An Ordinary Life Touched by an Extraordinary God – Part 4

On the next visit to my oncologist I related how disconcerting, uncomfortable, and mood changing the hot flashes were. If you’ve experienced menopause you understand the feeling, right? I’d been placed in the care of the head of the OB-GYN Department on the Air Force base since they considered my case rare, unusual and to them quite interesting. He looked at me then down at the cancer report then he scribbled out a prescription. Tearing it off, he handed it to me and said, “Your body’s not producing enough estrogen now. Take these and you’ll start feeling better.”

I didn’t know then but after much research later on, I found that estrogen is seldom recommended for anyone with ovarian cancer. The doctor mentioned to me at one point that the cancer was very aggressive because during pregnancy my body was flooded with estrogen. Thus the Death Watch began. Nobody ever said anything, not even the doctor, it was what they did.

The doctor prescribed hormone replacement to keep me comfortable even though it might not be the best thing for me. My parents called me more often though my dad hated paying for long distance calls. My in-laws did the same. Unusual, I thought. My parents and brothers came down to visit us when Laurie was six months old—bringing my grandmother! It sounds normal when I type these words but back then I knew they thought they were visiting me for the last time.

I didn’t know then the statistics about the death rate of ovarian cancer—no internet—but I instinctively knew what they were thinking. I, too, believed I might die.  I was only twenty-two years old. Much too young to die and besides I had two babies to raise.  I couldn’t die. Through all this, a decision that I needed to make, constantly came to mind—a momentous decision—and one particular day I realized I couldn’t put it off any longer.

An Ordinary Life Touched by an Extraordinary God – Part 3

I spent a week in the hospital following my C-section. My wonderful mother rode the bus down from Idaho, Boise to be exact, to stay with Larry and Stephen and cook, clean, etc. She stayed through my recuperation at home and when it came time for her to leave the doctor decided I needed chemo and she sweetly agreed to postpone going home.

Call me naïve, call me stupid, call me whatever you like but when I asked the doctor, “Why chemo?” he assured me it was a preventive measure. Nothing to worry about.

This hospital stay I spent in a ward and when I wasn’t getting the chemo drip I usually went around the ward and helped any who need it as nurses were in short supply. I sailed through the treatment without side effects and went home after a week’s stay. Even kept my hair.

My mother left for home then as my dad got tired of his own cooking, and there I sat with a husband and child to cook and clean for and a colicky baby. We named her Laurie and I called her Rosebud for her rosy cheeks but she made life miserable for a while. I slept many nights trying to keep her bassinet moving so she would sleep—so I could sleep. But alas, when I fell asleep I stopped moving the bassinet and up she woke. But, we survived the colicky months and she became a delightful baby. It thrilled us to have both a boy and a girl.

I had to go for monthly checkups for a few months. On one of these visits about four months after the chemo I cranked up my courage and asked the doctor, “Do I have cancer?” I’d suspected it but really didn’t want to know. Yet, I'd put if off as long as I could. I needed to know.

He said, ‘Yes, We wanted to wait until we got the lab results back. We sent them to Travis AFB and back east to Bethesda. You have ovarian and cervical cancer. When we removed the baby we found a tumor on each ovary the size of an orange and one at the cervix the size of a grapefruit.” (I assumed he used citrus fruit for comparative purposes because we were in Arizona where it abounded.)

To say the least I felt shell-shocked at his admission. Hearing cancer out loud is far more devastating than thinking you might have it. But at that moment I had a more pressing problem. Hot flashes wrapped me in a warm woolen blanket regularly and in Phoenix in June, it became unbearable. I needed relief!

Do you know what it's like to suspect there's bad news coming but really don't want to hear it? Burying one's head in the sand seems more bearable, doesn't it?

An Ordinary Life Touched by an Extraordinary God—Part 2

Let me tell you what a C-section involves. I’d never had one. Have you? Fascinated by the procedure I observed carefully as they worked on me. They laid me out on the cold operating table on my side, swabbed my back with a cold solution then injected into my spinal fluid the meds to eliminate any pain. Then they placed me on my back, swabbed my abdomen with a cold solution and jabbed it with a needle to check if it was numb. It was.

When finally they decided I was ready they arranged a blue drape between me and my lower body. At this I objected. “I want to see my baby being delivered."

“We can’t do that.” The doctor said. “When you see the scalpel cutting your skin, you’ll flinch.” Even though I assured him I wouldn’t, he remained adamant. Three days passed before I saw my baby girl.

After the baby’s delivery and they told me her sex they immediately put me under anesthesia. This turn of events surprised me. I hadn’t expected this—but the doctor didn’t consult with me. This was a military base; they consulted with my husband, not me.

I woke up in a room with a single bed with me in it. Found out later it was reserved for the base commander’s wife and turned out I was a VIP: a Very Important Patient.

They admonished me to stay laying flat in my back because of the spinal I’d had. I lay like that for three days straight. The day after the surgery when a nurse was in attending to my needs I mentioned, “I feel like my uterus is contracting.”

She gave me an odd look and said, “Mrs. Luke, didn’t they tell you? You don’t have a uterus or ovaries for that matter anymore.”

Shocked, I cried for three days. As the tears ran down into my ears I mourned for my lost children. True, I only wanted one more but still . . .God in his wisdom decided two were my limit. I didn’t even think to ask the nurse why I’d had an hysterectomy. It would be six months before I learned the reason.

Every woman with a child likes to tell her unique delivery story. What’s yours?

AN ORDINARY LIFE TOUCHED BY AN EXTRAORDINARY GOD – Part One

                A year or so ago I found a lump on a lymph node in my groin. The doctor ordered a biopsy. This consisted of taking the lump out with only local anesthesia. Ouch! But I survived this “minor” operation and when the results returned learned it was again ovarian cancer.

            I need to start at the beginning. Fifty-one years ago in 1960 I discovered I was pregnant with our second child. Our first was a boy, Stephen, and we all looked forward with excitement to this new addition to the family. I wanted three children, two boys first then a girl, but we don’t always get what we want.

            Back then the only way of determining the gender of the unborn child was by swinging a threaded needle over wrist of the mother-to-be. Well, there were other old wives’ tales along this same line but all were definitely an inexact science. As you can tell, not really science at all and certainly inexact. I didn’t ascribe to this method so we waited for the birth to find out what name we’d give this new little one.

            My husband, Larry, was in the Air Force and this meant trekking thirteen miles out to the base to see an OB/GYN. In that department there were maybe four or five doctors and the patient saw whoever was available so I never knew what doctor I would see or even who would deliver the baby. The pregnancy was difficult as I experienced quite a bit of pain. I mentioned this to one of the doctors during a regular visit and he said, a little patronizingly, I thought, “Well, Mrs. Luke, you know you should expect a little discomfort when you’re pregnant.” I tried my best to convey to him it wasn’t a “little discomfort” but to no avail.

            My due date was in January. I began having contractions one day close to my due date. Out to the hospital we went. Nothing happened. False labor, they said and sent me home. A few days later, I began having contractions. Nothing happened. False labor, they said and sent me home. Again, a few days later I began having contractions. This time the doctor decided something unusual must be going on. He prepared me for a C-section but nothing could have prepared me for what lay ahead.

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