The View From the Mountaintop

10/13/18

3/15/1990

Even if you have no desire to embrace the cancer world, it does not take very long before it embraces you, and your family is plunged head first into a new life. The doctors showed us how much they cared about what was happening to us, and yet pushed my parents forward on decisions that needed to be made immediately. Once we got past the diagnosis and had a protocol in place, we hit the ground running.

I started chemotherapy the day after surgery and also had my first spinal tap. What an ordeal. They made me get in the tightest fetal position I could on my side so they could remove spinal fluid to make sure there was not cancer there, and then they replaced it with chemotherapy. If they did not replace it, I would get a massive headache they told us. Memories of a spinal tap make my stomach turn, and I feel nauseous because I can remember the gurgling sensation at the base of my skull and the cool sensation from the chemo. It is very much like an epidural administered when having a baby. Needless to say, the first tap was a hard one, because I had a gigantic incision on my stomach and sites on my hips from the bone marrow extraction. I was still on quite a bit of pain medication which was helpful but obviously not enough.

The first chemotherapy was uneventful. They administered the drip through an IV that was attached to a crazy apparatus that came out of the middle of my chest. It was basically an IV that had a needle insertion site, and it went up under my skin toward my collarbone and then down into my heart. This would allow the heart to pump the chemo to my body quickly. I really had no affects right away even though they told me about vomiting and hair loss. After a couple of days, I remember thinking that maybe I would not lose my hair; that was pretty important to me.

I was moved from ICU to a regular room. The hospital was really crowded so each room had two kiddos. We were reminded that the new hospital would be opening soon. You could tell the nurses were very excited about it. They did their best to make me comfortable, trying to get me to walk; I refused. Mom recalls that they decided to tell me I had to move rooms, but I would have to walk there. It worked, once I had to walk, I was confident that my stomach was not going to fall out and land on the floor. I still held a pillow on my belly for weeks. My scar was so giant, I kept thinking it looked like I was a gutted deer.

We would end up staying about two weeks in the hospital. The doctors wanted to watch my reactions to the chemo and make sure I was healing well, but mainly they really did not think I would leave. Of course, I was not aware of this; that was my only goal – TO leave. My mom was my rock during this time, comforting me in the pain and making me feel like I could keep moving forward. She was spent physically and emotionally, but never showed me or told me that she had had a fainting spell one morning. After a few days in the hospital, she came down with a migraine which caused a seizure where they had to take her to the regular hospital. That was scary for both of us. She did not want to leave me, and I did not want her to go.

My grandparents came up toward the end of our two weeks, and my grandmother gave my mom a break. Mom was able to go across the street to a room the hospital provided, and dad and mom were able to go for her birthday dinner one evening. As I mentioned before, we had many friends and visitors come by and spend time showing us how much they cared about what we were going through. The cards poured in. The school sent large butcher paper posters with encouraging comments from the whole student body. Churches all over the country sent envelopes filled with cards and notes from church members that we had never met. They cared about us still. They prayed for us still. It did not take much time to realize how important other people meant to us. God’s Word tells us He is our strength in times of trouble, and He hears prayers. Isaiah 40:29 tells us, “He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak.” Psalm 66:20 says “Blessed be God, which hath not turned away my prayer, nor his mercy from me.” I know we as a family were living these verses.

Praying is like climbing a mountain. To climb a mountain, we look ahead and map our course not really knowing how hard it will be or even what the outcome will be. There is hope, right, that we can make it even when it gets hard, and we will get to see the amazing view from the top. And the view at the top is really hard to describe unless a person has seen it. When we pray, we have hope that God will map our course, show us where to go and know that no matter the outcome, we will be able to see the amazing view from the top.