Health

Days of praise!

/ edebock / 5 Comments

I have much to praise God for this week!

Under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t consider a visit to the dentist a big deal. There was a time, after a traumatic experience in a dentist’s chair when I was eleven or twelve, that going to the dentist was frightening but that’s in the distant past and hasn’t been an issue for a long time. No, the reason for Tuesday’s apprehension was different. For the past several months, I’ve been experiencing severe jaw pain when I eat. It appears to have been brought on by a combination of last spring and summer’s surgery and radiation treatments and accumulated stress. I’d been warned that radiation, in particular, would likely cause stiffening of the muscles in my jaw. When I started seeing a physiotherapist in early October, I could only open my mouth 26 mm (average is 50) and the pain when I ate was, at times, almost unbearable. Over the next few weeks of regular exercise, I regained quite a bit of flexibility and can now open my mouth about 35 mm. The pain has lessened but it hasn’t gone away. I was very concerned about whether or not I’d be able to keep my mouth open wide enough and long enough to have my teeth cleaned and checked and how much that would hurt. Unfortunately, however, I couldn’t postpone the appointment.

Until I had my parotid gland removed and my other saliva glands were compromised by radiation, I had no idea what an important role saliva plays in tooth protection. Now that my saliva production has been permanently reduced, I’m especially vulnerable to tooth decay and for at least the first year following radiation, in addition to brushing my teeth after every meal and giving myself daily fluoride treatments, I’ve been advised to see my dentist every four months. Tuesday’s was the first of these check-ups and I feared what the results might be.

As it turns out, I had nothing to worry about. Under the gentle care of my hygienist and dentist, the appointment went amazingly well. No pain and no cavities! As I said, I have much to be thankful for this week but that’s just the beginning!

The following morning, long before daylight, we set out on the two and a half hour drive to the city for my second Lutetium treatment at the Cross Cancer Institute. There were a few snowflakes in the air but the roads were clear and the drive uneventful; definitely another thing to be thankful for at this time of year in Alberta! I was admitted for an overnight stay and the treatment went ahead resulting in nothing more than a slightly queasy stomach that didn’t last very long.

After a reasonably decent sleep considering the fact that I was in a narrow hospital bed, I was up early on Thursday morning for my follow-up scan, the one that would tell us what’s been happening to my neuroendocrine tumours since September’s treatment. One of the things that I appreciate most about this process is that, unlike most medical procedures, I’m given the results immediately afterward. No anxious waiting for 2 or 3 weeks to hear back from the doctors.

And the news? That’s the biggest thing I have to be thankful for! There has been absolutely no change! The cancer has not grown or spread! It continues to be stable. I may have pain when I’m eating but in the overall scheme of things, that seems pretty insignificant. I have much to praise God for and I sincerely thank those of you who have been praying for me!

My next treatment will be on Feb. 11.

No laughing matter!

/ edebock / 4 Comments

Every once in awhile, we need to be reminded how very lucky we are!

If you’ve been reading my blog for very long, you’ll probably recall that I’m an avid Kiva lender. Kiva is a non-profit organization that allows a person to lend as little as $25 to a specific low-income entrepreneur in one of 83 countries around the world. Though Kiva provides loans to both men and women, I choose to lend to women who are borrowing money to purchase specific items that they will use to generate income that will help them support their families and educate their children. As each of these women makes a monthly payment on her loan, my share of that payment is deposited in my Kiva account and I receive an email notifying me of my updated balance. I could withdraw the money at any time but instead, as soon as my balance reaches $25, I search the Kiva database and choose another woman to lend to. Today, I made my 30th loan!

Sokhem is a garment factory worker and mother of 5 who lives in a rural area of Cambodia. Together, she, her husband and their oldest child earn a combined income of approximately $13 a day. Sokhem requested a Kiva loan to purchase some cows and start a breeding program, but it was actually one of her long term goals that caught my eye and prompted me to help her today. She hopes eventually to be able to build a bathroom with a toilet in her home.

Can you begin to wrap your head around the idea of raising 5 children in a home without a toilet? I can’t.

Did you know that this Wednesday, November 19th is World Toilet Day, a day set aside to draw attention to the one-third of humanity who, like Sokhem, lack basic toilet and sanitation facilities? I didn’t either until I read this morning’s Edmonton Journal article just before checking my email and discovering that I had the necessary funds to make another Kiva loan.

World Toilet Day! It’s hard not to laugh, isn’t it? Sadly, when you read the statistics, it’s not a laughing matter.

  • One billion people – a sixth of the world’s population – defecate in the open because they simply have nowhere else to go.
  • In India alone, 600 million people – about half the country’s population – lack toilets in their homes.
  • 1.5 million children die annually from diarrhea that could be prevented by simply having clean toilet facilities.
  • People living in many towns and villages in Africa and elsewhere run the risk of being bitten by scorpions and venomous snakes every time they relieve themselves in fields and woods.
  • One billion people get their water from sources contaminated by human and animal feces.
Over the course of our travels, we’ve seen the best and the worst of the world’s toilets from “squatty potties” in many parts of Asia to high tech toilets with heated seats and built in bidets in higher end Japanese establishments, but wherever we’ve been, we’ve always been able to find a toilet to use. Here in Canada, where it’s not uncommon for a home to have 2 or 3 of them, we take so much for granted. On World Toilet Day, let’s not forget how very fortunate we are!

 

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School dreams and stress

/ edebock / 12 Comments

For many years, in spite of the fact that I enjoyed my teaching career, I had what I called my “school dreams” in the days leading up to each new school year.  These were dreams in which everything went wrong.  All a teacher’s worst nightmares would visit me as the end of August approached! One of the things that I’ve really enjoyed about retirement has been the absence of these dreams; until recently that is.

Why in the world would I be having school dreams again more than seven years after retiring from the classroom? It happened again last night. This time, I was trying to teach a high school English lesson to a large class of students in a crowded area at the back of a busy hairdressing salon! Yes, my school dreams are like that; a curious mixture of realistic and just plain weird. Midway through the lesson, all but two of the students got up and went upstairs to some sort of student lounge. In spite of my pleading and threatening (definitely not effective teaching strategies), they refused to come down again. Over the years students leaving class and refusing to come back has been a fairly common theme in these dreams.

Teaching is a stressful occupation and during my career, though I anticipated the beginning of each new school year with excitement, I recognized that my strange dreams were a symptom of that stress.

Over the past 14 months, my life has been a series of one stressful event after another. I thought I was coping well but little by little, with each ensuing event, the stress built up until now it’s beginning to bubble over. According to the Holmes and Rahe Life Events Stress Test, which is supposed to give a rough estimate of how stress affects health, events including death of a close family member (Mom), major personal illness (cancer) and major change in health of a family member (Dad) have given me a 50-50 chance of succumbing to stress-related illness. I’m doing my best to combat that by continuing to eat well, exercise regularly and by ensuring that I get enough sleep but it’s absolutely amazing what’s stored away in the deep recesses of our brains. Apparently, mine still connects stress to teaching and  is reacting to my current stress level with school dreams! How weird is that!

Now the challenge is to find ways to reduce the build up of stress and manage it better in the future.

Any suggestions?

 

Coffee… poison in my cup

/ edebock / 9 Comments

Coffee-addiction

I have no idea how many times I’ve quit drinking coffee! A better question might be, why in the world do I ever start again when I know how bad it is for me?

Coffee is known to have both positive and negative effects on health but for me, the negatives far outweigh the positives. Coffee simply isn’t my friend!

I fell off the wagon once again in August while we were on holiday. I started with just half a cup. After all, how much damage could half a cup do? The negative effects don’t show up immediately and that half cup tasted so good so that it soon became a daily habit. Before long, half a cup wasn’t enough in the morning and I started pouring myself a second one. Then my husband, who can drink copious amounts of the brew with no ill effects, started making a second pot in the afternoon. Another half cup was just what I needed to give myself a midday energy boost. Some days, I drank even more.

As usual, the side effects gradually snuck up on me and, as always, it took awhile for me to recognize what was happening. I have no idea why I didn’t immediately make the connection between the burning in my stomach and the poison in my cup, but I didn’t. Coffee is highly acidic and it can be very irritating to the gastrointestinal tract. Switching to decaf doesn’t really help. In fact, some research shows that decaf increases stomach acid even more than regular coffee.

I’ve always been extremely sensitive to caffeine. For most people it’s a mild stimulant, but for me it results in agitation and acute anxiety. Lately, my stress level has been going through the roof! After all that I’ve been through over the past 13 months, that’s hardly surprising and was easy to rationalize. Cancer, major surgery, radiation, death of a parent; all are very stressful but I’d been coping so well. Why did I suddenly feel like I’d hit a wall? I thought that my father’s stroke last month was the final straw and I have no doubt that it has contributed to my present state but I suspect that the coffee has also had a lot to do with it.

And so, once again, I have quit! Totally. Completely. Cold turkey. No more poison in my cup. I hope I have the good sense to make it permanent this time!

Enough already!

/ edebock / 16 Comments

Just when I thought that life was going to settle down a little, my world was turned upside down again!

Last Thursday, my 91-year-old father flew to Alberta from his home in Vancouver. On Saturday, he walked his granddaughter down the aisle of Fort Edmonton‘s historic Anglican Church of St. Michael and the Angels. It was a unique and beautiful wedding and he was honoured to play such an important role.

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Less than 48 hours later, he was relaxing at my sister’s home in Vegreville when he suffered a cerebellar stroke!

Richard and I had just finished playing the third hole on our local golf course when the clubhouse manager drove out to tell us that our niece was trying to get hold of us about a medical emergency. We live just minutes away so in no time at all we were on our way to the Vegreville Hospital, arriving just in time for me to climb into an ambulance and accompany Dad as he was transferred to a larger hospital in Edmonton.

After laying in Emergency for another 48 hours waiting for a bed, he was finally transferred to the stroke ward yesterday. A cerebellar stroke affects the back of the brain which controls balance and coordination. Dad suffered no paralysis but he’s unable to stand without assistance because his sense of balance is completely off and he’s experiencing some weakness in his right hand. His speech is slurred, but mostly understandable, and he’s having some difficulty swallowing so he’s being given soft foods and thickened drinks. He is cognitively unimpaired and is in reasonably good spirits considering the circumstances.

I, on the other hand, feel like I’m reaching the end of my rope! In the past thirteen months, I’ve been diagnosed with two unrelated cancers. I’ve had seven hours of surgery and thirty radiation treatments for one of them and three radioisotope treatments for the other. I also lost my mother in June. Enough already!

In this morning’s devotions, I read about Gideon and I could definitely identify when he asked, “If the LORD is with us, why has all this happened to us?” (Judges 6:13)

Another devotional that I read this week was written by blogger, Cindy Keating of Red Carpet Life. It spoke of the pruning that God does in our lives to bring about greater fruitfulness.

I looked up and saw a sadly barren tree taped off in the middle of the orchard. It stuck out like a sore thumb with a noticeable sign hanging from it’s highest branch: “Pruning In Process.”

I instantly thought of the many painful times I have had to be pruned so the beauty of my fruit could shine for God’s glory rather than my own.

Is that what’s happening in my life? If so, I hope God has read this recommendation concerning pruning:

When deciding how much to prune a tree, as little as possible is often the best rule of thumb. All prunes place stress on a tree and increase its vulnerability…

As I said, I think enough’s enough already!

I know I’m not alone in asking why God is allowing these things to happen. The writers of the Psalms certainly asked similar questions. I particularly like the Psalms of Asaph who said things like “When I tried to understand all this, it was oppressive to me” (Psalm 73:16) and “do not forget the lives of your afflicted people forever.” (Psalm 74:19b)

I’ve often heard it said that God doesn’t allow us to go through more than we can handle but the Bible doesn’t actually say that and it definitely isn’t true. He allows more than we can handle so that we learn to lean on Him and, in spite of my whining today, that’s exactly what I will continue to do! I’ll put one foot in front of the other, hang onto the hem of His garment, and wait to see how He’ll get us over this latest hurdle.

We have no idea what the next little while will hold. Dad will likely remain in hospital for at least a week or two where he’ll have access to physio and occupational therapy. The neurologist anticipates that he’ll make a fairly good recovery but we have no way of knowing when he’ll be fit to travel again, whether or not one of us will need to accompany him, or whether he’ll need a higher level of care than he had before.

Please God, no more crises for awhile. Enough already!

Finally!

/ edebock / 11 Comments

Yesterday I FINALLY had the cancer treatment that my doctors wanted to give me a year ago! Thankfully, mine is a slow-growing, chronic cancer or I doubt I’d be here to tell the tale.

When my neuroendocrine tumours (NETS) were diagnosed last September, the doctors at the Cross Cancer Institute in Edmonton would have preferred to start me on a radioisotope therapy, known as Lutetium-Octreotate, that they had been using very effectively since 2010. Unfortunately, shortly before that time, the government had cut off funding for that treatment citing a need for more evidence of its safety and effectiveness. That necessitated the setting up of a clinical trial, a very time-consuming process.

Unlike many NETS patients, my tumours were equally receptive to a second, similar treatment, so rather than waiting for Lutetium to become available again, I received injections of mIBG in November and January. It wasn’t long after that that my second cancer was diagnosed and treating it became a higher priority. My NETS was put on the back burner while I underwent surgery and radiation to rid me of the acinic cell carcinoma in my salivary gland. In fact, my neuroendocrine tumours weren’t looked at again until a CT scan was done in late July. Dealing with a second cancer was bad enough but not knowing what was going on with the first one was equally disconcerting.

While all of that was happening, the Lutetium-Octreotate clinical trial was finally approved and as of yesterday, I’m finally a participant. So, what does that mean? I don’t feel like a guinea pig because the treatment isn’t a brand new, untried one. Having heard the success stories from Dr. MacEwan, chair of the Oncology Department at the University of Alberta and head of the Nuclear Medicine Therapy/Neuroendocrine Tumour Clinic at the Cross Cancer Institute, a man who I trust completely, I have no doubt that it is both safe and effective. Simply put, participating in the clinical trial is the only way that I can access the treatment that Dr. MacEwan feels is the best one for me so it’s clearly a no brainer. I will remain in the study for up to seven years and will be followed up for another year after that. Data that’s gathered along the way will be retained for 25 years and will hopefully be used to improve patient care over the long term.

For me, there are several advantages to taking Lutetium instead of mIBG. From Dr. MacEwan’s point of view, the fact that it will probably be less harmful to my bone marrow was the deciding point, but I’m happiest about the difference in the precautions that I have to take after each treatment. They’ll still leave me radioactive but the effect of that radioactivity isn’t as far reaching. I didn’t have to stay shut away in the lead lined room after yesterday’s injection and Richard was allowed to visit me. Instead of being in virtual seclusion for two weeks afterward, now it will only be one week and the restrictions within that week are much less limiting. Following an mIBG treatment, I had to stay at least 10 feet away from Richard for all but 3 hours a day. For those 3 hours we were allowed to be just 3 feet apart! I still have to have my own bedroom and my own bathroom for the next week but we can be 3 feet apart at any time which definitely makes life easier. I’m also more free to mix with other people as long as I keep a bit of distance between us and I’m careful to stay away from pregnant women and children under the age of 12. Though there’s still the need for several blood tests between treatments, there will also be periods of several weeks when I’m not required to have any blood work done. I definitely see a winter holiday in our future!

I was told that I’d be very tired for the first week after each treatment but I really haven’t felt tired today at all. I suspect that that might have something to do with the exciting news that we received following this morning’s post treatment scans. They confirmed what July’s CT scan appeared to show. In the 7 months since my last mIBG treatment, my neuroendocrine tumours have remained absolutely stable. There are no new growths and the existing ones have not grown! In addition to that news, the scans also showed very clearly that the cancer in my face is completely gone. We were already quite sure of that but seeing it on the screen was absolutely wonderful!

Now I think I can FINALLY breathe a sigh of relief and begin to live a somewhat more normal life again. I still have cancer. In fact, without a miracle, I always will have, but I also have high hopes that the year ahead won’t be quite as crazy as the one we’ve just come through!

One year later…

/ edebock / 10 Comments

It’s hard to believe that a whole year has passed since I heard the fateful news. 365 days of living with cancer have gone by already!

The first days were the scariest when we didn’t yet know what kind of cancer it was and the process of finding out seemed ever so slow. Eventually, we learned that I have neuroendocrine tumours, a very slow growing chronic cancer that often responds well to treatment, and we breathed a small sigh of relief.

There have been dark and disappointing days, especially the day in late March when we learned that I had a second, completely unrelated cancer. That led to seven hours of surgery and six weeks of radiation. There’s still plenty of healing to be done and some long term repercussions but for the most part, I think we’ve put the second cancer behind us and I’ll soon resume treatment for the first one.

Though we’ve spent a lot of time away from home, our gypsy tendencies have been severely curtailed this year.  We’ve spent many days on the road driving back and forth to Edmonton for tests, scans, biopsies and treatments but we haven’t been outside Canada at all. We did renew our passports though and we opted for Canada’s new ten year ones in hopes that my wandering days aren’t over yet.

I often wonder if there will ever be a day when it doesn’t cross my mind that I have cancer. It would be so easy to feel sorry for myself and to focus on the negatives but I refuse to do that! Cancer has changed our lives significantly and we continue to live with lots of unknowns but life goes on and we have much to be thankful for.

I’m ever so thankful for my loving husband who has been by my side every step of the way patiently chauffeuring me to appointments, meeting with doctors and sharing the good days and the bad. We’ve also been absolutely overwhelmed by the prayerful support we’ve received from around the world. I know that that has sustained me through the ups and downs of the past year and that it will continue to do so in the days that lie ahead.

So now, as I move ahead into my second year of life with cancer, completely cognizant of the fact that many people don’t get that privilege, I’m determined to continue living life to the fullest!

It’s bell ringing day!

/ edebock / 10 Comments

 

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There’s a widespread tradition amongst cancer treatment centres including the Cross Cancer Institute in Edmonton where the following poem is posted on the wall of the waiting area outside each radiation treatment unit.


Ring Out

Ring this bell

Three times well

It’s toll to clearly say,

 

My treatment’s done

This course is run

And I am on my way!

 

Today, after 30 treatments over the past 6 weeks, it was finally my turn to ring the bell! I woke at 5:30 a.m. filled with anticipation and the morning crawled by as I waited for one o’clock to arrive. Now that it’s over, it’s hard to put how I feel into words! Perhaps it hasn’t really sunk in yet. Maybe it will seem more real when I board a plane for Vancouver tomorrow instead of heading back to the Cross!

I’ve been told not to expect the side effects to peak for another two weeks and there will be follow-up appointments in the future, of course, but this race has been run. Praise God!

Today was a bit anticlimactic in that, immediately after ringing the bell, I had to go upstairs for a CT scan to see what’s happened to my other cancer in the six months since it was last looked at but I’ve crossed one finish line. I’ve climbed that mountain and I’ve rung the bell! Now it’s time to move on!

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High Level Bridge Streetcar

/ edebock / 4 Comments

Until I started looking into things to do while we’re in Edmonton for my radiation treatments, I’d never heard of the High Level Bridge Streetcar. Maintained and operated by the volunteer members of the Edmonton Radial Railway Society, there are actually four vintage streetcars that operate between Old Strathcona on the south side of the North Saskatchewan River and the Jasper Teminal on the north side, but only one is in operation at a time. Today, it was the Melbourne 930, built in Melbourne, Australia in 1947. In addition, the Society has five more double ended streetcars in operation at Fort Edmonton and several others that they hope to fully restore in the future.

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Prior to September 1951, the Edmonton Radial Railway regularly carried passengers across the upper deck of the High Level Bridge. At 755m long and 49m high, the bridge was one of the world’s highest streetcar river crossings and afforded the passengers a spectacular and exhilarating view. To the delight of visitors to the city as well as locals, seasonal service was restored in August 1997.

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After finding a place to park near the Strathcona Terminal, we originally intended to stay on the streetcar for the 40 minute round trip, but due to the fact that I’d forgotten my water bottle, an absolute essential on a hot day especially since my saliva production has been greatly suppressed by surgery and radiation, we got off at the Jasper Terminal near the corner of 109th Street and Jasper Avenue. After finding our way to a nearby convenience store and securing a bottle of water as well as a couple of ice cream bars, we enjoying our snack in the shade of a tree at nearby Railway Park before catching the next car back to Old Strathcona.

Alberta Legislature Building from the streetcar

Alberta Legislature Building from the streetcar

Fort Edmonton, a walk through time

/ edebock / 6 Comments

Richard and I have been to Fort Edmonton numerous times in the past, but always with a class of students, usually 5th graders, in tow. Yesterday, we thoroughly enjoyed taking a more leisurely stroll through time without having to constantly count heads and make sure we hadn’t left anyone behind!

When we were teaching, a visit to Fort Edmonton fit perfectly with the grade 5 Social Studies curriculum which was largely a study of Canadian history. We liked to prepare our students for the field trip by reading Alberta author, Brenda Bellingham’s novel, Storm Child, to them. The story of Isobel, daughter of a Scottish fur trading father and a Peigan First Nations mother living in Fort Edmonton in the 1830s, the book never failed to capture their imaginations and bring the history alive for them.

The best way to see Fort Edmonton, Canada’s largest living-history museum, is to begin your visit by climbing aboard the steam train and riding it back to 1846 and The Fort, an exact replica of the original fur trading fort which once stood on a bluff on the opposite side of the North Saskatchewan River close to where the Alberta Legislature Buildings stand today. The Hudson Bay Company fort, where natives brought their furs to trade for a wide variety of goods from Europe and other far away places, is presided over by enormous Rowand House. Built to house Chief Factor John Rowand, his wife and their seven children, it was often referred to as Rowand’s Folly due to it’s sheer size; a mansion in the middle of nowhere!

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Rowand's Folly

Rowand’s Folly

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After touring the fort and the Cree encampment outside it’s walls, we left the fur trading era behind and wandered down 1885 street visiting homes, school, church and businesses of those hardy souls who made Edmonton home during it’s early settlement days.

 

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1885 Street

Rounding the corner onto 1905 Street, we stopped for lunch and dined on bison burgers in bannock, the traditional biscuit-like bread that sustained hungry voyageurs, settlers, and First Nations people in the early days of our country. Then it was time to take a jump forward in time and head for the Cross Cancer Institute for my radiation treatment. Our plan was to catch the streetcar in front of our eating establishment and ride it back to the park entrance but unbeknownst to us, the streetcar driver had also stopped for lunch! A brisk walk got us back to the vehicle just in time to make it to my appointment without a moment to spare!

1905 Street Where was that streetcar when we needed it?

1905 Street
Where was that streetcar when we needed it?

Within an hour, we were back at Fort Edmonton. This time, we caught the streetcar back to our stopping point and resumed our walk through time where costumed interpreters help bring history alive for visitors. We enjoyed sipping iced tea with Alexander Rutherford, Alberta’s first premier, on the front porch of his large and comfortable home that even boasted hot and cold running water! Not everyone lived in such comfort, however. In the early years of the twentieth century, Edmonton was growing at such a rapid pace that some families lived in tents for up to two years waiting for houses to be built. Not too bad in the summer perhaps, but much more challenging when the winter temperatures dipped to -40º!

No, I didn't apply for the job!

No, I didn’t apply for the job!

By the time we reached 1920 Street, we were ready to stop at Bill’s Confectionery for ice-cream cones. After all, it was the hottest day that Edmonton has seen so far this summer! Crossing the street to the Capitol Theatre, we took in an excellent 15 minute interactive movie about the early history of the area and the city. A walk through the beautiful peony garden, which is in full bloom at this time of year, and a visit to the Motordome, where we were able to indulge our love of antique cars, brought our day to a close.

1920 Street with the peony garden in the foreground

1920 Street with the peony garden in the foreground

The only part of the park that we didn’t take in was the 1920s Midway, a fairly recent addition with games and rides that would likely be a hit if you visited Fort Edmonton with some of the younger set.

I’ve been told that fatigue is one of the most common and expected side effects of radiation. After spending a total of six hours walking through time in the hot sun, I was tired but I saw a lot of others dragging their feet back to the parking lot looking no more done in than I was and after a good night’s sleep, I feel fine!