Cancer times two!

March 28, 2014 / 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!

March 15, 2014 / 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?

February 24, 2014 / 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…

February 15, 2014 / 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!

My parents

Riding the roller coaster again

February 4, 2014February 4, 2014 / 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! 😦

Once a Mom…

January 27, 2014 / edebock / 8 Comments

When do you stop being a Mom? Is it when they graduate high school? when they leave home? when they marry? or is it when they have children of their own? No, the answer is never! You never stop being a Mom!

I still remember getting up at 2:00 a.m. and then again at 6:00 to feed the baby. Tired as I was, I enjoyed those peaceful moments; just the baby and I. There was no baby to feed last night though. Instead, I was up periodically checking Facebook to find out the latest news on our three-year-old granddaughter who was rushed to Children’s Hospital in Calgary late yesterday afternoon suffering from a severe asthma attack, her third in the past five months.

When Jami arrived at emergency, there was no long wait. She was rushed into trauma and immediately swarmed by doctors and nurses who swiftly attached her to various monitors and tubes. At that point, she was virtually unable to breathe! The next few hours were scary ones! Every time the oxygen was removed or she pulled it off, her levels plummeted. At one point, she was being given a bronchodilator (rescue medication) every 30 minutes. Normal use would be every 4 to 6 hours! That caused her poor little heart to work overtime, adding to her distress.

Poor pregnant Mommy was wearing out fast and I wanted nothing more than to jump in the car and head for Calgary. Unfortunately, we couldn’t do that. The nurse was coming from Red Deer this morning to give me my regular Sandostatin injection and there are a number of other appointments and meetings this week that we really need to be here for. Fortunately, Melaina did what Moms do. She hung in there and stayed by her little princess’ side all night long. At one point, they were talking about moving Jami to ICU but things began to turn around after she was given an IV steroid.

Now, 24 hours after heading for the hospital, Jami is off oxygen and rebounding as children so often do. She’s finally being moved out of ER to a regular ward. Hopefully both she and her Mom can get some rest while they’re there. Even when she’s discharged, the battle won’t be over. The struggle to find the right combination of medications to keep this from happening again will go on and sadly, there may be more nights like this one.

Yes, I remember those quiet night time feedings but asthma runs in the family and I also remember the nights when we were up with Jami’s Uncle Matt watching his poor little chest pop in and out as he battled for every breath. It’s hard to watch your children suffer and it doesn’t get any easier when they have children of their own!

Once a mother, always a mother!

How am I doing?

January 23, 2014 / 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!

Getting back on track

January 3, 2014 / edebock / 9 Comments

When I was diagnosed with cancer at the end of August, it would have been easy to fall into a deep pit of anger. After all, I don’t smoke, I only indulge in an occasional glass of wine, I’ve never even experimented with street drugs, I eat a healthy diet and I exercise regularly. I’ve taken excellent care of my body, so why cancer? Why me? There are no answers to those questions. I don’t think there’s anything more that I could have done to prevent such a catastrophic diagnosis, but life’s not fair and cancer is no respecter of persons.

Fortunately, I managed not to wallow in anger, but for awhile I definitely let a “why bother” attitude take hold. Why bother exercising? Why bother watching my weight? Why not eat whatever I want? After all, I have cancer. I deserve a treat, don’t I? Now, every time I look in the mirror, I see an unwelcome “why bother” bulge around my middle and every time I zip up my jeans, “why bother” gets in the way.

In spite of the delicious food, I actually lost a few pounds while we were in China. The amount of walking and stair climbing that we did on a daily basis more than made up for the extra calories I consumed. I was surprised that I didn’t gain the weight back as soon as we got home and after being diagnosed with cancer, I actually began to worry about that. I knew that if I had to have surgery or if treatments caused me lose my appetite, I didn’t have any extra weight to spare. That made it easy to get lazy about exercising and to start indulging in fattening foods. I kept up my morning exercise routine but when winter arrived, I quit walking and the weights and the treadmill gathered dust in the basement. Suddenly my weight started to climb again and it didn’t stop! By early December I was seven pounds heavier than I’d been just three months earlier!

Seven pounds isn’t a lot but it’s five percent of my present body weight and on my slight frame, it shows. Also, I realized that if I kept gaining at that rate, I’d put on 28 pounds in just one year! There’s no way I wanted that to happen! It was definitely time to do something about the “why bother” attitude, but with Christmas goodies staring me in the face, I decided not to make any drastic changes until after the New Year.

Now, with Christmas behind us, most of the goodies eaten and the family gone, it’s time to get back on track! Today I bid “why bother” good bye, dug out my virtual walk DVDs and got back on the treadmill. I only walked 1.2 miles (just under 2 kilometres) but it’s a start and it felt good. Before we left for China, I didn’t have time to finish my video course, The Secret Life of Words: English Words and Their Origins so, when I’m not enjoying scenic pathways around the world via DVD, I’ll be watching lectures while I walk.

When the little ones were here for Christmas, we had to hide the free weights to keep them from dropping them on their toes but I’ll be digging those out again next week. It’s been almost a year since the last time I lifted so I’ll have to start small but that’s okay. Cancer may have slowed me down for awhile but it hasn’t stopped me yet!

Imperfect Christmas

December 30, 2013 / edebock / 10 Comments

Other than the sounds of the washer and dryer chugging their way through a mountain of bedding and towels, our house is a great deal quieter and seems much larger than it did yesterday! With the departure of our children and grandchildren, we’ve gone from twelve people back to three.

There was a time when I harboured unrealistic expectations for Christmas time imagining carols quietly playing while angelic children and happy adults enjoyed one another’s company without a hint of discord. Meals would be perfectly turned out and everyone would gather around the table looking like we belonged in a Norman Rockwell painting.

Expectations like that are #1 on The Big Sheep Blog’s list of the Top 10 Ways to Inflict Holiday Torture Upon Yourself! This year, I decided ahead of time that I didn’t need the stress of unrealized fantasies. Instead, I chose to toss them out the window and go with the flow. Thank goodness I did!

One family arrived with nasty colds and another brought stomach flu. Over the past week, the two ailments were passed around with only Richard and I failing to succumb to either one! We’re chalking that up to our many years in the classroom where we were exposed to every bug that came along. In addition to the coughing, sneezing and vomiting that surrounded us, one of the wee ones spiked a high fever and she also required a late Christmas night trip to ER for a nose that wouldn’t stop bleeding!

It isn’t easy being sick away from home and it’s even more difficult with young children. Add to that the dynamics created by families with very different parenting styles and philosophies and the crowded house held even more potential for dissension. It was noisy, it was chaotic, it was messy and at times, nerves were frayed, but it was also wonderful to have all my chicks under one roof.

Games have always been part of our family get-togethers and even the youngest members got in on the action.

Even when the temperature plunged to -25ºC (-13ºF), the children, who ranged in age from two to five, were happy to play outdoors. Snow was shoveled

and quinzees built.

The playground was visited.

We skated

and tobogganed.

And when it was too cold or tummies were too tender, stories were read.

It might not have been a Norman Rockwell painting and it wasn’t perfect but it was Christmas, we were together and I am thankful.

Beauty after the storm

November 17, 2013 / 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.

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!