Category: letters

Words All Around Us

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12/4/18

May 1991

My spirits were up, and the family was all pretty happy, mainly because I was not throwing up near as long. My youngest brother had had a hard go at the cancer thing. He spent so much time with sitters and really had a couple of rotten experiences. We talk about them still today, but he was a trooper. But many a time I would be laying on the couch with my tub nearby and when I would throw up, he would hold it for me. Sometimes he would set up a cot next to the couch, probably because I would watch TV to keep my mind off of the nausea, but all the same he wanted to be near me. He had to see so many things that a four and five year old should not have to deal with or see. My whole family did, but they were still my strength no matter how many times I would yell at them through the pain or mistreat them. In my mind, I was sick and had every right to behave however I wanted.

My eldest brother was back on the spelling bee trail and had done well. He won at the school, district, and then headed to state and won that. It was a pretty exciting time at home, especially when we received word, he would be traveling to the National Spelling Bee in Washington, D. C. The spelling bee organization would be paying for the speller and a chaperone to attend the event. My dad would be going with my brother. It was a busy next few days for us because the middle school he attended contacted us and asked if they could do something for the family. They would be having their annual spring fair, and they wanted to donate all the proceeds to our family so that my mom and I could go to D. C. as well. They published the fair in the paper and the cause, and the community came out in abundance. What a surprise and blessing! They ended up raising all of the funds we needed for the trip.

And we were on our way! I think I had only been on a plane one other time before we boarded the plane for the National Spelling Bee. No matter the end result, my brother was ready, and we were all very excited. Thank yous went out to him for his hard work and our community for sending us on this adventure. We would be gone a few days because they had a schedule of events leading up to the Spelling Bee. When we arrived, we were taken to a beautiful hotel down the street from the U. S. Capitol Building. We spent the week with the other spellers and their families touring our nation’s capital on tour busses and enjoying down time at a Memorial Day barbeque. We were able to see the Arlington Cemetery, some of the Smithsonian like the Air and Space Museum, and the Declaration of Independence.

My brother was nervous on the day of the Bee to say the least. We were all nervous. A spelling bee brings about a whole lot of emotions you do not expect. When the speller is up there and the word is pronounced, they have the ability to ask a couple of questions. During the whole time he was standing there, my heart was beating a hundred miles an hour. I cannot imagine what his is doing! As soon as he started spelling, I would just hope he knew the crazy word, because I did not have a clue. Each time he got it right was such a relief because you knew he could picture that word in his head, so he was in a good frame of mind. He went out in the fourth round and was very disappointed, but we were all super proud of his accomplishment. This time in our lives needed a time of joy, and we acknowledged that God had given us this trip for just that; a trip we would never forget. I had received a chemotherapy the week before traveling, so when we returned, I had a couple more days off and then back to the routine.

What is it about certain words that can cause a spirit and the physical and mental state of mind to change in an instant? First of all, we are human beings, and God created us with a body, soul, and spirit. We can keep the body looking well on the outside, but many times actions and words affect the spirit and mind more than we can control, and what is on the inside will come out. God’s word tells us in Matthew 12:34, the second part, “…out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.” Secondly, we keep allowing ourselves to be around the negative, so we internalize it and let it affect our heart. Each time I heard I had to have chemo because my counts were good, it affected me. The same went for my brother and spelling. He would put in the correct spelling of the words, so that what came out was the correct spelling of the word.

There are so many horrible outside forces that are not as easy to combat as those spelling words or the words I heard each time from the doctor. But as Christians we have the same God who can help us make it through, and if we will purposefully make it a point to internalize God and His Word at the hard times, we WILL come out on the other side.

A, B, C, D, E, F, G …

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10/29/18

March 29, 1990

I mentioned in an earlier post that God orchestrated our path and moved us to a remote town in Wyoming. This state has less than 600,000 people, and its largest town has 63,000 people. Our little town had 10,000 at the time which puts it in the top ten cities in population, and it is located on a major cross country interstate, I-80. Why all of the statistics? Remote, desolate, long winters, no family, but we were 80 miles away from one of the top tier children’s hospitals in the United States, located a few miles north of I-80 in Salt Lake City. Only God knows. If there was any questions of why we moved eighteen months earlier, they were answered.

I was sitting in the hospital in Evanston after the doctor came in and told us I had a bowel obstruction. Dad, with my eldest brother, had left around this time because he had won the city spelling bee and was headed to regionals. Still amazes me that he did so well in the midst of this family situation, but he was a strong student. We had started months before my diagnosis drilling him on a nightly basis with words from the dictionary. He was crazy good at it.

The next step for mom and I; a trip back down to Salt Lake City. The bowel obstruction must resolve, or I was going to have to have surgery. Since I just came from there, the doctors in both locations decided if surgery was the outcome, then I should be back at Primary. They loaded me up in an ambulance because the hospital cannot release me with this kind of diagnosis, and we hit the road to the hospital. This was super surreal. I had experienced a couple of medical issues as a kid. One was a tonsillectomy at three, a broken collarbone from a tree swing made out of a sheet that was not quite tight enough, and the last one was an irregular heartbeat. The heart issue I will touch on later.

I was in the ambulance, and out of the back I could see us leaving town and driving past our church and home because they were on the service road of the interstate. I was so disappointed that I was leaving home again and wondered how long I would be gone. Home seemed like a haven for me, normalcy that I wanted to experience away from the doctors, nurses, needles, smells, etc… I just wanted this all to go away, but I knew something was really wrong with me at the moment. We passed by familiar landmarks that I had seen in the past, but when I was facing the other way in a car. It was almost like I was seeing them for the last time, and I could not understand why. Swirling around my thoughts and feelings, the siren of the ambulance gave me an eerie feeling that all this new stuff that was a part of my life now was no joke. Not going anywhere; not going to be pushed aside for homework, shopping, hanging out with friends, playing volleyball, and even sleeping in my own bed in my own room in my own home with MY family nearby. No, this was all here to stay.

I determined in that ambulance ride that no matter how hard cancer was going to hit me, that I was going to hit back harder. I was going to do whatever it took to “get better.” I physically was going to be as strong as possible and push myself to fight this. I told myself that this was going to be the last time I was going to go to the hospital. I knew God was real and with us, and I cried out to him to take it all away. But on the other side of the coin was the reality that I was super sick at that very moment.

When we arrived at the Salt Lake hospital, they admitted me and shoved a horrible tube down my nose and into my stomach. This NG tube would pump my stomach and relieve abdominal swelling. An enema is administered as well to see if the bowel will release itself. If this does not work, then surgery is about the only option. All my doctors came by to figure this out, because I would not survive a surgery. The incision site was not healing from the lack of white blood cells affected by the chemo, so most likely my body would not survive if surgery was decided on. Mom basically begged them to wait; we were going to pray for a miracle. And we did.

Within two days the obstruction resolved, and the doctors felt like I was in the clear. They administered the second round of chemotherapy I was supposed to receive back home, and after a few more days I was released. Almighty God healed me! And through the doctors’ knowledge, discussions, and procedures for this type of health scare, I was on the mend, inside and outside. My incision was taken care of by the medical staff and there was no other cause for concern. I was definitely placed in the hospital at the right time for there might have been some serious scarring involved that I would have dealt with in the future.

Each of these intermittent rays of sunshine within about a week changed so much of our dark cancer world. It gave us a massive pick-me-up, that for the last month, had been almost non-existent. It was now time to go home! I was more than excited, but I saw just a hint of something on my pillow that was beginning to concern me. Please, don’t tell me it was happening; if I ignore it, it will go away.

A, B, C, D, E, F, G… Words are built and given life by individual letters that come together. Once the word has been given life, it can be used alone like “Hi” or put together to make sentences to communicate. So much of our life is the same as a letter. There are times that the experience is put together and creates a small caveat in our world depending on how we observe it. Or the experience is placed with other experiences, and they come together and make a massive crater. Letters, they can change our lives; experiences they move our world. And God is the hand that holds us tight in and out of the caveats and craters. Isaiah 41:10 “Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.”