Really? Both of Us?

I have been looking forward to writing my blog, but circumstances have prevented me from having time to do so.  I will explain after my report.

The Good News – Andrea’s Report of Her Cancer Treatment:  Wednesday last week I spent the day at MD Anderson Cancer Center.  My oncologist has left MD Anderson, and I have yet to meet my new doctor.  In the meantime, I met with Amanda, one of my advance practice nurses.  She remarked that my response to all the treatments I have had has been remarkable.  That is always so nice to hear, and I hope I can hear that going on.  I also had the MRI of my brain taken that day, and my immunotherapy infusion.  I met with my oncology radiologist two days later to go over the results, and the first thing he said was, “The man upstairs must be looking after you.  Your results of the MRI are amazing.”  Do you know how nice it is to hear that?   The tumors that were zapped back in June are almost completely gone!  Now my next follow up MRI will be in three months rather than two. Whoo-hoo!!  I did a happy dance—okay, I just did a happy dance in my head—that still counts!

The bad news: That day, though, did not end on a high note.  For three days I thought Dennis was acting differently but could not put my finger on it.  I asked him several times if he was okay of which his answer was always yes.  I would then ask him if anything was bothering him and he would say no.  He was quieter than usual.  He was easily distracted.  It was little things he did or did not do that were not the norm for him (like leaving lights on in a room as he leaves), but nothing big enough to say there is something wrong.  That is, until Wednesday evening.

Our usual Wednesday has an early dinner with Dennis doing  security duty at church for the youth group.  We have a very large and active youth group program which Dennis loves to be around.  This Wednesday was different.  I went to dinner with a friend, and he said he’d get himself something to eat at home.  He went to the church late (which is not at all what he ever does—he is always on time or early).  He also did not arrive at the church as planned, he couldn’t seem to find the location, and he called one of security colleagues.   His dear security colleagues located him, got concerned and called me.  We decided to take him to the emergency room at our local hospital. 

Right now, we have only one car so I had informed them that someone needed to get our car there and I would meet them.  A sweet friend dropped me off at the hospital.  Two of his friends from church, who do security with him, insisted on staying with us until it was figured out what was happening.  There were thoughts of everything from a TIA (mini stroke), UTI (urinary tract infection), to kidney failure.  The only thing we did not suspect was the actual cause—a brain tumor!  Almost immediately they did the EKG because he has some heart issues.  If he’s not getting enough oxygen to his brain, he could have this kind of confusion.  His ticker was working fine.  The second thing they did was a CT scan of his head—I’m assuming to see if there was any stroke issues, but instead they found the tumor.

I don’t know if I can explain to you the shock.  I’m the one with cancer.  I’m the one with metastatic disease to my brain.  How can this be?  In fact, at that point I did not know the results of my brain scan, so were we a family where everyone shares brain tumors?

The next shock was that he needed to be transferred to a hospital that had a neurosurgery unit.  I never realized a hospital-to-hospital transfer can take hours.  We also had a sweet dog at home that had been pretty much ignored all day with my cancer center visit and the ER visit in the evening, and now how much longer will I not be home?  When one of the men found out we had a dog at home, he immediately offered to take Charlie home with him.  By now, it is already midnight.  I went home and handed Charlie over to him, and then I packed up some necessary things knowing we would be out for a while.  Sidenote:  Charlie was extremely spoiled at his new foster family—I wasn’t sure he would want to back to us.  Fortunately, he still likes his old boring dog parents!

Now here’s the tough part.  The closest hospital to our home that has a neurosurgery unit had absolutely no open beds.  The only one that did was 60 miles from our home.  Yes, that is where we ended up.  At 3:30 a.m. a transport ambulance arrived and I followed in the car for a 90-minute drive to this hospital.  We arrived there at 5:00 a.m.  

As Murphy’s Law would have it, they put him in a room on the cardiology floor.  We finally fell asleep, and two hours later they arrive to inform us that Dennis is being moved up two more floors to the neurosurgery unit.  Thanks for not getting that right the first time.

Long story short, Dennis was in a hospital clear across Phoenix from where we live.  He was scheduled for brain surgery Tuesday afternoon, September 29.  That’s almost a week from the discovery!  One of the blessings I have living in the Phoenix, Arizona area is that I have many first cousins in the area.  One lives only a half hour drive from the hospital,  and she called and told me to come stay at her home.  One cousin who lives near us happily volunteered to drive out to bring us the medical ID card Dennis keeps in his wallet, which I left at home—I brought his driver’s license and insurance card, but forgot about the card that explained the cardiac device implanted in his chest.  Other friends and cousins came to visit at the hospital, and two of my cousins came to sit with me as Dennis had his surgery (they brought lots of chocolate to eat—they may get my vote for best , cousins ever). You hear that, all my other cousins who read this blog, chocolate will bring you to the top of the list!

We have a whole village around us.  My cousins jumped right in, and oh so many of our friends from church offering to help in whatever way they can.   Family around the country were ready to help in any way.  Our phones were blowing up with messages of love, prayers, and encouragement.  

All I can do, once again, is hold onto Jesus’ hand.  He is the great physician.  He also gives me peace that passes understanding.  This is one scary surgery.  Dennis is 80 years old, he has a heart condition, and now a tumor in his brain.

The surgery went just as planned.  He made it through with flying colors!  I am so happy about that. The pathology on the tumor was not the news we wanted to hear.  The neurosurgeon told me after the surgery that the tumor looked like melanoma.  He asked me if Dennis ever had been diagnosed with melanoma and my answer was negative.  So how on earth does a metastasis to the brain happen when there has never been a discovered melanoma mole on his body?

That question doesn’t really matter.  What matters is that he has a malignancy growing in his head.  Really?  Two of us?  The first thing I did when the oncologist came into Dennis’ room at the hospital to talk about his treatment, was inform him that our goal is to be treated at MD Anderson Cancer Center since it is so much closer to our home and also where I go for treatment.  At that he said there was no need to keep Dennis in the hospital.  As far as he was concerned Dennis could be discharged.  The cardiac doctor and the oncologist were willing to discharge him, but we still needed a sign off from the neurosurgeon.  Usually, a patient is in the neuro intensive care unit until they are stable and then sent to a regular room on the neuro floor.  The day after surgery they couldn’t find an open bed for him, so he stayed in the neuro ICU, and was discharged from there.  We were told before surgery that Dennis would spend 3 to 4 days in intensive care, but in reality, he was there for just 24 hours.  I don’t know what you think, but I am pretty amazed by that.

The final pathology has come, and the diagnosis has not changed.  To say the least, this is surprising and heartbreaking.  It is not a surprise to God.  He goes before us.  We will trust him to get us through this.  I do not know what it really means to get through this.  It is just too new.  When I was given my diagnosis in February, it took several days to verbally say out loud, “I have cancer.”

Does God give us more than we can handle?  I think it feels that way if we try to do it alone, but God also gives us himself and through his grace, he gives us peace, so it becomes just enough to handle.  I see his hand in all of this—the timing of me feeling good and healthy (although not fully cancer free), but healthy enough to care for Dennis post-surgery, and the people he put before us to help in unexpected ways.  Even the timing of my meeting with my radiologist is such a God-thing.  Normally my meetings to go over my scan results are the day after the scan, but my last one was two days later.  I drove straight from Dennis’s hospital room to MD Anderson.  Had I had the appointment a day earlier, I would not have the questions for my radiologist about Dennis.  It was the answer to the questions that were perfect timing.  I happened to have taken photos of the brain CT done in the emergency room.  My radiologist looked at them and gave me real hope about the surgery.  He also told me that if the pathology report came back as a malignancy, I was to contact him, and he would get Dennis into meet with him.  That would not have happened had I been there the day before because the hospital was still running tests, neuro and cardiac, and no plan had been made that day.  Too many coincidences to be coincidences.  A mighty God is in control.

I was never really sick with my cancer diagnosis.  I didn’t need surgery and didn’t have to “recover” from something.  I just had to get treatment.  Dennis has to recover from brain surgery.  He is slow moving now.  His speech is still soft and somewhat garbled, and his thought process is slow.  He knows it is like this.  It’s not like dementia where it all feels normal.  He does not feel normal.  He doesn’t like that his cell phone can be a challenge and I have to just show him where to push.  This is so not like him.  Most of this has to do with the location of the tumor, while it was there, and after the removal.  There is still swelling in his brain from the procedure and the tumor.  It will take a few weeks for it to reduce, and I think his sweet, outgoing, friendly personality will return.  Someone remarked to me that they miss his big smiling face.  Dennis was always happy and engaging with everyone.

I am also very tired from all this.  Traveling every day to a hospital can be exhausting.  Keeping one eye on him to make sure he is okay is exhausting.  I don’t mind—that’s my job.  I am his wife, and my job is to help him as much as I can.  I just never expected we would be the Bobbsey Twins both getting cancer treatment at the same time. 

There are so many things for which I can ask you to pray:  

1.  Dennis needs a clear treatment plan that will work along with my treatments.
2. Pray that Dennis will gain strength and the edema (swelling) in his brain will disappear.
3. Pray that he will feel himself again.  
4. Pray for strength for both of us, to get good sleep and good nutrition to build up our bodies.
5. Praise God that for all we have been through that God is still good, because He is!

What I do know is that God will give us peace that passes understanding.  When we first got told this diagnosis I asked Dennis how he felt.  He commented that he felt an unusual peace.  That doesn’t mean we ignore everything.  We will do everything to fight this dread disease.  Now we are really in a fight together!