Category Archives: Uncategorized

How are you feeling?

Posted on by

Is it our imagination? Or does Nelson really feel better? Could he actually be better?

Logic tells us this can’t be true…not yet. Nelson has had only one round of chemo and immunotherapy, yet to look at him, to listen to him, to watch him move tells us it’s true. He’s feeling better.

These many weeks, it’s been a challenge for him to walk the few steps from our apartment to the car without becoming winded, but yesterday he went for a walk with Ann Sophie, Will, and friend Jeremy from Tennessee. Then, later in the day, he suggested a second walk. “I feel a lot better,” he said.

Two mornings ago, he woke up saying, “Last night was the best sleep I’ve had since this whole thing began.” And there it was again. He’s feeling better!

We’ve heard about cancer patients who receive a blast of chemo, have a terrible week or so, and then start feeling better, like they did before the treatment. But this isn’t that. This is feeling better like he felt many months back, long before cancer treatment ever began.

Nelson is skipping some of his pain pills now. When he says, “I don’t really need that one,” we hear him saying he’s feeling better.

Last Thursday, he decided to get a haircut and went without either Ann Sophie or me. He drove himself. When he returned with shorter hair, my first thought was, “a new beginning.” And maybe it is.

Nelson is eating Ann Sophie’s healthy cooking, and he’s wearing his compression stockings to avoid blood clots. And when it comes time to drain his lung of its fluid close to bedtime, the three of us have always played a little game. We’ve each guessed at the milliliters that will end up in the bottle.

But during this last week, each night we’ve all guessed too high. What comes out now has decreased from more than a liter and a half to only 250 ml. This is an astounding development, and we are thrilled.

 

And one last thing. As the lung fluid has become less, it seems there is less swelling in his arm, hand, abdomen, back, ankles, and feet, too. Because of all this, we are rejoicing!

Of course we all know that circumstances could change tomorrow, and a new cancer-surprise might have arrived. Since he will most likely have his next chemo/immunotherapy on Tuesday, anything can happen in response to that. But as we practice living one day at a time, today has been a very manageable, exceedingly good day.

 

“This is the very day God acted—let’s celebrate and be festive! Salvation now, God. Salvation now! Oh yes, God—a free and full life!” (Psalm 118:24-25, The Message)

Inventory by Nelson

Posted on by

Sitting here today I ask myself if it’s really true. “Do I really have lung cancer? Is it really stage 4? Are the stats really as bleak as I hear they are? Do I have this death sentence on me that everyone understands but only I fail to fully grasp?” I wonder if I HAVE completely comprehended it. I no longer have the thought that maybe I’ll wake up and and discover it’s all only been a dream. 

So many things have changed since this all started in March to prove it’s not a dream.

Ann Sophie and I moved from Hawaii to Minnesota. I’ve completely been unable to run or swim or exercise like I have most all my life. My lungs are filled with fluid with pain so they barely function if I do anything faster than walk. Spending the night in a chair and wandering around our apartment all night instead of sleeping next to my wife is the new norm. My Mom has virtually moved from her house in Michigan to help us get through this. She also resurrected this blog for another round of “getting through this” in her life and ours. Going to the hospital for treatment or things, treatment-related has become my new full time occupation. No other job is possible. 

But this isn’t meant to be some self-pity party at all. It’s not only difficult things that have changed. I’m just grappling with my situation and this change in general.

In Alcoholics Anonymous, they taught us that, when you find yourself being pulled toward self-pity and the negative, write up a gratitude inventory. 

Make a list of things you’re thankful for. 

It’s actually a simple thing to do. So what’s first? 

I’m thankful, mostly for Ann Sophie, by far my favorite person in the world. There is no one like her and I’m still blown away I get to hang with her every day, and now for more hours in each day than ever.

…for Willard Nelson Nyman. 

I’ve become a father for the first time at almost the exact same time I was diagnosed with Cancer. 

Every moment I get to be Will’s Dad is a good moment and no one can take those moments from back from me… or from him.

I’ve been given this sharpness having to do with my perspective on time. The idea of having “more time” is really just an idea when it comes down to it anyway. Each of us has only the moment we’re in right now, so all of us essentially have the same amount of time. I’m thankful for today.

I’m thankful it’s just the beginning of Summer in Minnesota… 

that, so far, I lived almost 50 of the fullest years a person can live. 

I’m thankful to have joined YWAM all those years ago and to have been to all those places and met all those amazing people. 

I’m grateful for the lessons I’ve learned in leadership from that place. 

I am grateful for the Mayo clinic, for talented doctors, for my cousin, Luke, who introduced me to them, 

for people who believed in me over the years and put their money where their mouth was.

I’m thankful for the God of second chances who uses even mistakes and works them together for good somehow. 

I’m thankful I wasn’t supposed to go over 500 words writing here or I might go on forever. And one last one: I’m thankful and blown away by the kindness, generosity, and prayers of all of those who have come forward and helped our little family in some way during this time.

Try it out sometime when you get down. Just write one thing after another you are thankful for. It will ignite something in you if you let it. 

“Those who sacrifice thank offerings honor me,
and to the blameless I will show my salvation.” (Psalm 50:23)