An Exemplary Example

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photo(115)Mary has made it through this first day after surgery, the most difficult day of her life in terms of physical challenges and their accompanying emotions. And she did it valiantly.

Hospital beds no longer find patients resting for hours on end without interruption. A post-op patient, even only a few hours post-op, is questioned, pestered, poked, and prodded on a steady basis, woken from sleep every few minutes, asked to perform certain tasks.

Six screensLess than 12 hours after surgery, despite Mary’s insides still being “angry” from extensive scalpel and stitch work, she was asked to get out of bed and take a walk. Never mind the 6 tubes with accompanying computerized screens that had to accompany her. It was time to rise.

But by the end of this long, arduous day, she had earned 8 smiley faces on her status board for 4 successful episodes of sitting in a chair and 4 energetic walks down the hall and back with her pole of tubes and screens.

photo(112)Though she was feeling woozy, battling severe nausea, and suffering from abdominal pain, she refused to let those irritants hold her back. “Pushing through” to excellence is one of Mary’s character qualities, and though the nursing staff was astounded by her determination, the rest of us knew she’d approach her post-op challenges in exactly that way.

All of us will bump up against major challenges in this life. The question is, how will we find courage to handle them? I, for one, find it by watching someone like Mary: “If she can, maybe I can, too.”

It’s helpful to observe the good examples of others who are determined to triumph over difficulties. Paul of the Bible made this point repeatedly. “Follow my example,” he said, “because as far as possible, I’m following Christ’s example.” Mary is in Paul’s camp.

Ultimately, though, the one we should be following is Jesus. How did he handle the never-ending challenges that confronted him in his life as a human? For one thing, he never said “no” to any of them. For another, he didn’t get angry at God for allowing them into his life. Also, he faced them head-on while experiencing the same emotions we feel.

Jesus felt sadness, disappointment, joy, frustration, anger, satisfaction, you name it. If we feel it, we can know he felt it,too. So as we come up against the mountains we’re forced to climb, we can study what he did and say to ourselves, “He showed me through the pages of Scripture how to handle life, so I should try to follow his example.”

photo(113)Following the exemplary examples of Paul and Mary in pushing through struggles is a good idea, but following Jesus’ example is an even better one.

Paul wrote, “Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ.” (1 Corinthians 11:1)

Mary’s prayer requests:

  1. For the nausea and abdominal pain to lessen
  2. For a good report from pathology
  3. For safe travels as Mary’s children come and go to visit her
  4. Gratitude for each person who has been (and still is) praying

 

A Day of Waiting

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Prep for major surgery can be a long, sometimes exasperating ordeal. But these days hospitals work hard to make it manageable. For example, in the family waiting area at Mayo Clinic there’s a wide screen TV monitor much like those used in airports to track flights. Each patient receives a “flight number” and can be followed through the maze of stops along their route.

Waiting RoomThe monitor’s color-coding makes it easy to see exactly what’s happening to your loved one. White means she’s still in admitting. Orange is posted when she gets called to the operating room. Yellow is for having entered the OR, green for “go-time” on the procedure, grey for a patient in recovery, and pink for the good news that it’s time to leave the surgical floor.

To sign up for an operation is to sign up for lots of waiting. Tense waiting. Waiting when it’s tempting to let your mind wander to places it shouldn’t.

For instance, today at the beginning of Mary’s surgery we all knew the doctor planned to do a brief laparoscopic look-around before beginning the complicated Whipple procedure. That would include a biopsy of the liver, located next to the pancreas. If other cancer was found, the Whipple would have been aborted, and Mary would have been rolled to recovery.

We’d been sitting in the crowded waiting room about 30 minutes when a nurse came in and said, “Peterson family?”

My heart stopped, thinking the worst had happened. But then she said, “We have her room ready, if you’d like to wait there instead of here.” Whew.

In admittingThis morning as the 5 of us hurried on foot toward the nearby hospital, a whipping wind filled with biting snow didn’t make it easy. Temperatures were in the teens, and it felt good to pass through the revolving doors into the warm lobby of the Mayo Clinic’s St. Mary’s hospital. As always, Mary soldiered through without complaint, despite not being allowed to have a warm breakfast like the rest of us.

The long day was dotted with waiting periods. Since the surgical schedule experienced one delay after another, Mary’s procedure started 6 hours later than originally planned. More waiting. But when the surgeon finally appeared with a report on how everything went, he was smiling. “It went beautifully,” he said, “and she did great.”

Dr. TrutyAlthough pathology won’t be complete until Wednesday, Dr. Truty (right) talked of “clean margins” and said he had been able to keep the stomach intact, including the pyloric valve that attaches to the intestines. As with all Whipples, he took out the gall bladder, part of the intestine, the tumor, and the head of the pancreas. He said he was extremely pleased with the results.

When the waiting was over and Mary was finally wheeled into her room at 11:00 pm, we were probably far more excited to see her than she was to see us. Worn out but without pain, enjoying her “happy drugs” and cooperating nicely with the staff, her first words to us were, “Go home and go to bed.” On her nightstand were her Scripture cards, her Bible, and a photo of her with Bervin and their 9 grandchildren.

Nine grandsOne of them, 6 year old Beck (front, 2nd from right), had talked to Mary on the phone this morning. Whenever he says goodbye he always says, “I love you to the moon and back!” But this morning he said, “Grandma, I love you all the way to Pluto and back!”

And that BIG love goes for all of us…..

“The desire accomplished is sweet to the soul.” (Proverbs 13:19)

Our prayer requests for Mary:

  1. Praise for a safe surgery performed by a skilled surgical team, for negative margins, and a negative liver biopsy
  2. Pray for a good night’s rest
  3. Praise for excellent caregivers at Mayo Clinic
  4. Praise for the commitment and vision of the Franciscan Sisters and physicians who make this a place of healing

Failing to Faint

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Cancer is not for the faint of heart. When any major life-calamity hits us, we have several choices in the way we respond. We can flee, fight, or faint. Tomorrow morning (Monday) Mary’s doctor and his surgical team at Mayo Clinic will “put her under” and go through the complicated steps of something called the Whipple surgery.

SurgeryThese doctors and nurses are pros at this procedure and have done it many times.  Because Mary has been called “an excellent candidate” for it, the medical staff is confident she’ll get a new lease on life as a result.

They aren’t saying they can cure her, but they do label the surgery “curative”. My layman’s understanding is that after Mary has recuperated, she’ll feel cured. On a best-case basis, her cancer crisis will have all but disappeared, which sounds pretty good!

As with every cancer diagnosis, in the early days Mary was overwhelmed – faint of heart. But she refused to stay there. It wasn’t 24 hours before she’d pulled out her best weapons (God and his Word) and begun to fight, though what she chose to go up against wasn’t cancer but her personal enemies: fear, worry, doubt, and… faintness of heart.

Scripture reminds us in half-a-dozen places not to let ourselves grow faint, whether we’re facing surgery or any other crisis. It also gives us the how-to. Here’s one example: “Do not let your heart faint, do not be afraid, and do not tremble or be terrified because of [your enemies]; for the Lord your God is he who goes with you, to fight for you against your enemies.” (Deuteronomy 20:3-4)

The Bible’s most frequently cited instruction on this is found in Isaiah 40:31: “Those who wait on the Lord… shall walk and not faint.” More than likely this is referring to walking through life without becoming faint of heart. Instead we’re to be confident in God’s ability to keep us from it.

Mary and BervinAs Mary is wheeled away from her family toward the O.R. tomorrow morning, she may be tempted to slip toward a heart-fainting, but if she does, she told me she’s ready with a secret weapon. She’ll follow our mom’s example. When Mom was faced with a similar crisis, she hummed a favorite hymn to lift her from a near-faint:

Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,
In the light of His glory and grace.

After that, even as Mary sleeps during surgery, she won’t grow faint.

“The everlasting God, the Lord, The Creator of the ends of the earth, neither faints nor is weary.” (Isaiah 40:28)

Mary’s prayer requests several hours before surgery:

  1. Praise for so much loving support
  2. Praise for God’s wisdom that has come through prayer
  3. Pray for Dr. Truty and his surgical team
  4. Pray that Mary will be a good example of someone who trusts Christ
  5. Pray for courage to face the unknown