RECOVERY CHRONICLES XXIX
I didn’t know until our life was invaded by cancer, that the last day of chemotherapy is a major hurdle. There is a large bell hanging on the wall at the treatment center that is rung by those who have completed their course in chemo. Family members sometimes come and make it a celebration. I began to think about that in Betty’s second month of treatment and the fact that the last day of this horrendous treatment would be a great day to have a party. I called family and a few friends to see if they could assemble. Then I called the boys, Josh and Caleb to see what their schedules were. Josh and Emily had just moved to Pennsylvania to a new church and Caleb and Nadine were in Colorado. Josh’s work was very busy and Caleb would be in the middle of finals at Ft. Lewis College in Durango. I said, “Boys, we’re celebrating your Mom’s last day of chemo on April 20, and it would be great if you could attend.” Without hesitation they both said, “We’ll be there!” So it was on. Now, to keep it a secret! For the next month, everybody that was related to Betty or had a close acquaintance with her lied through their teeth to her. Flight arrangements were being made, banners were being constructed and big pink buttons were being printed that read, “NO MO CHEMO.” Betty asked several family members if maybe they could come for her last day of treatment and most all of them said they were regrettably busy. More lies! The party was in the works. The nurses knew it, the staff at the oncology department knew it, friends knew it, relatives knew it. People we didn’t even know, knew it. Everybody but Betty knew it. What a terrible weight that was! It was like sin without confession. I’m just guessing here…, but it was a heavy load!
While she was taking her last treatment, the crowd gathered. She had no idea that basically everybody she knew was waiting for her and the bell. Doctor Vukelja, Betty’s oncologist came to help her ring it. As her hand was on the rope, I said, “Hey let’s open the door to the lobby so everyone can hear it. The door opened and there they were, a sea of familiar faces belonging to those that loved her and prayed for her and came to support her on this new road. Then the boys stepped out of the group and it was basically over. I asked the doctor if they had cardiac paddles on hand for when her heart stopped. I could just see the headlines: “Lady beats cancer but dies of heart attack!” Her face was priceless. I will never forget it. All these awful months of surgeries and treatments and medications and needles, for just a brief moment in time were washed away by a flood of joy and peace provided by family and friends. It was my first experience of laughing and crying at the same time. We yelled and cheered and applauded. She did not faint or collapse, though she did falter for a brief moment, but when she recovered, she rang the thunder out of that bell!
RECOVERY CHRONICLES XXVIII
Eating at our house is very different lately. It’s very strange what Betty has been hungry for. Her taste buds are so messed up that what used to taste great to her is horrible and what she used to dislike, is sometimes very delicious. I’ve mentioned this before, but chili, for example, was not her most favorite dish. Maybe it had to do with the fact that it’s the only thing I know how to cook, (and when I say cook, I mean microwave out of the can). Whenever she has been sick over the years of our marriage, I make chile. She relates the two together. Sick and chile. Consequently, one tends to bring on the other. So, we don’t do chile much. Recently, however, we’ve been eating chile nearly every day. She really has a “hankerin” for it. (look it up!) Not just out of the can, but she is using a recipe from Betty Crocker to make it from scratch. We’re really getting “chile-ed” up around here. Because of all this, I find my self up quite late at night. One such night, as I was fighting the chile demons, I was almost asleep, you know, that state where you’re just about to doze off and you know it. Sleep is finally coming and you’re about to drift away on a soft fluffy cloud of rest. In my ear, from Betty’s side of the bed I hear a whisper, “Hey, you want to go to Denny’s?” Are you kidding?. Betty, it’s 2:30 in the morning why would I want to go to Denny’s? “Because I’m hungry for pancakes!” Though that was a pleasant change from our current dietary plan, I told her, hey, listen it’s very late and I’m very tired and I’m battling a chile addiction and there is no way in the world I’m going to Denny’s at 2:30 in the morning!.....
So, we’re on our way to Denny’s at 2:30 in the morning, and she’s trying to decide what kind of pancakes to get. Strawberry, blackberry or plain with lots of hot syrup. You know, Denny’s, in the middle of the night is a spooky place to be. What a strange crowd. There were seven people there. I guess they were people, it’s hard to tell from the way they were dressed. It looked as though there had been a clothing sale at the Wal-Mart dumpster. I commented to Betty how poorly everyone was atired at this time of the morning. She said, “Have you looked at yourself?” Which I did. I was wearing old hush puppy shoes with white socks, black shorts with caulk stains and a mustard colored shirt (real mustard) from 1980 that reads “Who Shot J.R.?” I blended in wonderfully. She looked over all the menu of pancakes, waffles, blintzes, (what ever they are). She studied it all with a keen eye for quite sometime and then looked at me and asked, “Do you think they have chile?”
We are very excited to tell you that Betty takes her last chemotherapy treatment tomorrow, April 20th. She still has radiation scheduled and will continue her treatment of the drug Herceptin for the remainder of the year. We have a long way to go, but we’re doing great! God has sustained us at every crossroad and every bump in the path. Thank you again for all your prayers. We don’t know the final outcome but we are well acquainted with the One who does. Next week will be difficult for Betty as we have noticed that the side effects are, to some degree, cumulative. The hard chemo lasts 28 days in her system and she takes it every 21 days, so there’s some bleed over that is sort of stacking up on her. She’s fighting all the way though, and we’re looking forward to the final dose of these really hard drugs. Tomorrow night, in Tyler, Betty will be at the “Relay for Life” rally. She was chosen as the “Hero of Hope” for one of the relay teams there in Tyler. We’re very excited to be a part of this most worthy cause. The relay starts at 7:00 pm with the “Survivors Dinner” at 5:30. I hope we don’t have chile! God bless.
RECOVERY CHRONICLES XXVII
Betty has been home for several weeks now. She’s starting to get “cabin fever.” I can tell by the way that she is occasionally a little snippy! Nothing major just little things. For example, I asked her the other day if she will still love me when I’m old and run down. She said, “I do.” You know, just little things. “Well, honey, would you love me if I were broke and penniless?” She replied, “Yes….but I would miss you.” Really, just little things. So we’ve been trying to find ways to break her out of the routine of being cooped up everyday. Last week, she had an idea of something that might help. On the way home from her last treatment, she said, “Honey, I’d like to spruce up the house a little.” I panicked just a bit because I wasn’t sure what she meant by “spruce.” Then you add the word, “up,” and it could get very expensive. Suddenly, in my mind, I heard her asking for granite counter tops, and marbled floor bathrooms with bidets. (The only thing I know about a bidet is not to be looking into it when you push the handle down! Personal experience will last a lifetime!) “So what did you have in mind my dear sweet little cup cake?” “Well, I was thinking…...uh….........new flower baskets for the front porch.” Now I know what you’re thinking, I should have been relieved at this point, but you don’t know what new flower baskets for the front porch means. It means I’ve got to go the flower nursery for one whole afternoon, maybe two. I’ve got to follow her around with a little red wagon like I’m 3, and carry all the baskets she picks out for miles and miles. She’s gonna ask me about colors and fragrances and whether or not the sun strikes the porch at three o"clock or five. Should we go with pink, red, yellow, blue,or blue, yellow, red, pink? This nursery is covered in hot house plastic, and they call it a hot house for a reason! It’s as though they brought the equator to east Texas and glassed it in. Like Texas didn’t already have enough heat. It’s like setting your microwave on high and putting it inside your cook stove as you turn on the broiler. It’s just crazy HOT! I said, “Betty, sweetie pie, sugar dumplin’, if you don’t mind, I’d rather you go by yourself to the nursery, I think we’d both enjoy it more….....
So we pull up at the nursery, I get my little red wagon, step in line behind her, and off we go. I pass other men who are wearing the same look that I have on. I recognize the look, it’s identical to the one that Betty wears when I take her to Home Depot for a special night out. These guys are just staring off into space like it’s December 21st, 2012, and they’re glancing at a copy of the Mayan calendar. So, I do my job, I load the wagon with plants. It’s hot and I begin to feel a little queasy. My head is throbbing and my feet are dragging. I’m sloshing through dirt and mud and some really bad smelling fertilizer. My shoes are caked with it and the odor is horrible and the temperature is rising and I asked the nursery man what kind of foul fertilizer am I walking in and he says, “Oh, that’s not fertilizer, it’s throw up from the guy in front of you. He said his head was throbbing and he was feeling a little queasy. Next thing you know…he Ralphed his cookies. You really should walk around it. Can I hose you down?”
One of our flower baskets died this week. Betty asked if I could take her on a quick trip to the nursery to buy another one. I said, “Have you thought about new granite in the kitchen, or maybe a bidet? They have all that at Home Depot.”
Betty is doing great this week. She felt so well, that we made a trip to Colorado for our son Caleb’s birthday. It was better than a whole bottle of pills for us both. Today, Friday the 30th, she took her hard chemo treatment. She’ll be fine until Sunday, and then it will hit her hard. For about a week, she will curl up and ride the waves of this awful medicine. There are so many side effects and they all seem to come at once. Thank you for your prayers and continued support. We love how you love us. Your prayers are like the rain we’ve had here in Grand Saline lately. They bring refreshment everyday. We have one more of the hard treatments left and then we have radiation treatments to battle along with other drugs for the rest of the year. We’ll make it. We get weary, but He does not. We love you all, and by the way, the front porch looks beautiful with all the new baskets!
RECOVERY CHRONICLES XXVI
Betty’s hair is really gone. I mean slick. But she looks really great bald. So I’ve seen news articles where a person would go bald from surgery or chemo or whatever, and their friends and family would shave their heads to show support and encouragement. So I was thinking about that and I mentioned it to Betty, thinking that it would be a sweet gesture. I said to her that I was thinking of razoring my head to empathize with her. She said, “NO! Don’t even think about it!” She turned and walked down the hall and I thought I heard her say, “On Sundays, you’ll look like a monkey in a zoo!” I said, “What?” She turned and said, “On Sundays, you’ll look a monk in a suit!” Well, that sounded better, but not by much. I told her that I think I might look cool in bald. I said, “Winston Churchill was bald, Bruce Willis from the movies is bald. Those guys are cool.” To which she replied, “Curly from the Stooges was bald, and so was Elmer Fudd. And that would be your NOT cool category.” So I asked her which category she would put me in. She smiled and said, “Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk you wascally wabbit!” Sometimes she has a very direct indirect approach. She started, “If you shave your head, then what do you do about your beard? Do you shave your beard too? I don’t remember you without a beard. Can you imagine what that would look like? What if some unknown problem has happened to your face after all these years and your beard has been graciously covering something grotesque. What about your moustache? Do you shave it as well? I haven’t kissed a man without a moustache in thirty-eight years. What if it’s not the same. What if it’s like being married to someone else! What if we stop kissing and then we drift apart and you move to Florida to a retirement community and the children forget your name and….....” I said, “So…..no shaving of hair, right?” She said, “Well honey, don’t let me influence your decision. It’s whatever you want.” So on my own,... I have decided not to shave anything. After photo shopping my head without hair, top and/or bottom, it turns out she was right. I do look like a monkey/monk in a zoo/suit. The woman has a keen eye. (but not a twig of hair) Did I mention she looks great?!
Betty had the really hard chemo today. Her white cell count was at @2300. That’s low, but not terrible. This will be a tough week, but I get to be home to take care of her. We’ll lock the doors and try to stay away from germs. Thank you for your prayers. This is a bitter sweet time for us. We hurt, but God is sufficient and that brings the peace in the pain. Yes, we even chuckle and laugh. Life is good and God is great. Thank you for all the cards and emails. It really helps to know that people care. Continue to pray also for our ministry. We have a calling to fulfill. God bless!
RECOVERY CHRONICLES XXV
Everybody who was knowledgeable of the condition said it would happen. 18 to 21 days out of the first chemotherapy treatment, Betty’s hair would began to fall out. So we talked about it. How to handle it. We heard of a woman on chemo who went to her daughter’s wedding with a full head of hair and was nearly bald by the time of the reception. We didn’t have any weddings planned but it would still be awkward to go to like Dairy Queen fully haired and be slick by the time you got to the dilly bar for desert. So, we, together, decided that when Betty’s hair began to fall out, that I would shave her head and that would be that. Well, not many days ago, she woke up and her pillow was pretty well covered in hair. Not much, but more than should be there. Almost as if the dog had taken a nap in the bed. She looked at me and said “It’s time.” I said, “Well, let’s not rush into this. Maybe you’re just shedding. I’m sure people do that.” She said, “It’s winter time and nobody and nothing sheds in the winter time.” She went to the mirror and grabbed a hand full of hair and it came out. No pulling or tugging. It just came out. I said, “Well maybe that’s just the weak hair. Maybe you’ve got some rebel hair that refuses to submit to peer pressure. My Uncle Robert has some of that stubborn hair. It’s been fighting the good fight for years and at least 10 or 12 of them are still hanging in there!” I continued my argument for a while and she agreed to wait another day. The following morning there was hair everywhere. It was time. I had already bought a new electric trimmer and was ready for the process, or so I thought. I charged my old trimmer, in case it would do the job and I got the beach towel with the Smurfs on it. I got everything ready physically, but my mind got locked up somehow. The thought of cutting that beautiful hair just couldn’t process in my head. She had already lost so much, I just didn’t want to be the one who took more away from her. I left that afternoon for a concert and while I was gone, her beautician lady from town shaved her head. She called me when I was on my way home that night. “It’s done,” she said. I asked her, “Well, do you look like Uncle Robert?” (Not that my Uncle Robert is a bad looking guy, actually he’s quite a handsome man, but he’s just not the “looker” that Betty is.) ((If your’re reading this, I still love ya unk!)) Betty said that she looked more like the bald chick on Star Trek. I said, “You mean Lt. IIia on the Enterprise?” She said, “Yes, that’s the one. How did you remember her name?” “Cause she was pretty!” I said. “And Lt. IIia looked nothing like my Uncle Robert!!! Yeah!!!”
Betty looks great, and is doing well. Her blood counts have been as low as 400, but they are up to over 9000 when it’s time to take the hard chemo again. Yesterday was one of those days. She sat through a 4 hour iv drip with the really mean stuff. She feels good today but by tomorrow, she usually gets quite weary. I’ll be gone for much of this week, pray for her and ask God to take care of her in my absence. Thank you all for your help and prayers. We are blessed.
RECOVERY CHRONICLES XXIV
So Betty’s white cell blood count was what they called “extremely” low. Her first chemo session knocked it down. She can very easily catch any little sickness bug that is flying around. Don’t go out in public and don’t be around large crowds they told us. If the next week on Friday her counts were not way up, she couldn’t take her chemo treatments. She couldn’t take the medicine that will save her life. Now the white cells fight off infection. They’re the good guys! Without them you’ll likely end up with the flu, a cold or whatever is in the air because you have nothing with which to fend them off. Those things can sometimes even cause death because your body cannot fight them. Chemo is so hard and nasty to your body, that not only does it kill cancer cells, but it also attacks the white blood cells. It’s like collateral damage. The good gets annihilated along with the bad. The average white cell count in a normal person is 5000 to 10,000. Last Friday, Betty’s count was 600. So we and many of you began to pray. I set my sights on 2500. “Lord just get her to 2500.”
Years ago, in high school, (I guess I could have left out the phrase, ‘years ago.’ I suppose at my age, that was implied!) Anyway, a long time ago in a faraway land, I had a date with this really great looking girl. I had a fair number of dates in school, but this one was different. This one said yes to the date the first time I asked her and I didn’t have to promise her money or jewelry like the others. The problem was, I had spent most of my cash on some important stuff like, Butch Wax, a mood ring and a pair of paisley print pants from K-Mart during a blue light special. (If you don’t understand anything that I just mentioned, stop reading now and continue playing X-Box) I was broke with a hot date. I went to my dad and said, “Hey dad, you are looking really good! Did you loose a few pounds? And that Vitalis really brings out the natural gloss to your hair!” He looked at me and said, “How much money are we talking here?” He was so intuitive! Ten bucks would be great I said, though I really wanted more. He reached for his billfold, pulled out a ten dollar bill and gave it to me. I couldn’t believe it was that easy. I felt like I had really worked him. I was so excited until as I was walking off, I heard him say, “I had a twenty if you had asked.” Sometimes we limit ourselves.
But apparently there were people this week, not near so pitiful as me, who didn’t want to limit God to a puny little number like 2500. They were apparently bold enough to ask for more. To ask for the much larger numbers. To ask for 20’s instead of 10’s. Now those are the people I want to start hanging out with. I was on the road to Alabama when Betty called from the hospital with her blood count. Instead of asking how high her counts were, I asked how low they were. (sometimes I’m a glass half empty kind of guy!) She shouted into the phone, “9400!.” At first I thought that was our chemo bill for the week! 9400 was the white cell count! That’s the high end of a normal person without chemotherapy drugs coursing through their body! Thank you sweet warriors, (Is that an oxymoron?) for your faithful prayers. We’re just getting started on this new road of life, but we have so many people who are walking with us, that sometimes it’s wonderfully crowded.
P.S. The hot date’s name was Betty. Best ten dollars I ever borrowed!
RECOVERY CHRONICLES XXIII
HEY!!! The infection in the port is subsiding! We are very thrilled. Thank you all for praying for Betty this week. She’s doing great and feeling much better. Her white cell count is very low. 600 at last count. She can’t go out in public right now for fear of catching someone’s cold and not being able to fight it off. But she says she couldn’t ask for anything better than to be cooped up in the house with me for weeks at a time. That made me feel good until I started thinking about the phrase “cooped up.” I looked it up and it means, “An uncomfortably confined space. An enclosure with a claustrophobic nature.” So…I’m good with that.
We’ve encountered some wonderful experiences in the last few months of Betty’s illness. Her taste buds are going crazy with all the medicine and chemo, so we’ve tried to find food items that taste good to her. So far the best things are potato chips and lemon drops. Go figure! So a few nights ago, after we’re already dressed for bed, she asks if we have any potato chips. We keep them in a cabinet above the stove and she can’t raise her arms very well to reach anything that’s high, so I have to get anything that’s up, down. I looked and we were out of chips. She said, “Well what I’m really hungry for is french fries.” I said, “Hey, I can do french fries! We have potatoes, we have oil and believe it or not, I know where the skillet is. I’ll make you some french fries.” She said that it was too much trouble and it would be a lot of clean up and just forget that she said anything. I told her I didn’t mind and it would make me happy to do something for her. As I’m reaching for the potatoes, she said, “You know, by the time you cut those potatoes and fry those fries and clean up the mess, you could drive to Wal-Mart and get me some potato chips. I said, “Betty dear, it’s after midnight and it’s cold outside and I’m already in my sleeping pants. There’s no way I’m going to Wal-Mart to get chips!”
So… I’m on my way to Wal-Mart to get chips…. when I think, there might be some other things we really need and are out of that I should pick up while I’m there. I call Betty, she says “Yes, there we are dangerously low on ice cream.” I have never used any form of the word dangerous along with the words ice cream in the same phrase. Ice cream and danger just aren’t sentence buddies. I mean you can be dangerously low on heart medicine. Or, even dangerously low on toilet paper, but ice cream? Well I certainly didn’t want to be the cause of any danger while we were “cooped up” together, so I put ice cream on the list.
I got to the chip aisle at Wal-Mart and was amazed at the various types of potato chips that were available. Flat, rippled, canned, original, bar-b que, vinegar, blue cheese, and the list just went on and on. So I bought one of each. I’m telling you, that’s a lot of chips. The lady at the check out counter looked at me and said, “So you’re having a party?” I said no, that these were just for my wife. She asked, “Is she pregnant?” I said,.....“Uh….yes she is.” She stared at me for the longest time. I guess she thought that “Abraham” story was happening all over again. Then I told her that really my wife had been recently diagnosed with cancer and potato chips were all that tasted good right now. She looked at me and smiled and said that she would pray for my wife. Now a lot of people have told me that they would pray for Betty and a lot of people have. Most pray at church or at home or at the hospital for her. As I was about to tell her thank you, she just started praying. Right then and there. With every potato chip that Wal-Mart stocks piled up on the counter, with ice cream melting in the carton, this lady began praying. She didn’t wait until later when she was at home or in her car, she cranked it out right there. It was the sweetest prayer and it was from her heart. She prayed for healing and comfort for my wife and that I might be all I needed to be to her in this hour. It was beautiful. I am so glad I went for chips at midnight. It’s the first time I’ve ever been blessed at Wal-Mart! Those Christians are everywhere! Thank you all for your prayers. They’re working beautifully. We’re home in our “coop” just resting in Him. We love you all!