Category Archives: Suffering

Commentary from Nelson on a tiring day

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We have received some good help today. As I’m writing this, I’m sitting on a bed in a small room like any other hospital room. There’s a TV and snacks and a little table with the IV drip stand like usual, only this time it’s for chemotherapy and immunotherapy.

Picture this. I come to the hospital at 6:45 in the morning for a blood draw for them to continue testing things. Then I go into another room to talk to a doctor for a while about medications, making sure we should move forward with the chemotherapy.

After that, at about 9:30 AM, I come to this room. Today it took two nurses and one doctor five different attempts to find a functioning vein in one of my arms so they could run the IV. I guess I’ve been stuck enough times to make it difficult to find success.

Once they get that squared away, they begin emptying one bag of liquid into me after another. The amazing thing is that the contents of the bags are poison in one sense. After this, I’m not supposed to kiss my wife, and when I go to the bathroom, I’m supposed to flush the toilet two times after sitting down to pee, because the fluid is so radioactive. But apparently this stuff is death to cancer.

It’s not cheap, though. I’m told that the bag containing immunotherapy costs more than $30,000. Can you imagine spilling it by mistake?

I have five of these chemo/immuno infusions scheduled over the next many weeks, each one with a CAT scan in between to monitor progress going forward. Today I’m receiving the second of the five. In three weeks I’ll get the next one.

All the testing, scans, appointments, consultations, studies, and everything else comes down to me sitting here in this hospital bed with that clear liquid going into my blood. And that’s the cancer-killer. Isn’t that weird?

After the three hour infusion was over today, I was scheduled for another draining of my lung called a thoracentesis. This time it was the left side instead of the right. In the four months since this medical drama began, I’ve only had the left lung drained once, and there wasn’t much extra fluid there then. Today they pulled out 2.2 liters—breaking my old record for biggest draw ever, which was 1.6 liters. No wonder I needed oxygen all the time. There will be pain for a few days every time I take a breath, but that will gradually subside. And meanwhile, I’m able to get more air.

It’s been a tiring day, but as I said, we received some good help today.

“In the Lord…my heart trusts, and I am helped.” (Psalm 28:7)

From Linnea about her brother Nelson

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I owe a lot to my big brother Nelson.

When I went off to college, I began to drift away from the things I had always believed. I used my doubts and questions about God as a reason to basically do whatever I wanted, even things I knew were wrong.

Then during my senior year, Nelson moved to town. He had been out serving at the Youth With a Mission (YWAM) base in Hawaii for several years, but since he was only one year short of his bachelor’s degree, he decided to come back to the Midwest to finish it. The two of us graduated from Anderson University together on the same day in May of 1999.

What a relief that must have been for my dad! Education was a top priority for him and he worked hard to make sure we all had the chance to go to college. Nelson mostly finished school to honor his father, which makes me think of Ephesians 6:2-3: “Honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment with a promise, so that it may go well with you and that you may have a long life in the land.” When I pray for Nelson now, I love thinking about how he has obeyed this command!

During the year we were together at Anderson University, Nelson went out of his way to spend time with me. We would go out for coffee and talk about spiritual things. He never preached at me, but always listened to me without judgment and tried to answer my questions. And he talked a lot about YWAM.

As graduation approached, I had a growing uneasiness about the direction I was going. I felt guilty for some of the choices I was making and wondered if I needed to make a complete break from my life as it was. I began to think maybe God had a better plan for me.

I will admit, I might not have initially decided to try YWAM for holy reasons. But once I got out there, far away from everyone and everything I knew, I could suddenly see my life more clearly—how ungrateful I had been, how self-focused, and how deceitful.

As I read my Bible, listened to the teachings, and talked with my leaders, I realized I was far from who God wanted me to be. And I was a wreck, filled with regret and desperate for God to forgive me and change me. After two months there, I was baptized in the Pacific Ocean off the main pier in Kona, and I knew I would never be the same again.

During those early months on the YWAM base, the same thing happened many times. Someone would mention my brother Nelson, and a new acquaintance would say, “Wait! You’re NELSON’S sister?!” And then suddenly, a virtual stranger would give me a hug and start telling me a story about some crazy adventure they’d had with Nelson in a third world county. I had instant friends everywhere because I was Nelson’s little sister. I loved it.

A year into my time with YWAM, I met Adam, who became my husband. At that point Nelson was living in Nashville and not on the YWAM base, so Adam had never met him, but he knew all about him from the stories his leaders had shared!

(Conclusion tomorrow…)

Palliative Care

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Being a non-medical person, I didn’t know what the word “palliative” meant until Nate had his cancer. The hospice people were using that word, so finally I looked it up. Palliative care is medicine or a medical treatment that lessens pain or other negative symptoms, without dealing with their causes.

When Nelson, Ann Sophie, Will, and I first got to the Mayo Clinic, one of the many doctors we saw mentioned that they were setting up a meeting with the palliative care people. Nelson’s immediate response was, “Well, I don’t think we need that, do we?”

Like me, he was thinking back to when his father had been in his final days of cancer and the nurse brought up palliative care. In other words, she was letting us know there was nothing more they could do for Nate except to mitigate his suffering. She called it “comfort measures.” That, they could do.

But the meeting at Mayo’s was scheduled for us anyway, and we met with the head palliative MD yesterday. As always, little Will came along and brought sunshine into the small exam room, charming the lady doctor with his smiles.

Ann Sophie, constantly thinking ahead, had packed Nelson’s medications in her bag and when asked the first question, she reached in and pulled out the prescription bottle the doctor was asking about. “I just brought them,” she said, “in case you needed to see them.”

In less than a minute she had them all lined up on the exam room bench, grouped by category. The doctor was impressed (as were Nelson and I), and it turned out to be a big help to have the bottles there. Though this palliative expert had all these same drugs on a computer list in front of her, she quickly pivoted to the bench-with-bottles to study labels, count remaining pills, and ask questions about their efficacy.

Dr. Christiansen spent well over an hour with us. First and foremost, she wanted to know how Nelson was feeling. What were his most bothersome symptoms? How did his current condition compare with weeks past? Did he need to continue all the pills, or could some be eliminated? Did he have questions about the many drugs he’s taking?

She took time to listen carefully to his answers, once in a while turning toward her computer to tap out notes.

Then she turned to Ann Sophie, asking how she was coping with managing all the pills and their different stipulations. Ann Sophie had her questions ready, and Dr. Christiansen had a detailed answer for everything any of us asked. She was profoundly knowledgeable about every drug, their different uses, and why each was prescribed for Nelson.

When we left, it turned out that the palliative care appointment Nelson didn’t think he would need had been very useful. Best of all, though, was when Nelson said, “I know one thing for sure. I feel a lot better now than I did a couple of weeks ago.” And beneath that heartening statement was the valuable care of palliative medicine—along with a few comfort measures from another source:

The Lord is “the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles…” (2 Corinthians 1:3-4)