Category Archives: Life’s disappointments

A Blog by Nelson

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The last month has seemed like a year and also like a week, all at the same time. A month ago, for the first time, I heard the word Cancer used by a  doctor talking about the condition of my body, Stage 4 Lung Cancer. At first it felt like something that would only happen to someone else. Then I realized I had no comprehension of what I’d just been told.

One dominating thing for me throughout the month since then has been PAIN. It’s been nearly more than I could bear, and no meds could get on top of it. When you hit your hand with a hammer and the pain shoots into you, no encouraging word will help at that moment. And up until recently, I’ve had pain that’s been much like that.

It has included an intense and painful cough with severe pain in the bones around my whole rib cage, along with ongoing constipation, nausea, and vomiting. Constant shortness of breath was and is the norm for me. I still get completely out of breath after the slightest exertion.

It took almost an entire week at the hospital with nonstop appointments and continual visits from nurses and doctors to stabilize the medications and their side effects. They needed to get ahead of my pain and then create a treatment program to get me to where I am today. Only since I came home from the hospital two days ago could I stop to take stock of what’s really going on.

Being told that you have “Stage 4 Lung Cancer” is a foreboding diagnosis. It sounds more like a death sentence. And tonight I sit here trying to think it through.

I wonder why having a son and getting a cancer diagnosis happened at the exact same time. After having wished and hoped and prayed for a baby, I wonder why God would do that if I wouldn’t be here to raise him anyway. Will I be alive in a year? In five? How much pain will there be before it’s over? How long will it be before I no longer have to sleep sitting up? Will I ever be able to swim a mile in the open ocean again?

I know none of us can answer these questions, and the Scriptures tell us not to obsess over the future, so living for today is my plan. That’s what I’m determined to do. And it has proven to be a massive challenge and has shaken my whole thought process—as I’m sure it would many of yours.

I want to thank all of you for the love and support you’ve shown us during this month by showering us with gifts, helpful Scriptures, relevant sermons, cards, emails, texts, just all of it. Thanks you. It means so much to us.

Hallelujah Time

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Nelson’s most difficult battle through the last 13 weeks has been the struggle to breathe. He acknowledges that the fear of not being able to breathe is an ongoing assault on his mind and emotions. Without the ability to take the next breath, there’s no Plan B.

Our many Q & A sessions with doctors and nurses have done a lot to educate us on how to best deal with Nelson’s cancer and what to do if a breathing crisis occurs.

Nurse Practitioner Jean was most helpful the other day when she said, “If you feel a crisis coming on, try to figure out it’s source—whether it’s emotional or physical. If it’s emotional, then know that you can distance yourself from it without medical help. If it’s physical, go to the ER.”

Also helpful with breathing issues is to have Nelson’s right lung drained daily. Until four days ago, that process had only been done by a doctor or nurse in a clinical setting, every several days. Now it’s happening daily, and Ann Sophie is the one doing it—at home.

Once she unwraps the catheter going directly into Nelson’s lung, she attaches the single-use tubing at both ends, and the fluid begins to flow into a bottle. This must be a sterile process, and only she, wearing her sterile gloves, can touch the many sterile parts included in the process.

When Nelson’s lung begins to hurt or the flow includes bubbles, she knows it’s time to quit. Sometimes his pain increases afterwards, and sometimes it doesn’t. We’re thankful we don’t have to return to a medical facility every day to get this done. When it’s completed, his breathing is often improved.

By measuring the amount of drained fluid his lung produces each day, we can determine if the chemo and immunotherapy are eliminating cancer cells or not. Today is Day #4 of the daily drainings, and the amount has, indeed, lessened slightly every day.

One of the disadvantages of shallow, ineffective breathing has been Nelson’s inability to sleep lying down. The lung fluid tends to do just what a bottle of water does when put on its side–level out toward his throat. In that process, he quickly feels  like he’s drowning…thus nights on the couch.

For the last 10 weeks or so, he’s been sleeping in a sitting position, straight up-and-down. It doesn’t make for a good night.

Yesterday, for the first time, he decided to try lying down, once his lung had been drained. Amazingly, he took a brief nap, flat on the bed, before needing to get upright.

 

Today he tried again, this time sleeping for nearly an hour on his side before getting up. Something like a nap on the floor might not be a big deal in the great scheme of things, but for us, it’s hallelujah-time!

“The Lord your God is he who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies, to give you the victory.” (Deuteronomy 20:4)

Coming Home

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Today Nelson came home from the hospital. He’s been there a week, and during that time many expert medical people rode with him through days of vomiting and nights of pain. They stuck with him through bouts of severe constipation and periods of restlessness when he walked the hospital halls all night, unable to sleep. They calmed his severe anxiety when it threatened to overwhelm him and kept all of his medications straight.

And today, after a 3½ hour discharge process, they all found it hard to say goodbye.

“You’re my favorite patient,” the head nurse told him. “You’ve been so easy to care for, and I don’t like to see you go.” Her team felt the same way, dropping in to his room just to chat and staying longer than necessary after delivering scheduled pills.

As for Nelson, he had high praise for all those who helped him, thanking them for their care often. But his opinion today was, “I want out of here, a.s.a.p.”

As he left the hospital, his pain was “only at a three” and his breathing was slow and steady. He was very tired, but the bad constipation was gone, and he wasn’t at all anxious. His nausea was still there, most likely from the chemo and immunotherapy, but it was mild, and we have a remedy for that, should it escalate. He’s in a good place, and we’re going to do our best to keep him there.

Walking into our little apartment on a sunny, warm Minnesota day was satisfying for him and also for Ann Sophie and me. We’ve missed him a great deal. Little Will, too, grinned ear-to-ear whenever Nelson talked to him.

Now that we’re together at home again, new challenges begin. The hospital pharmacy handed us a shopping bag full of orangey-brown pill bottles—14 in all.

After a dinner of Ann Sophie’s delicious chunky-vegetable soup, we worked to figure out the prescriptions the hospital pharmacy sent home with us. Nelson and I threw in a comment or two, but it was Ann Sophie who had the pen and paper, marking bottles and her own chart. As Nelson said, “She’s the best person in the whole world.”

Behind all of these adjustments from hospital to home, working more efficiently than even Mayo Clinic’s finest, is God himself. We’ve seen his special touches many times now, but even if we hadn’t, we’re believing the Bible and what it says about him:

“If you commit your way to the Lord and trust in him, he will act.” (Psalm 37:5)