SURPRISE...& Surprising Side Effects

Surprises at the airport

As I landed in Salt Lake City on Friday I got a text from Jackie that she and Greg were running a little late.  No problem.  Unbeknownst to me, they were waiting downstairs with a big sign and balloons to surprise (and embarrass) me.  Unbeknownst to them, I was bring a little surprise of my own.  Kimberly was my surprise - she was traveling with me to visit the "college kids" but we had not told them.

Kimberly was a surprise guest

Surprise to both of us - we went to the wrong places.  They waited at the wrong terminal, and we waited at passenger pickup, looking for a car that was not coming.  I stood up to wait, while Kimberly sat and read her book - it was rather funny to see them walk right past her to get to me... and even better several minutes later... when Jackie looked over and realization slowly dawned.
That was fun.
Later Jackie was able to surprise Nathan by having Kimberly in the car when she picked him up.
Yesterday Greg managed to slip out of church and back again without me knowing.  He was busy back at Grandma's house.  Later, he walked slowly home with me while the others walked ahead.

Surprise Birthday!

Fun surprise to open the door and find the room swathed in streamers and balloons, and even better that Nathan and Shanna were there several hours earlier than expected.  Surprise!  I thought it was a surprise for Greg, except they were all looking at me.  Great surprise birthday party 3 weeks early!  They figured that there were more family members in Utah that day (4 kids, 2 parents), than there would be on my birthday (3 kids, husband traveling).  How fun!  Even better - several weeks earlier I had asked Nathan if he needed anything while I was in town and he had requested a chocolate cake - so I had unknowingly maintained tradition and baked my own birthday cake!  (It's ok, I prefer it this way.)

You can see the port and tubing
under the skin.  Also the old scar.

We have a tendency to like simple surprises, or simply surprising each other.  This contributes to the "laughing through life" part of my blog... or maybe the loving.  Mostly the loving.
It is fun.

As I type I am sitting alongside Greg's hospital bed - here was a not-so-fun surprise.  Since I was coming, he wanted to drive to Huntsman for the week's chemotherapy.  This way we could enjoy that amazing view and sit in the comfy chairs.  Instead they brought us back into a private room with a bed.  No window.  No view.  No fun.... No big deal - we are having a nice day together.  The snack lady came by, so we are well stocked. The infusion should end in about 20 minutes - then they will hook him up to his two-day-take-home chemo and we will be on our way.
What surprises are in store?  Hopefully none... he would like to be able to predict how his week will go.  From last time he has learned to take it easy and get lots...LOTS... of rest. No surprise.  Nausea isn't a surprise and he has learned to keep it under control.
He has not been without some surprise side-effects.  They warned him about cold sensitivity, but who knew what that would mean?  Ummm, it means just what it says (duh).  Very sensitive to cold.  So sensitive that taking room-temperature mayonnaise off the shelf at the grocery store was uncomfortable.  Picking up his phone - brrrr.. way too cold!

Still Smiling!  No Surprise!

Since he is here - I asked him again just how it feels.  I had been imagining this like the pain we all feel when we have to hold ice longer than is comfortable.  Not even close - he describes it to be the sensation of hitting your funnybone.  When he touches something cold it immediately turns numb, like your hand has gone to sleep.  The really awful part is eating and drinking... his mouth and even his throat go numb. He cannot even tell that anything is in his mouth.  There is no taste, no sensation of swallowing... no pleasure of eating.
Just now - he took a drink of the apple juice he has been drinking.  This side effect has kicked in - his mouth was numb.  I guess the rest of us could imagine that the dentist had numbed our entire mouth - instantaneously.
The other day it was cold outside - not only his fingers, but his entire face went numb and tingling.  It was hard to talk and he couldn't smile...
This lasts about a week.
He says it is pretty cool, knowing that it is temporary.
Who knew?
Surprise!
Surprise Side-Effects... keeping life interesting...

Better than Normal

Yikes, here is an old blog post that should have been posted March 13 - but I never went back to proofread/edit...
Speaking of Jackie and her chordoma... Today marks the date that it was actually removed one year ago!  Hooray - she is being watched very closely.  Her excellent surgeon was so careful to use micro-stitching rather than micro-staples with even the smallest blood vessels just to be certain that future MRIs would not be fuzzy at all - they would not want to miss anything.
A chordoma only responds to proton radiation - something that we would have had to travel to Seattle to receive.  Li-Fraumeni patients must avoid radiation of any kind whenever possible, so we weren't too excited about this.  The surgeons not only felt that they were able to remove the entire tumor - they were able to preserve the integrity of her spine, negating the need for further surgery and stabilization.  She experienced one miracle after another and it was great.
I have never gone back to read any details - it has been a year.  She feels great and is living a normal life - except for missing several inches of three ribs and permanent numbness on much of her left side.... and much poking, prodding, and scanning... otherwise normal.

Well, actually... better than normal.

I feel like a broken record, but I cannot say enough how important trials are to our lives, to make us the best that we can be.  Paraphrasing a story I heard from David A. Bednar - I want to share its lesson:
He knew of a man that really wanted a pickup truck.  His wife really didn't.  He says that the husband would tell her they needed the 4 wheel-drive to go and get milk for the children in case of a snow storm.  She reminded him that if they bought a truck they would not have money for the milk... Eventually they bought the truck.  To help justify the purchase, he took it up into the mountains to collect firewood.  The further up the mountain, the worse the conditions became, until finally, he was stuck.  There seemed to be no way that he would make it out of the mud (or snow - I cannot recall).  He thought that since he was already there and had time on his hands, he might as well cut the firewood and fill his truck.  He did so - and, lo and behold, with the back of his truck full of firewood he was able to drive out of the mess he was in and make it safely home.
It was the burden.  The weight of the load, or burden, gave him the traction that he needed to get home again.  We need trials, or burdens, to give us the spiritual traction to return to our Heavenly Father and our heavenly home.
This is why we are grateful for hardships.  Usually we look back and are grateful.  I believe that we can be grateful in the midst of our trials - maybe not liking them one bit, but being grateful that we are growing and gaining spiritual traction.
When life is going well there is so much to be grateful for also.  Truthfully, my growth hasn't been too steady during those times.  I get too comfortable and tend to just coast.
When there is darkness, fear, and uncertainty... we can put our trust in the Lord.  Not as easy as it sounds... and that is the secret!  If it were easy, we wouldn't grow.

Another recent story - Greg team-teaches a Sunday School class with a young woman.  Last Sunday she was upset and shared with him the story that her younger brother had just been diagnosed with bone cancer.  She and her family are naturally very upset.  Quoting Greg, "She's at the hard first week point, glad I'm not going through that part again!"  Those days are horrendous--- but it is going to get better.    Natalie tells people that "you get three really bad days - then do your part to make it better."  However, because Greg has experienced those days (more than once) - he was in a position to talk with her and share what he has learned.  She felt much better and he was pleased to be able to help.
This is not the first time and I am sure that it will not be the last time that Greg, and my other children (including the siblings without cancer), will be able to help others going through difficult times.  They have learned at a young age that life will present you with "opportunities to grow" that you would rather just didn't come your way...ever... - but are worth having.

Are my children living normal lives?  Not really. They are living better than normal lives and I am glad of it!

And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God. Romans 8:28

Looking Back - One Year Later

Flashback one year ago today - one of those days that burns into your memory, burns into your heart.  March 11, 2014 - I experienced what I then called a "heart-stopping moment" and with today's reflection, I can still recall that feeling - deep down inside where we store those moments for a lifetime.  Following this; when my heart began to beat again - my day was filled with wonder as I pondered what had happened and knew with a certainty that Heaven had intervened in our behalf.  
Today is the anniversary of our initial attempt to remove Jackie's chordoma - a fist-sized tumor tucked up in the center of her thoracic cavity.  It was bordered by her spinal column, her aorta and her lungs.  Four surgeons would be working on her, sometimes simultaneously, through two different incisions; one vertical along the left side of her spine, the second running along the rib line on her left.  They would have to collapse her left lung in order to access the tumor.  
Weeks later - two of the surgeons would declare it to be "one of the coolest surgeries they had ever seen."  On the morning of March 11, we weren't thinking it was very cool - it was rather frightening.  We did feel, however, that we were in very good hands.  Our primary surgeon was very accomplished, and just within our own family he had removed a tumor from Mark's left shoulder, multiple tumors from Natalie's right shoulder, and replaced 10 inches of Greg's tibia with an awesome prosthesis.
We had to wait several weeks to get the correct operating room for Jackie's surgery - she was almost ready to be taken in when there was a thoracic emergency in ICU and our procedure was bumped back several hours.  They finally came for her, so Mark and I decided to go eat and then enjoy the spring sunshine outside.  She had been gone for a couple hours when we decided to go to the family waiting area.  We were not there long when I looked up and saw our surgeon enter the room... how strange... why wasn't he with Jackie?  I knew the surgery could not possibly be finished.  Through the window into the hallway I thought I saw her anesthesiologist... who was with my daughter?  They asked to speak with us in a conference room - there were five doctors waiting to talk to us!  This could not be good....
They were quick to assure us that Jackie was alive and there were still several doctors with her (OHSU is a teaching hospital).  These several hours had been spent trying to start her arterial line - when the time came to collapse her lung they had to switch breathing tubes, but her airway had collapsed.  They had resuscitated her, but it seemed that they were all rather shaken.  They had come to ask us permission to stop the surgery and resume it in two days.  They did not want to begin a surgery such as this when her body had undergone such trauma.  YES!  By all means, stop and let her recover... (Apparently one of the doctors had seen this happen before and that family had been upset at the notion of postponing.)
Mark and I returned to the waiting area until she could be transferred to ICU.  We were both struck by the notion that his recently-deceased father had had a hand in this.  Mark said he could just see him there saying, "Stop!  Enough!"  Each doctor in the room had been in agreement that they needed to stop the procedure - I thought this somewhat remarkable from orthopedic, thoracic and neurosurgeons.  My experience working in the operating room was enough to know that these men are highly specialized, maybe a bit arrogant, and extremely busy and driven.  I appreciated their humility.
That night in the ICU was not very nice - Jackie woke up on a ventilator which is an awful experience.  Her hands were tied down and she could not speak or breathe on her own.  Then we had to communicate to her that the surgery was not over - she would have to begin again.  She was able to communicate with us by finger spelling.  
Naturally, no one was very anxious to remove the breathing tube.  We had many visits from a variety of physicians.  The anesthesiologist in charge was particularly attentive.  On one of his visits he expressed that this was an unusual situation, but it was as though God had told them all, "STOP!"
I don't know that he was a particularly religious man, but he had been struck by what had happened.
I had been praying that not only would the surgeons receive help, they would know the source of the help.  My sister, Lori, told me later that she had been praying that not only would they know the source of their help - that they would express this back to us!  
What a harrowing day!  What a beautiful day!
I would never want to repeat this day!
I would never want to change this day!
Writing about it has made me feel weak.  Reflecting on it makes me strong.  The testimony felt that day - that God is so very aware of us, his children - stays with me. The reality of angels - loving us and strengthening us - this stays with me also.  
Life's experiences teach us so much.  
Coming into the ICU and seeing Jackie unresponsive and hooked up to so many machines... well, it wasn't a high point in my life.  Throughout the night, one-by-one, tubes were removed and monitors were cleared away.  Memories remained.  Love grew and intensified.  
I am so grateful to have had this experience with my daughter, husband and family.  The weakness I feel in remembering isn't from the horrors of the day, it is from memories of my involvement in a day full of humility, love, trepidation, and support from loved-ones on earth and in Heaven.

Happy Anniversary Jackie!!