!

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I was a little disappointed that not much was said about the effects that cancer and it’s treatment can have on the skin but I’ve since discovered that the Signature Steps guide that came with my kit contains some of that information. It also includes sections on body care, hair removal, eye care, oral care, nail care, nutrition and exercise, all topics that weren’t covered in the session.

I’ve always said that if I lost my hair to cancer (which I probably won’t), I wouldn’t bother with a wig. I had my head shaved as part of a cancer fundraiser several years ago and absolutely loved it. After the hair alternatives portion of yesterday’s workshop, however, I’m not so sure. There are so many cute wigs to choose from!

Already bald, as the result of chemotherapy, Tracy, like several of the other ladies, entered the room looking pale and apprehensive. As she applied her make-up, her face began to glow. It’s amazing what a difference something as simple as drawing eyebrows onto a hairless face can make! When it was time for someone to volunteer to model the wigs, Tracy raised her hand. As wig after wig was placed on her shiny head and we all oohed and aahed over how attractive she looked in several of them, she truly came to life!

What a blessing it was for each of us to leave a place where we’ve spent some of the most stressful moments of our lives with smiles plastered across our freshly made up faces! Thank you, CCTFA!

What makes a woman beautiful?

/ edebock / 9 Comments

I’ve been thinking a lot about appearance lately and questioning what it is that makes a woman beautiful. It began about a month ago when my Facebook news feed began to fill up with no make-up selfies, photos of fresh faced women without any make-up. Apparently, this was an offshoot of a campaign that originated in Britain in early March as a breast cancer awareness and fundraising endeavor. It quickly went viral. On this side of the pond, the breast cancer connection was lost and the movement became about women being comfortable in their own skin and embracing their natural beauty. Women were to post their no make-up photo then nominate other female friends to do the same. The response was interesting. Many posted their pictures proudly, others with disclaimers apologizing to those who had to see them, while still others refused to post at all.

I enjoyed the pictures but I was saddened by some of the responses. What is it about our culture that tells a woman that she needs to apologize for her natural appearance or worse yet, that she shouldn’t be seen publicly without being fully made up?

The answer is easy; the messages are all around us. Flip open any women’s magazine and you’re instantly inundated by air brushed images promising younger looking skin, flawless complexions, lusher lashes, smoother lips and glossy nails. How easy it is to forget that these are simply advertisements aimed at selling products. Instead, for many, they become the goal, the standard of beauty, and they go to great lengths to try to attain it.

The Bible has something very different to say about beauty.

Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes. Instead, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight.  1 Peter 3:3-4

Though this passage has often been misinterpreted, nowhere does the Bible say that a godly woman shouldn’t braid her hair, wear elaborate jewelry and fine clothes, or use make-up. It simply says that her true beauty shouldn’t depend on these things. It ought to come from inside.

That’s easy to say when you’re comfortable with what you see in the mirror, but what if you really aren’t? I’m waiting for surgery to remove a cancerous tumour from my parotid gland, the largest salivary gland on the left side of my face, and I have no idea what I’ll look like afterward. The best case scenario would leave me with nothing more than an S-shaped scar down the crease in front of my ear, under my ear lobe, and down onto the side of my neck. A change in hairstyle could easily camouflage that. The tumour is deep, however, and removal may require a much more complicated procedure. There’s no way of knowing this in advance, however, so I’ve already signed consent that would allow the surgeon to make a much larger incision and cut through and temporarily move my jawbone if necessary. This procedure would also require a temporary tracheotomy and, of course, the scarring would be much more extensive. In either case, this is very delicate surgery due to the close proximity to a major facial nerve. If possible, the nerve will be saved but there is no guarantee of that. If it cannot be, I will be left with significant drooping on that side of my face.

So, what will I look like when this is over? Will I be one of those people that little children stare at and whose embarrassed mothers hush when they innocently ask, “Why does that lady look so funny?” Will inner beauty shine through a lopsided face? Will I have the courage to wear my scars as a badge of survival?

Tomorrow, I’m going to be attending a Look Good, Feel Better workshop. The program, an initiative of the Canadian Cosmetic, Toiletry and Fragrance Association, is designed to boost the morale of women undergoing cancer treatment by empowering them to manage the effects that cancer and its treatment can have on their appearance. Perhaps I’ll learn something that will help me deal with my post surgery face, whatever it looks like.

Ultimately, however, make-up or not, scars and all, I just want the beauty of Christ to be seen in me.

face-in-the-cross

 

Unsubscribe!

/ edebock / 10 Comments

We bought a new(er) vehicle last week. Beforehand, Richard spent a lot of time online searching for exactly what he wanted. When we were finally ready to make our purchase, we also decided to pay for an extended warranty. As a result of all this, we’ve ended up on quite a few email lists and our inbox is filling up with unwanted messages advertising automobiles and vehicle protection plans. Fortunately, somewhere in the small print, there’s always a place where we can click to unsubscribe.

Don’t you wish that life worked that way; that, with the simple click of a button, we could unsubscribe from the things that make our lives difficult? I sure do!

Of course, I’d begin by unsubscribing from cancer! If I could do that, I wouldn’t even have to unsubscribe from the anxiety that goes along with waiting to find out what’s going to happen next in terms of treatment. It would already be taken care of.

I’d also unsubscribe from winter! It’s April, after all, and I’m tired of looking out the window at snow, especially now that all my Japanese friends are posting beautiful pictures of cherry blossoms on Facebook!

Ah, yes, I think I could come up with quite a list of things to unsubscribe from.

What would you unsubscribe from?

 

Top six

/ edebock / Leave a comment

This is Following Augustine’s 600th post written over a period of slightly more than six years! I think that the secret to the blog’s longevity is its eclectic nature.

Originally started as a way to share our year in Japan (2008-2009) with friends and family, it has become much more than a travel blog. Family often shows up but it isn’t a mommy blog and while I occasionally focus on clothing, shoes or accessories, it definitely isn’t a fashion blog. In recent months, I’ve been using the blog to share my cancer journey but, just as my life continues to be about more than just my health, so does the blog. My faith permeates every part of my life, including what I write, but this isn’t a religion blog either. For lack of a better description, I refer to it as a travel and lifestyle blog but I also like to think of it as an active retirement blog.

One of the things that I like about blogging with WordPress is the stats page where I can see how many readers view the blog, where they’re from and which posts are most popular. I’m often surprised by which ones generate the most interest. In fact, some of the most popular posts are ones that I wondered if anyone would find interesting!

Today, in honour of 600 posts in 6 years, I’m going to profile my top 6 posts of all time. Since several of them are older posts, I’ll include a link to each one in case newer readers are interested in looking back with me. Just click on the titles below to check them out.

Following Augustine’s Top Six Posts of All Time

 

#6  What influences your sense of self-worth?   Oct. 29, 2011

The idea for this post came from Charles F. Stanley’s Bible study, How to Reach Your Full Potential for God, and was the result of some serious self examination. It was one of the most difficult posts I’ve written because it involved baring my soul and owning up to an attitude that I knew needed to change.

#5   Tatami   Aug. 28, 2008

I find it quite funny that the most popular post from our entire year in Japan was about the traditional floor covering known as tatami! Tatami has many advantages and I loved it but I didn’t love the insects that crawled out of the tightly woven mat at night to bite me! Eww! Fortunately, we learned how to get rid of them and it’s obviously this information that people are looking for when they Google “insects in tatami” or other similar phrases and find their way to this post.

#4   A new journey…   Aug. 30, 2013

The newest post on my Top Six list, this is the one that shared my cancer diagnosis. I was walking this trail beside a peaceful lake in southern Alberta when the cell phone in my pocket rang and I first heard that dreaded C word.

Where will this journey take us?

Now that a second cancer has been diagnosed, we are no closer to knowing where this journey is going to take us.

#3   Alex’s yellow lizard   May 28, 2012

IMG_9629_2Richard and I are avid geocachers. Geocaching is a grown up, high-tech game of hide and seek. Participants use GPS units to hide and find containers called geocaches and then log their activity online. One of the aspects of geocaching that I like best is trackables; geocaching game pieces that are moved from cache to cache by geocachers like ourselves. Alex’s Yellow Lizard was a trackable that we picked up from a roadside cache in Manitoba on our way home from Winnipeg a couple of years ago. When it started its journey in Minnesota, its owner asked that pictures be taken and posted along the way so that his seven-year-old son could watch his little yellow lizard as it traveled around the world. We placed it in a geocache at a native ceremonial site on a high point of land about 24 km north of our home. When I posted this information on the geocaching website, I included a link to my blog.

#2   Like a gold ring in a pig’s snout   Jan. 21, 2011

pig-nose-ringI have no idea why so many people enter things like “gold ring in pig’s snout” and “pig nose ring” in search engines! I thought this was a pretty obscure thing to write about! The phrase comes from Proverbs 11:22 and refers to a beautiful woman who has no discretion.

 

And now, drumroll please!

#1   Bridges of Madison County   July 21, 2010

My most read blog post of all time is also one of my shortest. On a road trip to Kansas City for a missions conference during the summer of 2010, we purposely went out of our way to visit Winterset, Iowa, the setting of my favourite novel, The Bridges of Madison County by Robert James Waller. Like Robert Kincaid, one of Waller’s main characters, we drove the back roads of Madison County photographing the covered bridges that were made famous by the novel and the movie that followed. I crossed another dream off my unwritten bucket list when I stood on Roseman Bridge and touched the spot where farmer’s wife, Francesca (Meryl Streep), pinned a note inviting Robert (Clint Eastwood) to come for dinner “anytime the white moths fly”.

And here it is, the most viewed photo to appear on my blog thus far!

Roseman Bridge

Roseman Bridge

Cancer times two!

/ edebock / 31 Comments

Seven months to the day after being told that I have cancer, I heard that dreaded message all over again. I don’t just have cancer, I have two completely different kinds of cancer!

After waiting patiently for three weeks (okay, maybe I wasn’t all that patient), I finally received the results of my biopsy yesterday. The growth in my salivary gland is, indeed, another cancer. Though I don’t have any details yet, I’ve been told that it will be removed surgically. I don’t know when. I don’t know whether follow-up treatment will be required. In fact, the things I don’t know far outweigh the things I do.

We expected this journey to be a bumpy one and I knew that there would likely be a few unexpected curves in the road but I definitely wasn’t prepared for this one! I must admit that I’m beginning to feel a bit like Old Testament Job who endured catastrophe heaped upon catastrophe. Fortunately, I have a much better support system than he had! No one is suggesting that anything I have done or failed to do has brought these troubles upon me and no one, like Job’s wife, is suggesting that I “Curse God and die!” (Job 2:9) On the contrary, I am surrounded by friends and family upholding me in prayer and offering whatever support they can. I also need to remind myself that, in the end, God blessed Job abundantly. I’m still hanging on to the hem of his garment and praying that my story will end similarly!

In the meantime, I’m doing my best to keep on putting one foot in front of the other. There’s still laundry to do, meals to make and sunshine pouring in my window. My brain is a bit fuzzy; taking it’s time absorbing this latest blow, I guess. I found myself having to look up family phone numbers last night that I usually know as well as I know my own!

That brings me to yesterday’s good news. After being rushed to hospital in respiratory failure two weeks ago, my 90-year-old father was discharged yesterday. For the moment, things are calm on the parental front!

 

Caught in the club sandwich squeeze!

/ edebock / 9 Comments

“Club sandwich generation” is a relatively new term used to describe the “squeezed” generation, usually between the ages of 55 and 64, who typically find themselves caring for elderly parents while at the same time providing support for adult children and helping care for grandchildren. As more and more people live into their 80s and 90s, the number of four generation families is increasing rapidly and it’s usually the second generation in these families who have the time and resources to deal with unexpected events and crises in the lives of the other three.

My sister and I presently find ourselves smack dab in the middle of this kind of family sandwich. Along with our brother, who is not yet a grandparent, we’re dealing with the escalating needs of our increasingly frail and vulnerable parents. The fact that they don’t live in the same province as the three of us adds to the difficulty.

I’m very grateful that our three children are self-sufficient and require very little help from us. The two that have children of their own don’t depend on us for childcare as we live four hours away from the closest one. When we do visit, we consider it a privilege to babysit the grandchildren so that their parents can enjoy an evening out.

The club sandwich squeeze has been much tighter than usual lately though. As I mentioned in a previous post, my 91-year-old diabetic mother, who suffers from severe dementia, was hospitalized about a month ago suffering from a gangrenous toe. As a family, we made the agonizing decision not to put her through surgery. Due to lack of circulation in her leg, it would have required amputation above the knee. There was no guarantee that she’d survive the operation and if she did, there was every likelihood that the other leg would soon be in the same condition. Instead, as hard as it was, we chose palliative care and when we came to Calgary for the birth of our newest grandson, I packed knowing that we might have to fly to Vancouver for a funeral. Fortunately, Mom is doing much better than expected and was even able to move back to her care facility at the beginning of last week. My sister, who’d been in Vancouver for most of the past month, flew home on Wednesday and we breathed a sigh of relief. That lasted about 24 hours!

The next afternoon when I phoned Dad to share the exciting news of Simon’s birth, he sounded terrible. What had been a fairly minor cold had moved into his chest. Within hours, he was rushed to hospital by ambulance. Arriving in respiratory failure, he was immediately put on a ventilator and our oldest son, who lives in Vancouver, rushed over to the hospital to be with him. In club sandwich families like ours, it’s Matt’s generation that provides the other layer of filling. We are so fortunate that Matt is willing and able to jump in in a crisis situation when none of us is close by. In this case, we didn’t know if Dad would make it through the night. Again, I wondered if we’d be flying out for a funeral.

Thankfully, Dad seems to be rallying and if all goes well, he could be home from the hospital sometime next week. This time, it will probably be my brother who flies out to be with him for a little while. I would go but I have to plan around my treatment schedule and until we get the results of the biopsy that I had last week, it’s difficult to do even that. It’s hard enough being part of the club sandwich generation but having cancer has complicated the situation and added to our present squeeze!

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! 😦