More reasons for faith

Yucky eye

Well, I will be honest.  This has been a hard week.  About a week ago I was eating lunch when quite suddenly I had a large discharge of puss from the corner of my left eye.  This is the eye I had surgery on.  It was probably a tablespoon of puss, really yucky.   A great way to ruin your appetite if I ever had one.  We called all of our doctors offices but they were all out and their staff said "Go to the emergency room"  I don't like going to the ER but we went anyway.  At the ER they did tests for infection and took a new CAT scan of my brain.  Honestly, as I was walking into the ER I didn't feel very good.  I was even having a little trouble walking.   I have also had lots of pain lately, especially headaches.

Anyway, they told me that I had an infection and wanted to do IV antibiotics.  They also said that the CAT scan did not look good.  They said that tumor had grown significantly and was pressing on my brain and not a little.  It was applying pressure all over, enough to push my whole brain 10 mm to the left.  Especially concerning was pressure on my brain stem.  The brain stem is nothing to mess around with.  It controls things like breathing, and heart beat and a ton of other stuff.  Kind of important functions.  Some of the pressure was from tumor, much of it was from swelling.  The doctor felt like the swelling was enough that my life was in immediate danger.  He recommended that I have IV steroids to bring the swelling down immediately.

I have been avoiding any sort of steroids because the researchers in Houston tell me that steroids kill off my T cells.  Honestly I just didn't know what to do.  Because the hour was late in Houston I couldn't contact them.  I don't want to mess up my T cells but I also didn't want a life threatening event in my brain.  So, when the doctor left the room I simply said a prayer.  I may not know what to do but God does.  So I asked Him what I should do.

For some reason, of late, I have had the most amazing connection with Heaven.  It is almost as if I have a telephone when I pray.  In all of my life I have never gotten answers so quickly and so clearly. Many of the impressions are much too sacred for me to share in a blog.  I am so grateful for this connection at this time in my life.  This night was no exception.  A clear answer came right away.  The words that formed in my mind said simply "Eric, please do both the antibiotics and the steroids.  This is important and urgent and don't worry about the T cells, it will all be fine."  So, off we went on the new drugs that they wanted to give me.

Within hours I started feeling a lot better.  I could walk easily again.  My pain began to go down.  My mental clarity improved.  And, interestingly enough my answers from heaven became even more profound and clear as the swelling in my brain went down.  Wow, this connection with Heaven is almost beyond belief.  I am so thankful.  The other day I asked God, "Why am I getting answers so readily right now?"  Almost immediately the answer came,  "Eric, you should know that I love you.  Your answers are coming so readily right now because you are worthy and you need them.  I would have thought that would have been obvious"

Anyway, we started the week needing an MRI to continue in the study in Houston.  This was an important image for us.  If my cancer has progressed I may be taken out of the study.  So, I am good at MRI's  I would estimate that I have had 24-36 MRI's since this began.  They really don't bother me.  Thankfully I am not claustrophobic.

Well this was officially the hardest MRI that I have ever had.  They put me into the machine and it was fine.  Halfway through I was pulled out while they gave me a contrast die to look for cancer better.  This is a liquid injected into my veins.  Anyway, the technician left to go back into the control booth and the machine began re-inserting me into the tube.  Suddenly I was overwhelmed with the most terrible nausea.  Realize that at this point my head is in a metal cage and can't move and I am bound to the table.  I started barfing my guts out.  The vomit was running down my face and filled up my sinuses.  My head was laying in a pool of oatmeal vomit.  It was in my ears and all over my face.  My mouth was full and the robotic machine voice kept saying, "Do not move, do not swallow"  I had a panic button I could have pushed.  I probably should have pushed it but I kept thinking, "I know that they only have so much time to get this image after the dye is injected.   I just need to hold still"  It was so awful.  I lay like that for about 40 minutes.  Finally it was over and the machine spit me out.  The technician came back into the room and saw what had happened.  He felt so badly.  He told me, "how in the world did you hold so still.  You held more still that most of my normal patients."  I told him that I tried really hard so that he could get a good image.  Anyway, it was not easy.

He gave me a cup to rinse my mouth and some towels to clean myself up with.  I went to my locker.  Truly, through these last four years I have tried really hard to never murmur with my afflictions.  That day was really hard.  I was kind of emotionally overwhelmed.  I sat on the bench in the locker room and told Heavenly Father "Why does everything have to be so hard for me.  I'm really not a bad person.  Why can't this ever be easy"  Again, an answer came almost instantly.  It said, "Eric, I am so sorry for your suffering.  You should know that in the future you will have a chance to help others who suffer greatly.  What you are going through right now will help you in the future to help them better.  There is a purpose in what you are going through.  I will try to be gentle with you dear Eric."  Needless to say I was pretty tearful  by the time I met JoLynne in the waiting room.

So, the MRI was not good either.  It showed essentially what the CAT scan showed.  We will talk to the doctor in Houston today about it.  I still have faith that God has prepared a way for me to escape this awful cancer, I just don't know exactly how that will happen right now.  I pray that I will recognize the path when I find it.

It was almost two years ago now that JoLynne and I sat in a doctors office at Mayo clinic.  This was a very intelligent man.  He looked at my scans and told me that my time in this life was over.  He told me that nothing could be done for me.  He estimated that I had three weeks to live.  I left that awful appointment with my sweetheart.  We were so distraught.  I remember thinking. "A renowned doctor is telling me that I need to prepare to die and righteous priesthood holders have told me in blessings that I will be healed.  They can't both be right.  I need to decide who to believe."  At that time I chose to believe in priesthood blessings.  Two years later, here I am.  God was right, the doctor was wrong.  I am still choosing to believe in priesthood blessings.

JoLynne shaved my leg...

Here is a quick update on how things are going.

My recovery seems to be going along nicely.  My pain levels continue to diminish,  I am walking pretty good now even though it is a bit slow, my eyesight is improving every day.

hmm...sounds like me

We went to the eye doctor yesterday.  This was that appointment that Troy miraculously help us to get.  It was a long appointment with a lot of tests.  I am really overprotective of my eyes anyway so this kind of stuff is hard for me.  I was doing pretty well until they started poking my eyes with q-tips and trying to drag them to the side to make sure that they weren't "tethered".  Wow, even numb that was really getting me.  The MRI also took forever.  I was about 90 minutes in the tube.  They just wanted to be very careful.  The long and short of the day was that my lateral rectus muscle on the right eye was damaged or maybe just displaced during surgery.  They say it will take at least 6 weeks to know if it will heal itself or if they will need to intervene in some way.

This morning we met with the microvascular surgeon.  He was very happy with the outcome.  He was so positive.  He talked about how the graft looked perfect and that how once it was all healed he could shape and contour it to my face so it looked natural.  He talked about how he could use a laser to make the colors match and how if the facial nerve didn't heal he could do a facial re-animation surgery.  He mentioned again what a miracle it was that I could close my eye.  I guess the most important thing that he said to me was "Eric, I have given this area and excellent blood supply.  Now those T-cells will have a way of getting in there and getting the job done."  That makes me very happy.

Monkey Jungle with Vivian and JoLynne

We still haven't heard back on histology from Houston.  I emailed this morning and they wrote right back.  Dr. Gottschalk had to go to Germany.  Sadly his mother has colon cancer.  Even though he is gone, Dr. Wang thought that they would have some results back very soon.

So, my face now has leg hairs on it.  Weird.   JoLynne finally had to get out a razor and shave them.  Thankfully she is well practiced at that kind of thing.  That, however, is the first time in our 31 years of marriage that she has shaved my leg.

I have now been cleared to eat whatever I want.  Three days ago I took my first drink of water.  It didn't come out my nose or go down my lungs or pour out my cheek.  It was amazing.  I just sat there crying.  Sweet JoLynne just came and hugged me and said,  "Now it's leaking out your eyes."

This morning I ate three scrambled eggs and orange juice.  Truly a miracle.

iRobot

Today I had my 12 week MRI scan.  Now we are just waiting for results.  I really hate scans.  They are really hard on me emotionally....Arghh.

The stress they cause builds up for days.  A few nights ago I went to bed worried about all that.  Sometime in the night I had a dream that my scan had come back and the doctor came in and told me that the scan showed the cancer was all through my brain.  I was so unhappy.  Then the doctor said, "Don't worry, we did a study and it looks like you don't use your brain that much anyway so we are going to just take it out and turn you into a robot.  Don't worry, we do this kind of thing all the time"

Everything happened so fast then and the next thing I knew I was waking up from surgery and I was a robot.  The doctor handed a remote control to my wife with big buttons that said "Eat, talk, walk etc" Somehow I was supposed to be happy about the situation.  I guess since I didn't have a brain any more it probably didn't matter.  I woke up pretty unhappy though.  I hope it was just a dream.

The waiting game

Well, we met with our doctors today.  We hoped that they would have the results of our scan but no such luck.  They are now saying it will be tomorrow.  Well, I know that God wants to teach me lessons in patience but I really wish He would hurry up.  :)

Most wars have more than one battle

Well, this past Thursday was wonderful and not so wonderful.

The wonderful part was seeing our niece that we love married in the Bountiful temple.   She married a young man named Brandon and he seemed just perfect for her.  It was great!

The not so good part was our visit with my oncologist later in the afternoon.  Really I have felt great lately, really no cause for concern, and yet somehow there was this lingering concern that I couldn't put my finger on.  For that last two weeks I have been praying for good news from the doctors and yet I had this feeling that was hard to describe.

Anyway, we went to the oncologist and they discovered a new growth on my right side.  It is deep, near the sinus and measures about one inch by one half by one half.  They can't tell what it is from the CT scan or the MRI but it wasn't there three months ago.  The doctor told us that we need a CT guided needle biopsy to determine what the growth is.  It was a sobering visit.  I didn't really cry much until later that evening.  I guess I was kind of in shock.  I kept thinking, "Not Again!"  I felt victimized, like nothing I could do would protect me and I was completely at the mercy of the disease that I couldn't control.  I felt like putting on my shoes and running and running and trying to run away from my problems.  I wondered if I had the strength to go through all this again.

That evening I had my sons give me a blessing.  It was wonderful.  It wasn't until after that when everyone was sitting together in the living room crying that my tear glands just broke open.  I cried for quite a while after that.  Simple things like saying prayers with my daughter, I am just not ready to give this life up yet.

I sent out an email to my siblings and some friends asking for their prayers.  I don't pretend to know how everything works but I know that after that  I was able to sleep and that was a blessing.  Friday I called my doctors at Mayo.  Neither of them have seen the scans yet so they just had to rely on my rendition of the results.  The primary surgeon seemed pretty disappointed.  I think he felt so certain that he had gotten it all.  He did say that he was willing to operate again and that the surgery this time should be less traumatic.  My sarcoma doctor was much more upbeat.  When he heard that it had come back in the same site where it started he felt very confident that it could be treated.  First of all he said that it might be benign.  Part of my tumor was benign the first time.  The biopsy will tell us that.  Secondly he said that sarcomas often come back in the the site where they were removed and that a second surgery is often effective in eradicating the cancer.  He said if would be harder if it were back in my lungs but even then treatments are often effective.  He did say that I may need to go back through chemotherapy or even radiation, time will tell.  A lot hinges on the results of the biopsy.

We are supposed to leave for our family vacation today.  I asked the doctors if I should stay home and they both said "No".  A week wouldn't make any difference and I should go on vacation and not worry about it.

Since Friday I have felt much more calm.  I can be brave again, I have faith and I know God will take care of me.  He has never failed me yet.  I can even do chemo again if I have to.   I would rather not, but I am willing.  I am certainly not ready to give up at this point.

I am sorry to ask for your faith and prayers again so soon but I felt great strength from the faith of others last time and would be grateful for that help again.  Maybe I will be blessed and they will find a benign tumor.  That would be great.  However, come what may, I am going to be okay.

As I drove around on Saturday doing some errands the thought kept coming to me, "Most wars have more than one battle",   I guess this is the next battle for me to fight.  I believe that the  war will yet be won.  I have wonderful allies at my side.  Today I will just worry about this battle.

No New Cancer!

It has been some time since my last posting.  If this caused any of you concern, I apologize.

This last week was an important one for me.  For one thing, on April 17th it was six months since my surgery.  As a follow up with my cancer the doctors are calling for CT scans and MRI's every three months for the next two years to make sure that the cancer isn't coming back.  So, on Monday I went in and spent about 2 hours lying in machines as they captured images of my head, neck and chest.

Claustrophobic anyone?

MRI's are interesting.  They put you in hospital gowns and give you ear plugs because the machine is quite loud.  They hook up an IV so that they can inject dye at certain times, then they lay you on a sliding table.   They place a cage over your head so that you can't move your head in any direction, then they slide the table into a tube that is only barely bigger than your body.  I don't know how they would do this with somebody who was overweight since I barely fit.  The technician informs you not to move at all and then this loud contraption begins.  It sounds like you are in a metal tube and somebody is beating on it with a hammer.  For a scan of my head neck and chest it took 80 minutes.  I'm not claustrophobic at all, thank heavens.  The lady ahead of me had to be sedated so that she could be inserted into the machine.

Anyway, my appointment with the doctor to get the results was on Thursday.  I tried not to be nervous.  After all, I know that God is aware of me and that he has been taking care of me all along the way.  What I don't know is whether this trial is over yet or not.  I find myself asking if I have learned all that I was supposed to learn or if God still has more trials for me to overcome.  The thought of having to go through surgery or chemotherapy again is very frightening!  So, my feelings bounce all over the place.  I know that God loves me and yet still I am scared.

Well, Thursday came.  The nurses at the chemotherapy clinic were wonderful as always.  Many of them came in just to hug me and ask how I had been.  A few commented on how different I look with hair.  It's strange to think of a whole group of people who know me better as bald.   Several of them told me how they talk about me often and pray for me.

Finally it was time to talk to the doctor.  I like our doctor, he doesn't beat around the bush.  After a brief physical he sat down at the computer and told me, "Eric, your scans look completely clear.  We can't find any evidence of your cancer returning." I have to admit,  I broke down and cried.  JoLynne is so loving and supportive.  She just squeezed  my hand to let me know how happy she was.  The doctor just grinned.

On the way out several nurses again came out to hear what the doctor had said.  They are so genuine in their concern.  I don't know that I have ever met more compassionate people.  I told them the good news and started to cry again.  (That seems to be a reoccurring theme in my life these days.)  There was an older gentleman across the room who was waiting for his wife who was having chemotherapy as well.  He started to cry too.  What is it about cancer that draws us all together so tightly?  I guess it is the common enemy that we are all fighting.

I was so happy when I got home.  I just felt like climbing on my roof and yelling out the good news.  I did the next best thing and sent a bunch of texts.  I told my kids we were going to have a "No New Cancer" party.  So we went out to eat and just be together.

I still don't know for sure what the future holds.  Mostly I just feel grateful to be healthy and to feel my strength coming back.  I try to remind myself of the miracles that have occurred and to continue to feel that deep sense of gratitude to my Heavenly Father.  I don't want that feeling to fade.  We were at the temple the other night.  There was some quiet time as we waited.  One of the after effects of chemotherapy for me is a constant high pitched noise in my ears.  It is more noticeable when it is quiet.  I also have quite of bit of hearing loss.  Anyway, I was thinking about how my ears don't work quite as well as they used to and the thought came, "What you have lost in physical hearing you have gained in your spiritual hearing"  I believe that is true.  I feel like I am better able to hear the promptings of the spirit than ever before in my life.  This was probably a good trade.