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?