Faith

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

How am I doing?

/ edebock / 11 Comments

“How are you doing?”

I’m asked the question often and I really don’t know how to answer! The short answer is, “I’m feeling fine and able to live a normal life right now and for that I’m very thankful!”

I know there are some of you, however, who want the long answer. Other than a sensation in the left side of my face that doesn’t feel quite right, I really am feeling fine but I have no idea what’s happening on the inside. Not knowing whether the cancer is growing and spreading or if it’s been arrested by the treatment that I had in November is somewhat disconcerting but it’s the growth in my face that concerns me the most because we know that it wasn’t receptive to the mIBG.

I’ll be back in Edmonton on January 31 for more tests and another treatment so I hope to have more answers after that. Because I tolerated the last treatment so well, I don’t even have to stay in the lead lined room this time! Instead, I’ll be receiving my treatment as an outpatient. I’d feel more confident if I knew that it was going to be lutetium instead of mIBG though. That was the original plan but the government hasn’t given final approval to the clinical trial yet. Since I don’t know where the hold up is, I’ve written to both my MP and my MLA asking them to look into the matter. As I pointed out to them, it may only be paperwork to those who are dealing with it at the government level but it’s a matter of life and death to people like me! Both their offices immediately forwarded my concern to their respective health departments but I’ve heard nothing more!

In the meantime, I’m grateful that I can live a very normal life. With the exception of blood tests at the nearby hospital every second Friday and a Sandostatin injection here at home every 28 days, my schedule is much the same as it’s always been. I’ve suffered absolutely no ill effects from either the mIBG or the Sandostatin, my energy and appetite are unaffected and I’m sleeping well. I do suffer from bouts of anxiety but thankfully, they haven’t been too frequent. My biggest regret is not being able to take a role in our drama club’s upcoming production of Agatha Christie’s murder mystery, And Then There Were None, because the upcoming treatment will render me too radioactive to be in close contact with other people for the final two weeks of rehearsal.

I often find January a long and dull month but getting back on track physically has helped a lot. Over the past three weeks, I’ve walked 12 miles (almost 20 km) on the treadmill and since the weather has been unseasonably warm, we’ve also done some walking outside. With all the freezing and thawing, however, it’s pretty treacherous out there right now and the treadmill is a lot safer. I’m also back to three full weight lifting sets three times a week. After almost a year long hiatus, I started with what seemed like ridiculously small weights but I’ve already started increasing them. Sadly, there’s still a bulge around my middle and the best I can say for my weight is that it hasn’t continued to climb but I know that the exercise is contributing to my overall feeling of well-being and I’m determined to keep it up.

So, to those who’ve been asking, I hope this answers your questions and to those who’ve been praying for me, thank you so very much! I’m still hanging on to the hem of his garment and asking for a miracle!

What’s in your sponge?

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What does a dog do as soon as it comes out of the water? Why, it shakes, of course! It can’t help itself and if you happen to be standing nearby, you share in the blessing!

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I was reminded of that when I read my devotions this morning.

“Let’s say you have a bucket full of water and you soak a sponge in it. Later on you take the sponge, and in a room full of people, you swing the sponge around. What would the people be splashed with? The answer is obvious, water. What if the bucket is filled with milk, oil or soda pop? The people will be splashed with the substance in the bucket that saturated the sponge.”

The writer, Christian Sarmiento, went on to point out the spiritual application or principle behind his illustration. When life squeezes us or shakes us around, we, like the wet dog, will drench the people around us with whatever it is that we are filled with whether it be joy or bitterness, love or hate, acceptance or irritation.

Life isn’t easy and it can fill our sponges with all sorts of disagreeable things if we allow it to. I could choose to dwell on the hurts of the past or the unknowns of the future and spread gloom wherever I go or I can pray for grace and fill my sponge with hope.

“The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-contol.”  Galatians 5:22-23

These are the things that I want in my sponge! What’s in your sponge today?

Best things

/ edebock / 10 Comments

One of the best things about Richard and I both being teachers was our two month summer vacations. When our children were young, we spent many of those summers on the road with our tent trailer in tow. I called it our gypsy wagon. Our kids have been to the northern tip of Newfoundland and seen the midnight sun in Inuvik, NWT. They’ve hiked a portion of the Chilkoot Trail out of Skagway, Alaska and under Utah’s hot desert sun. They’ve stood in an Anasazi cliff dwelling in southwestern Colorado and on the rim of the Grand Canyon. Melaina still has Michaela, the handmade doll she bought from a street vendor by that name in Tijuana, Mexico.

hiking

Every night, as I tucked the children into their trailer beds and listened to their prayers, I asked each one “What was your best thing today?” Their answers often surprised me. We might have toured a historic site that day or viewed an amazing  natural phenomenon but a child’s answer was often something simple like the puppy they played with in the campground or roasting marshmallows over the fire.

Now grown with kids of their own, both Matthew and Melaina have introduced a similar practice into the daily lives of their own children. Every evening, as part of four-year-old Sam’s bedtime routine, Matt and Robin ask him what his best thing that day was. They record his answer in a little notebook and one of them draws a picture to go with it. It’s not about producing great works of art but rather, about remembering the moments that are important in the day to day life of their little boy. They plan to start a similar journal for Nate when he turns three next month. What treasures those little books will become down through the years.

At Melaina’s house, when the family gathers for supper, one of the children asks the other “What was your favourite today?” Soon everyone around the table is asked to share the best thing from their day. What a great way to teach children to show appreciation for the good things in their lives.

In addition to getting back into shape physically, I’ve decided that another step toward banishing my “why bother” attitude ought to be to begin looking for the best things in each of my own days. Even the most mundane or difficult days have blessings in them if we take the time to look for them.

Today was one of those days when it would have been easy to focus on the negative but choosing the best thing was easy. My best thing was arriving home safely after our drive to the city and back for a long awaited MRI on Richard’s shoulder. We expected winter driving conditions, of course, but we didn’t expect rain at -16ºC (3ºF) and we certainly didn’t expect the lunatic driver who flew out of a side road and spun out on the icy road right in front of us! Richard managed to swerve and avoid what could easily have been a deadly crash. I think there must have been angels watching over us! Come to think of it, maybe that was really the best thing.

The spirit of Christmas

/ edebock / 4 Comments

“A very Merry GIFTMAS!” proclaims the latest Canadian Tire advertising flier. Really? Is that what this season is all about?

Sadly, for too many people Christmas has become little more than a commercial frenzy and a time of ever increasing stress. We mouth the words to traditional carols announcing peace on earth, goodwill to men as we rush from store to store and bills pile up. Perhaps young families feel it the most. Mounting costs and time constraints make it difficult for them to find any peace and joy during this season.

My daughter’s latest Facebook status and her sister-in-law’s response say it so clearly.

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Over the years, we’ve tried to focus on the reason for the season and keep our Christmas preparations simple but obviously we need to look for ways to make it even less stressful; less about the gifts and the preparations and more about the CHRIST of Christmas.

Sharing our Christmas preparations with Sheila this year is making me more conscious of the things we do simply because we’ve always done them that way. There’s nothing wrong with traditions. In fact, they often make life easier. Planning Christmas dinner is simplified by the fact that we prepare basically the same meal year after year, but if those traditions become a source of stress and anxiety, perhaps they need to change.

I haven’t done a lot of decorating yet but, as always, the first thing to come out was the beautiful olive wood nativity set that my parents sent us from the Holy Land the year they spent Christmas there. As we put out each piece, Sheila, who had absolutely no idea why we celebrate Christmas, and I read the accounts of Jesus’ birth from Luke 2 and the visit of the magi from Matthew 2.

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But then, out came Santa Claus and I had to try to explain his role in the story.

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For that, I used another favourite ornament, my kneeling Santa. Perhaps he best symbolizes what I’m trying to say today; we need to find a way to ensure that the spirit of GIFTMAS bows before the true spirit of CHRISTMAS!

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Beauty after the storm

/ edebock / 12 Comments

I’m in a somewhat better frame of mind than I was when I wrote my last post. There are a couple of reasons for that. First, I read this in my devotions earlier in the week.

“When faced with challenging trials we have two options: to cower and travel down the unproductive road of fear or to walk forward, believing that our risen King is fully in control of our lives.”          Kirsten Rose

It brought me up short and reminded me that while I can’t necessarily choose my circumstances, I can choose how I react to them. We all have a limited amount of time on this earth and I can choose to waste whatever time I have trembling in fear or I can be thankful that I’m feeling well and get on with living. It may not always be easy but it’s obviously the better choice.

Secondly, I had a chat with Karey, the nurse at the Cross who is the “go to” person for neuroendocrine cancer patients when we have questions or concerns. She explained that Sandostatin, the drug that I receive monthly injections of, is a “cold” or non-radioactive form of Octreotide while Lutetium, the new treatment that we’re awaiting government approval for, is radioactive Octreotide. I was under the impression that Sandostatin was only meant to control my symptoms but she assured me that it also has an effect on the tumours themselves and that though my facial tumour isn’t receptive to the mIBG that I received recently, the Sandostatin should be helping keep it under control. I may have been told that before, but there’s been so much to learn, so much information to absorb, that it obviously didn’t sink in. This time, it was reassuring.

Today was already the tenth day since my mIBG treatment. Only four more days of avoiding close contact with other people to protect them from my radioactivity! The time has passed quickly and it hasn’t been as difficult as I imagined it might be though not being able to even hug my hubby has been tough. The past three days have been particularly quiet as I sent him off to Calgary to spend a few days at our daughter’s. I had several projects around the house and a couple of good library books to keep me busy.

Yesterday, a winter storm covered most of our province with a heavy blanket of snow and very few people ventured out but this morning we woke to blue sky and glorious sunshine. Since I couldn’t go to church, I bundled up and took my camera out to capture the beauty that the storm left behind.

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A friend loaded up his snow blower and brought it across town to clear my driveway before going to church himself! When I looked out and saw him, I felt the arms of God wrapped around me!

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Riding the roller coaster

/ edebock / 28 Comments

I saw my tumours yesterday. I drove myself to Edmonton for a post therapy scan and a follow up consultation with one of the doctors. He showed me the results of the scan and there they were, lit up on the screen like mini suns; one in my colon, two on my liver and a little one in a lymph node in the middle of my abdomen. That was the good news. It meant that the mIBG that I was given on Friday had, in fact, adhered to the tumours and was beginning to do battle with them.

Unfortunately, there was also bad news. A CT scan of my head and neck, done prior to my treatment on Friday, shows that I also have a growth in the left side of my face. They were unsure about that one after the initial diagnostic tests. Unfortunately, it did not light up on yesterday’s scan which means that, unlike my other growths, it’s not receptive to mIBG and it isn’t presently being treated.

It does appear to be receptive to Lutetium, however, but that’s a newer radioisotope treatment that isn’t presently being funded by the government. The Cross is in the process of setting up a clinical trial that will give them funding for Lutetium but it takes time to wade through the red tape involved in that. It should be available for use early in the new year but it would have been so much better if my facial tumour had been receptive to both medications. That would have given us more in the arsenal to fight with. Apparently, due to it’s location, it isn’t a good candidate for surgical removal either.

I’ve heard it said that having cancer is like riding a roller coaster and now I understand. I had crawled to the top of a hill and was feeling great; then came the sudden drop!

Perhaps today is a good day to remind myself of the things that cancer cannot do.

What Cancer Cannot Do

Cancer is so limited…

It cannot cripple
LOVE

It cannot shatter
HOPE

It cannot corrode
FAITH

It cannot destroy
PEACE

It cannot kill
FRIENDSHIP

It cannot suppress
MEMORIES

It cannot silence
COURAGE

It cannot invade the
SOUL

It cannot steal
ETERNAL LIFE

It cannot conquer
THE SPIRIT

Author Unknown

Remembrance

/ edebock / 16 Comments

Imagine looking out the window of the family farmhouse at Seba Beach, Alberta and seeing the military vehicle pull into the yard. Pearl’s heart must have pounded as the men in uniform came up the walk with a telegram in hand. It was 1944 and three of her sons were in the midst of battle in Europe. Which one was it? Had she lost one of them?

telegram

Glen was my father-in-law. He enrolled in the army in October of 1943 and was deployed in early January of the following year. He was just 18 years old.

We don’t know a lot about his wartime experiences. Like many who saw the gruesome face of war firsthand, he didn’t talk much about what he went through over there. We’ve only been able to piece together bits and pieces from the few things he did say and more recently, from his military record which our son requested from the Canadian Archives in Ottawa. We do know that he once spent several days in a foxhole behind enemy lines waiting to be rescued and we know that he probably suffered from what is now known as post traumatic stress disorder. According to Mother, for the rest of his life he would occasionally wake up cowering on the floor beside the bed. He was back in that foxhole terrified that, at any moment, an enemy soldier would find him and his life would be over.

Father had been in Europe for only nine months when he was seriously wounded and unable to return to action. A second telegram dated October 19, 1944 brought the incorrect news that the nature of his injury was “bomb fragment wounds to face and head.” A letter dated November 27, 1944 contained more accurate information.

“I am directed to inform you that official information has now been received from Canadian Military Headquarters Overseas advising that when your son, M-8247 Pte. Glen Marion DeBock, was wounded in action on the 6th October 1944, he suffered a bullet wound to the right orbit into the sphenoid sinus resulting in the loss of the right eye.”

He was lucky to be alive. Imagine taking a bullet to the head and surviving! He spent the remainder of 1944 in hospitals in the UK followed by another three months in Shaughnessy Hospital in Vancouver before finally being discharged with a prosthetic eye.  Life would never be the same for this young farm boy, however. He often suffered excruciating headaches and like many of his compatriots, he took to drowning his vivid memories in alcohol. It wasn’t until the final years of his life that he gave up drinking and found peace in a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

On November 11, as we pause to remember, we give thanks for so many young boys who went off to war with high ideals and ended up paying for our freedoms with their lives; many making the ultimate sacrifice and others, like Father, surviving with shattered dreams and broken bodies. In reality, these are the men who gave us freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and all the other freedoms that we take for granted in this great land.

Let us never glorify war but let us remember those who were willing to go and fight on our behalf and those who continue to do so.

shortly after discharge      Picture 1

What about Halloween?

/ edebock / 10 Comments

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We went to church with a dinosaur this morning; a bright orange Tyrannosaurus Rex named Sam! To the left of us, there were two little pumpkins and to the right, a ladybug and a monkey. A spotted leopard sat in front of us and as I looked around the sanctuary I spotted a ballet dancer, a fireman, a pirate, and a clown. R2-D2 and Princess Leia were there too but there were no witches, ghosts or ghouls. “Let’s be more creative than that,” parents at Cap Church were told last Sunday when it was announced that the Cap kids could wear their Halloween costumes to church today.

Whether or not we should participate in Halloween has become a great debate within the Christian church. There is no doubt that the celebration has its roots in ancient pagan rites and superstitions and it’s also a holy day for those who practice Wicca, a modern religious cult that engages in witchcraft. For most people, however, Halloween is simply a secular day of fun. It has religious significance only to those who give it religious significance. To my mind, if some people feel uncomfortable participating in Halloween activities, then they should refrain from doing so but the rest of us should simply be discerning and avoid those activities that might detract from our Christian witness. It also behooves us to avoid judging those who make decisions different from our own.

Personally, I applaud the approach taken by Cap Church. In an article published in recent church bulletins, Pastor Emeritus, Paddy Ducklow, wrote about what he called “the issue of how our faith impacts our culture and neighbourhood, or how surrounding values harm our kids.” He wrote first of safety, urging parents to teach their children how to be safe in an unsafe world. He also advised them to show the closeness and care of God by being with their children. He encouraged Christian men to exhibit a “father’s heart” during a potentially scary time by going door to door with their children as they trick-or-treat. He recommended that parents use Halloween as an opportunity to help their children make righteous choices, staying away from images of witchcraft, death and violence. I especially appreciated his recommendation that parents make Halloween an opportunity to know and enjoy their neighbours. Rather than being aloof, avoiding contact with our neighbourhood on a night when many are out and about having fun, Halloween is a great opportunity to engage with them.

I would love to know where you stand on this contentious topic. If you do choose to comment, however, please show respect for those who express an opinion different from your own. I’d love to see a lively conversation develop but no personal attacks.

Reason to celebrate!

/ edebock / 31 Comments

We came away from our meeting at the Cross Cancer Institute yesterday feeling relieved and very thankful. The doctor we met with actually used the words “good news” and spoke of long term survival.

The first piece of positive news is that the cancer has not spread to my lungs or any other major organs! Other than the growths that we were already aware of in my colon and my liver, the only definite spread is to one lymph node in my thorax. There may also be something in the left side of my face so I’m to have a CT scan of my head and neck sometime soon to get a better read on that.

The very best news is that my cancer proved to be receptive to both mIBG and Lutetium, the two radioisotopes that I was injected with last week. This means that I am an excellent candidate for the newest and very best treatment available for neuroendocrine tumours. How fortunate I am to live close to Edmonton, the first centre in North America to begin offering this kind of therapy! I will receive an injection of one of these radioactive agents approximately once every three months. It will basically seek out the cancerous growths and attack them. This has a very good chance of stopping the cancer from growing and spreading, basically making it dormant, or actually shrinking the growths. There are no major side effects and patients can live for many years on this kind of treatment.

Though it doesn’t happen often, there have been rare cases where the cancer has disappeared completely but we were cautioned that even if this happens it is very likely to reoccur. The goal of this therapy is control, not cure but I continue to hang onto the hem and pray for a miracle! Should God choose not to grant complete healing, however, it is reassuring to know that there’s still reason to believe that I’ll be around for quite awhile!

Surgery to remove the primary tumour from my colon may be an option at some point in the future but chemotherapy is not particularly effective in fighting neuroendocrine tumours and is only used as a last resort when other therapies aren’t effective. So, I won’t be losing my hair! I actually would have been okay with that and even have friends who were willing to shave their heads as a sign of solidarity but with winter coming on, perhaps it’s good that we get to keep our hair. Bald is beautiful but it could also be very chilly!

In addition to the radioisotope therapy, I’ll also be receiving monthly injections of Sandostatin, a medication that will inhibit the release of hormones by my tumours and thus alleviate the symptoms that I’ve been dealing with, particularly the nasty stomach cramps that have worsened recently. Unlike the radioisotope injections, which I will have to go to Edmonton for, my first dose of Sandostatin will be administered by my family doctor and after that, a visiting nurse will give them to me here at home.

Sandostatin will also protect my heart from damage which can be caused by excess hormones. That leads me to the final piece of good news; last week’s echocardiogram showed that my heart is in excellent condition. Though I’ve probably had this cancer for several years already, it shows absolutely no sign of damage and I don’t need to restrict physical activity or take any other precautions. I can continue doing my 20+ push ups every morning!

As yesterday was also our 37th wedding anniversary and we felt that we had a lot to be thankful for, we stopped for a lovely celebration supper on our way home. I was even going to indulge in a decadent dessert but when nothing on the menu appealed to me, we headed for Starbucks and enjoyed pumpkin spice lattes for dessert. After all, they’re practically hot pumpkin pie in a mug!

Next on the agenda is another trip to the city tomorrow, this time to attend an afternoon session entitled “A Journey of Well-Being with Neuroendocrine Tumours” where we’ll hear from the experts about a variety of topics including the latest treatments, nutrition and how to use it beneficially, and how to live the best life possible with this diagnosis. This will also give us an opportunity to meet other patients, their friends and family members, and survivors as well as more of the health professionals.