Family

What comes next?

/ edebock / 4 Comments

We finally have a respite, a break between medical appointments, and we’re going to be able to make the trip to Vancouver that was aborted six weeks ago when my doctor called to deliver the news that I have cancer! The nature of the trip will be a little different than it would have been back then though. There will be time for adventures with our grandsons, Sam and Nate, of course, but while I was undergoing all sorts of tests at the Cross Cancer Institute, my sister and brother were in Vancouver helping our 90 year old father move into an assisted living facility. They weren’t able to stay long enough to deal with everything in the apartment that had been my parents’ home for more than 25 years though so we will be sorting, packing, storing, selling and giving away; doing whatever needs to be done to have the place empty by the end of the month.

It will be very nice to have this break from all things related to cancer! This week has been about dealing with symptoms. Neuroendocrine tumours produce excess hormones that can have a variety of effects. In my case, these include painful stomach cramps, diarrhea, and high blood pressure. The hormones may also be responsible for the fact that my heart races occasionally. In addition, I’ve recently developed another common symptom known as flushing. If you’re talking to me and my face suddenly turns red, you haven’t embarrassed me or made me angry and no, I’m not menopausal. I’m too old for that! That’s just me flushing!

I had my first Sandostatin injection on Tuesday. It’s a slow release medication that’s supposed to suppress the production of these hormones and thus alleviate the symptoms. I pray that it’s effective and that I begin to see changes soon! In addition, my family doctor prescribed high blood pressure medication this morning and I’m walking around with a Holter Monitor dangling from my neck. The tiny battery operated monitor is attached to five electrodes that are stuck to my chest and it’s keeping track of my heart’s rhythm for a 24 hour period. Once I turn it in at the hospital tomorrow morning, I expect to be free of all things medical until Nov. 1!

Shortly after that, life is going to get crazy for awhile! I have my first radioisotope treatment on Nov. 8 and I will be so highly radioactive afterward that I will be isolated in a lead lined room until the following day! Once I’m home, I will have to live like a hermit until 14 days have passed but more about that in a future post. For now, I just want to enjoy my freedom!

First day at the Cross

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After finding our way from the parkade to the registration desk and being issued the red and white Cross Cancer Institute ID card that I’m supposed to show each time I enter the facility, we started our first day there with a new patient orientation session. In my mind’s eye, I had visualized us sitting in a classroom with several other brand new shocked and bewildered patients listening to someone give us an overview of how things work at the Cross. Instead, the two of us sat on a comfy couch in a cozy corner of the patient library and chatted with a volunteer, a colon cancer survivor who was treated at the Cross about 15 years ago. He shared a little of his own experience, told us about the services and resources that are available to patients and their families, gave us excellent suggestions about dealing with the practical and emotional challenges of living with cancer and encouraged us to take an active role in my care.

Of all the many volunteers who perform this service, God sent us Gar! About mid way through his presentation, while telling us about the psychosocial and spiritual resources that are available, he made this comment, “People have many different ways of dealing with cancer but I just put mine in the hands of my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ!” I replied with a resounding “Amen!” Gar was one of us and God had put him right where we needed him when we needed him there.

Following our chat, Gar took us on a tour of the facility making sure that he clearly pointed out the various places that I’d need to return to later. By the time we hugged and said good-bye, we felt much more at ease.

After a quick bite to eat, it was time for our first visit to the Nuclear Medicine department where I received my mIBG injection. This was the first of two injections of radioactive drugs that will aid in determining the extent to which my cancer has spread. Tomorrow, I’ll return for a full body scan, which will involve lying perfectly still for up to an hour, followed by the injection of the second drug.

A visit to the lab, where blood was taken, brought today’s appointments to an end. Over the four weeks since this journey started, I’ve been poked numerous times including three tries to get an IV started the day I had my colonoscopy. I must say that the gals at the Cross have been the gentlest so far. I hardly felt the two needles that entered my arms today!

Before we left the Cross this afternoon, we visited the gift shop where we stocked up on used books for $1.00 apiece and then headed out into the sunshine to find the geocache that’s hidden on the hospital property! It was placed there in April 2010 by a young geocacher who wanted to honour his twin sister, a breast cancer patient at the Cross.

I was pretty tired this afternoon, probably just a response to the emotional overload of getting this far, but after resting a bit and enjoying the first meal our youngest son has ever cooked for us, I’m recharged and ready to go back again tomorrow.

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!

Shingles… but not the roofing kind!

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The itch came first followed by intense pain that had me pacing the floor at night. A quick online search confirmed what I was beginning to suspect; I had shingles! I was almost relieved last Sunday afternoon when the telltale rash finally appeared. Without it, there was nothing to show a doctor; no way to get a definite diagnosis and the medication I needed.

Within minutes of Wendy, one of our helpful office gals, typing the word shingles into her trusty translator on Monday morning, she and I were in a taxi and on our way to the Second Hospital of the Dalian Medical University. One glance at my rash was all the doctor needed to confirm my self diagnosis. He prescribed an anti viral medication as well as a vile smelling lotion to help with the itch and an antibiotic cream to use at night to prevent infection from setting in.

Shingles, or herpes zoster as it’s more formally known, is a reactivation of the virus that originally causes chicken pox. It had been lying dormant in my body for more than five decades waiting to spring into action again! Fortunately, unlike chicken pox, shingles usually affects only one area of the body, in my case a band extending around the left side of my torso at shoulder blade level.

I don’t actually remember having chicken pox. I was very young at the time but I do recall my mother talking about having three children sick with it at once; my older brother, my sister and I. My younger brother missed the first round of all the childhood diseases to hit our home and instead, made a habit of coming down with them when we were on holiday! I remember him having whooping cough in Dawson City, Yukon and mumps at our grandmother’s house. I believe that it was chicken pox that he had while we were camping on Galiano, one of BC’s beautiful gulf islands. I guess I must be following his example by coming down with shingles in China of all places!

Fortunately, I seem to have had a fairly mild case and I think I’m the mend. The blisters have burst and the rash is beginning to heal. The pain, now worst in the morning, eases off after awhile and is easily managed with Ibuprofen.

Though uncomfortable at times, I’ve been able to continue doing everything I needed to do. The blog’s silence this week has had more to do with the fact that I’ve been busy giving and marking final exams than with the fact that I’ve been suffering from shingles. My university classes came to an end this week and for the remainder of the month I’ll have only my students who are preparing to study abroad; just seven hours of teaching a week! No more classes at 8 o’clock on Saturday mornings and no more climbing the stairs to the sixth storey classroom! Even with shingles, life is good!

Football!

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I went to a professional football game last night. As in much of the world, football in China is what we North Americans refer to as soccer. I’m not an avid sports fan but in years gone by Dalian’s claim to fame in China was its football team so I really wanted to see them in action. Apparently they haven’t done as well in recent years but they did manage to win last night’s match.

I went to the game with two of our fellow teachers and five of our students. Poor Richard, the real sports fan in the family, had a class to teach so he wasn’t able to join us.

Though the game itself was interesting to watch, being part of a local crowd cheering on their team was exciting. I found myself chanting along with the rest of them and when the one and only goal was scored, I was on my feet and hollering just like everyone else!

It was some of the peripherals that I found most fascinating, however. When we arrived at the stadium, well ahead of game time, the area surrounding it was a beehive of activity. Vendors had food booths and tables set up to serve the crowd and others had stacks of seat cushions to sell. The local custom is to buy a cushion and spend the game sitting on it then send it sailing through the air toward the field at the game’s end! Most of our boys bought the thin 0.5 yuan (about 8 or 9 cent) cushions but Vicky and I decided that our bony butts would prefer the plusher 1 yuan ones! Of course, after the stadium empties, the cushions are collected and resold before the next game.

As is standard at a sporting event, the national anthem was played before the game started. Though we Canadians tend to be rather apathetic when it comes to singing our anthem, I fully expected the Chinese to belt theirs out the way I’ve seen Americans do. I could hear Vicky singing quietly beside me but hers was the only voice I heard! I was quite astonished.

I was also surprised by the presence of soldiers! Though we’re surrounded by crowds of people wherever we go in China, this was the first time I’d been in a situation where a large crowd of people had assembled in one place for a specific purpose. Clearly that’s still something that the Communist government has concerns about. Why else would there be a line of soldiers around the field facing the crowd? They stood at attention until the game started and then sat unmoving on tiny stools always with their back to the action and their eyes on the crowd. They wore dress uniforms including white gloves and weren’t visibly armed but clearly no one was going to tangle with them.

I’ll probably be watching a lot more soccer over the next few years but I don’t expect there to be any soldiers present. I’m going to be watching this little guy, my oldest grandson, play! He’s even wearing Dalian colours and I thought of him when I saw #8 on the field last night.

Looking for peace and quiet

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Chinese people tend to be quite loud and there are a LOT of them so this is definitely not a quiet place to live! The streets below our building are usually a beehive of activity. We jokingly call the scene outside our windows our reality show as there’s always something interesting to watch. Because the building has little or no soundproofing, the show comes complete with sound and now that the weather has warmed up and we often have the windows open, the volume has been turned up. Once in awhile, I wake during the night and marvel at the silence but sometimes there are people shouting or horns honking even in the wee hours.

When I was a child, if we asked my father what he wanted for his birthday, Father’s Day or Christmas, his answer was always the same. "Peace and quiet!" I must have inherited my appreciation for quiet places from him. It’s not easy to get away from the hustle, bustle and noise that surrounds us here but we did find a couple of slightly more peaceful places this weekend.

Yesterday afternoon, we visited the Dalian Botanical Garden with one of my university students. Chinese gardens, like Japanese, tend to be landscape style gardens that include one or more ponds, rock works, trees and gazebos or pavilions connected by winding paths. Though there may be flowers, they aren’t the main focus. The Dalian garden is on the outskirts of the city and surrounds a very large pond that is obviously well stocked with fish as there were many people with lines in the water. It was a beautiful Sunday afternoon and also Mother’s Day so there were plenty of families enjoying the park but in spite of that, there was a sense of peace that isn’t easily found here.

Today, we spent a couple of hours strolling along the boardwalk that skirts the Daxishan Reservoir, not too far from here. Though we were never far from the sound of traffic and there were others also out enjoying the walk, it wasn’t crowded. Again, there was a very welcome feeling of peace.

Wursday, blursday

/ edebock / 9 Comments

We crossed the International Date Line and lost a day this week. The day we did have, which I’m calling Wursday, started when the alarm went off in our Leduc hotel room on Wednesday morning at 5:15 a.m. and ended about 29 hours later when we climbed into bed in our Dalian apartment. It was already after one o’clock Friday morning here. Thursday had disappeared in a blur of airports and flying.

Other than being an exceptionally long and tiring day, the trip went very well with absolutely no problems or delays. We made our way through security at the Edmonton, Vancouver and Shanghai airports without incident in spite of the fact that Richard’s knee brace always sets off alarms. Passing through immigration in Shanghai was a simple matter and we were waved through customs without having to answer a single question! To top it off, none of our luggage was lost, delayed or damaged. We travelled all the way with China Eastern Airline and couldn’t have asked for better service.

The best part of the trip was, without question, our stopover in Vancouver where we enjoyed a visit with daughter-in-law, Robin, and grandsons, Sam and Nate! The Vancouver airport houses an impressive collection of Northwest Coast native art. We met in the international departures area beside the "Spirit of Haida Gwaii" by well known Haida artist, Bill Reid. After checking out every detail of the giant sculpture we headed upstairs to the observation area where we were able to see planes coming and going and watch one of them being unloaded.

Before long it was time to say good bye and continue on our way. We took with us a special bag of goodies that the boys had helped their mom put together for us. Because China starts with C, everything in our bag began with that letter… carrot sticks, celery, cookies, cupcakes, clementines and even candy canes!

The stopover in Shanghai was longer but much less entertaining. By the time we got there, we’d been up for over 20 hours and I much of it trying to catch a few winks.

Now we’re nearing the end of our second day here. We’re unpacked and settled in and have already walked many miles exploring our new neighbourhood. We’re soaking up the sights, sounds and tastes of our new surroundings but we’re still suffering the effects of jet lag and trying to readjust our body clocks. It will probably be another day or two before I’m clearheaded enough to adequately describe our first impressions. To whet your appetite, he’s a couple of views from our apartment.

More family drama

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There’s nothing like a late night phone call to get your heart racing and the adrenaline pumping! I had just crawled into bed at about 11:45 last night when the phone on my bedside table rang. It was our son, Matt, calling to tell us that Dad’s high rise apartment building had been evacuated a couple of hours earlier and Dad’s whereabouts were unknown!

apartment

photo credit: Vancouver Sun

While conducting a search warrant for drugs on the 11th floor of the 29 storey building, Burnaby RCMP officers found more than they were looking for… 10 sticks of dynamite and several small bombs! As soon as Matt heard the news on Twitter, he headed over to Grandpa’s to make sure that he was okay.

Dad is a distinctive looking man. Though slightly stooped by age, he once stood 6 feet 6 inches tall and only weighs about 170 pounds (yes, that’s definitely where I got my skinny genes!). He’s fairly frail and walks with a cane. The officer that Matthew spoke with knew immediately who he was looking for and told him that he had seen Dad waiting in the lobby earlier. He assumed that he had had gone to the nearby community centre that had been opened as an evacuation centre and directed Matthew there. Dad wasn’t there nor was he at the care facility where Mom lives. Unable to find him, Matt headed home and called me.

I assumed that Dad might have called someone from his church and that they had picked him up but I had no way of knowing for sure. I called my sister who agreed that that was a likely scenario but neither of us had a name or a phone number to call. We discussed the fact that Dad is of sound mind and wouldn’t just wander away into the night. We agreed not to panic and I crawled back into bed.

That’s when the phone rang a second time! It was Matt’s wife, Robin. The evacuation centre had called. Dad was there and Matt was on his way back to pick him up. Their plan was to bring him back to their place for the night but when Matt got there, he was told that the order was about to be lifted. He waited with Dad then took him back to the apartment. All was well!

It wasn’t until this morning that I learned that when Matt went over the first time, Dad was actually sitting in a warm bus outside the building waiting to see what was going to happen. He sat there for an hour and a half before being taken to the evacuation centre.

Dad doesn’t carry a cell phone and he probably wouldn’t have called anyone if he did. He knew he was okay and had no idea that anyone was worrying about him. As my niece pointed out, he doesn’t understand how fast news travels these days. We’re just relieved to know that he was in a safe, warm place where he was able to sit and wait in relative comfort! We’re also very grateful that something of this nature didn’t happen while Mom was still living at home. That would have been a much greater ordeal.

I think I’m going to escape all this family drama and go to China! We leave later this afternoon!

Packing 105: To fold or to roll, that is the question

/ edebock / 14 Comments

Though some people roll their clothing to pack it in a suitcase claiming that it takes up less space and doesn’t wrinkle as much, I prefer to fold most of ours.

I learned to fold and pack from a master. When I was a child my father spent several years commuting between Powell River and Vancouver almost every week. Every week my mother did his laundry, starched and pressed his dress shirts and repacked his suitcase. I remember watching her with fascination. She could fold a shirt so that it looked like it had just come out of it’s original package.

Every summer, our family of six would pile into the big blue and white International Travelall and set off on a camping adventure that often lasted several weeks. Mom would pack everything we needed into the back of the vehicle. There was no such thing as a nylon tent in those days but she could fit the bulky canvas tent, six sleeping bags, foam sleeping mats, the Coleman stove, dishes, food, clothes, life jackets and fishing gear and a multitude of other things into the space behind the back seat.

Travelall_2

One summer we chartered a float plane and flew into Garibaldi Lake nestled high in the coastal mountains. Mom had to weigh every single item that went on that trip to make sure that we didn’t exceed the plane’s weight limit. Yes, she was definitely a packing wizard!

Float plane_2

But I digress! Though I fold the majority of our clothing, I often roll things like pyjamas to fit into small unused spaces between other items. On our upcoming trip to China, I’m also going to try a packing technique that I’ve never used before. By packing bulky items in ziploc bags and squeezing the air out before sealing them, they’ll take up much less room in a suitcase. Richard’s navy blue fleece hoodie is two sizes larger than my red one but look at how much less space it needs.

IMG_0757

And before I bring this packing series to an end, here’s one last tip: It’s amazing how much you can pack inside the shoes that go into your suitcase. Stuff them full of socks, underwear, pantyhose, pill bottles, anything that will fit!

Do you fold or roll?

Tangled knots of tension

/ edebock / 2 Comments

This has been an eventful week.

On Monday, I learned that my Dad had finally made the decision to seek permanent care for my Mom. She’s 90 years old and suffers from Alzheimer’s disease. In addition, she’s virtually blind, incontinent and confined to a wheelchair. Dad has been burning himself out trying to be her primary caregiver and most of the time she doesn’t even know who he is.

I was relieved! I would be able to leave the country knowing that Mom was being well cared for and that Dad could finally relax and possibly regain his flagging health and strength. Then came Wednesday and a phone call from my sister. Dad was suffering from chest pains and she was catching a plane that afternoon to fly out to Vancouver to be with them!

I was already feeling stressed over the delay in getting our visas. This news was almost more than I could handle! Questions and doubts flooded my mind. What was I thinking of? Was going to China at this point sheer insanity? We’d already signed our contracts! What choice did I have now?

I don’t handle stress well. Apparently, neither does my father! His chest pains were not an indication of an impending heart attack as we feared but, as far as we can tell, the result of stressing about the decision he’d made and all its implications. He had lain awake for long hours Tuesday night worrying about where Mom would end up, how he’d get her there, what he should pack for her, whether or not she’d adjust well to her new surroundings and so on and so on until the pain began.

We knew that initially, at least, Mom would go into the first appropriate long term care bed in their area. We prayed that it would be easily accessible by bus so that Dad, who no longer drives due to failing eyesight, could visit her regularly. God did even better than that! Tomorrow morning she’s moving into a care facility just down the street from the apartment building where my parents have lived for over 20 years! It’s literally about 500 metres away, close enough for Dad to walk over anytime he wants!

After more than 64 years of marriage, tonight will be the last night that my parents will spend together. It’s sad, but Alzheimer’s is sadder. In a sense, Mom has already been gone for quite a long time. I’m just glad that Dad will still be able to spend time with her each day and that my sister is there to help them with the transition.

Now, if only the results of our blood tests come back soon so that we can head to Calgary to apply for our visas. Then maybe the knots in my stomach will begin to untangle!