What Is Happening Right Now?

10/23/18

March 23, 1990

“It looks like we are going to send you home. You are tolerating the chemotherapy, you are keeping solids down, your bowels are functioning again after surgery, and you are moving around better.” Those doctor’s words were wonderful music to our ears! The other music had been screeching in our ears for two weeks, and we desperately needed a new genre. Constant beeping from the IV pole and the heart monitor, people talking in the halls, and the blood pressure machine every couple of hours. None of the milestones mentioned in the first line were expectations of the doctors when this all began. But God said otherwise.

Hospital stays are so difficult, or maybe it is just me.  At the beginning, I was started on a liquid diet for a few days and lost quite a bit of weight. When Jello was allowed, there was orange, green, and yellow, but I really wanted to have red. Do you know the hospital did not make red Jello? After a couple of days, it appeared on my food tray, and I was absolutely ecstatic! They had made it just for me. After a few days, I began to feel better, and they started weaning me off of pain medication. I was more aware of my surroundings and sleeping less. I really wanted to go home.

By the time we received those joyous words that we were going home, I had received a chemotherapy drip, with the second one scheduled to be administered at my pediatrician’s office in a few days. Two different drips were on my eighteen-month protocol. One drip was two hours and would later be the one that I dreaded. It was associated with the spinal tap, and both of them combined would make me extremely sick. The other drip was four hours long and did not seem to hit me as hard. At any rate, I tolerated them at the hospital, which was a good sign for the doctors. We received tremendous care, and we all understood we would be seeing each other for months to come.

Being home was rejuvenating, but I spent more time sleeping than anything. I was about seventy pounds and pretty weak. It was nice to be around my dad and brothers again. A new group of people to draw strength from. They were a big help, and we settled into just working at getting me strong again. My mom headed back to work to catch up, and the boys continued to go to school. Things changed quickly though. Within a week, I was writhing in pain. Mom made calls to the doctor, and dad loaded me up in the car for a trip to the hospital.

As I mentioned before, Wyoming has winter. This was the first of April, and we had received a snowstorm. On our way to the hospital, dad hit black ice, and the van spun around, flipped, and landed on the passenger side on an embankment. I was in the front passenger seat and remember looking up and seeing my dad hanging from his seatbelt. We were alive, but in a very precarious situation. Dad told me to crawl on the window over the seat, and then I could unbuckle him. By this time, a man driving by had stopped and was talking to us from outside. He and dad decided to see if the back hatch would open up, and we crawled out. I had hurt my leg, maybe when we had landed on that side, so they carried me to his truck. He drove us to our original destination, the hospital, and they started to check on me. I kept saying that my dad was in the wreck, too, and I wanted them to make sure he was fine. Thankfully, we were both injury free.

There was more of situation with the reason we were coming to the hospital. The abdominal pain was excruciating, and my incision was started to come apart. After testing, it came back that I had a bowel obstruction which is a complication from the surgery. Also, the incision was not healing because of the chemotherapy interference. It lowers the white blood cells which are supposed to help in the healing process, and it is possible I had attracted some kind of infection.

I was about to hit rock bottom, and I am pretty sure my family was about to hit the superhero status. I Corinthians 10:13 says “There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.” How can one verse say so much about our God, our Christian lives, and the trials that come our way?