An Ordinary life Touched by an Extraordinary God - Part 7

The first month of 1962, we reunited our little family and settled in Portland, Oregon. At about age two, Stephen’s vocabulary, normal for his age, dropped down to two words, ‘hot” and “hi.” Puzzled I sought help and found it at the University of Oregon, Early Childhood Development Department. They suggested we choose one word for him to say in response to anything. In other words, if he wanted a cup of milk he first had to say “Mama” then he’d get what he requested. Turns out a cookie brought the best results and soon he caught on that saying the word of the day—or week—brought him what he wanted and his vocabulary picked up dramatically from there.

In the meantime, I found work as a temp and worked in various companies all around Portland. Larry tried but didn’t fare so well. It worked out well the time we spent in Portland to have Larry’s mom watch the kids for us. They enjoyed their time with Grandma and Grandpa.

We heard there were job possibilities in Seattle, so drove up there. He got on at Boeing and soon, pulling our turtle shell behind us we moved to the Seattle area.

At each place I religiously found a doctor to keep tabs on me every six months. My health continued to improve and no further problems developed. I considered myself healed by God after about two years and took care of my responsibilities like any normal young mother.

My parents came up in 1964 for the World’s Fair in Seattle. The Space Needle was then and still is a great experience. But by now, Laurie was two and Stephen four and I wanted another child. Adoption presented an answer so we looked into it. They informed us that a cancer patient wasn’t considered in remission for five years following treatments. They also informed us that adoption was not an option until I was cancer free for five years.

My heart ached, my mind reeled and I felt upset, angry and forlorn all at once. I had this deep-seated need to hold another baby so decided to try taking in foster babies. Larry and I applied and were accepted but they admonished us, “These children will be in your home until they are adopted but you cannot adopt them.”  Period.  End of sentence. With no alternative at hand we accepted their terms and soon I had a baby girl in my arms.

Little Louise didn’t stay long, about six weeks, then Dougie came. We had him three months because he was of mixed race: Caucasian, Chinese and African-American. His laid back temperament made him a happy baby from the start. He was chubby, beautiful and adorable. I wanted to adopt him more than I can express but it was prohibited. He stayed longer than the others and I enjoyed every moment. Letting him go made my heart ache but I experienced joy that he went to a family that wanted him. Who wouldn’t once they knew this delightful child?

Then we received Timmy but the kids and I contracted strep throat not too long after his arrival and had to let him go to someone else. That hurt but it hurt even more when the agency said they didn’t want to place any more babies with us. Pressed for a reason they said, “We believe that Mr. Luke’s heart isn’t into this and we feel he’s being uncooperative.”

But God had given me two dear, sweet children and that was enough. In the years ahead God’s wisdom prove to be better than my wishes.

AN ORDINARY LIFE TOUCHED BY AN EXTRAORDINARY GOD – Part Six

My parents with Grandma, my sister and two younger brothers in tow visited us that summer when Laurie was six months old. We spent a few days camping and at night trying to avoid skunks on the way to the outhouse. I felt great and we had a wonderful time. I felt so well I figured I wouldn’t die anytime soon; though, it’s something we never talked about.

Day to day life resumed after they left and I continued to see the doctor on a monthly basis. Larry’s four year tour in the Air Force ended in November of that year and we’d decided to retire to civilian life.

On my doctor visit in October the doctor gravely informed me that he deemed it about a 95% chance that a new mass had formed in my abdominal cavity. Because of our soon release from the Air Force he wanted to do surgery almost immediately, that way I would have time to recover some before we travelled northward.

First I needed to make arrangements for child care. My mother again was invited to enjoy her grandchildren for awhile and gladly came. My mother-in-law also came as she planned to help Larry as he drove back to Portland, Oregon. We’d decided to settle in Portland and would live in the trailer while we looked for work and a place to live. She would drive our car and he would drive the pickup and pull the trailer home we’d purchased just for this purpose.

My mother, then, would accompany me and the children on the bus to Boise. No, we weren’t breaking up but because of the surgery and my need for help as I recovered further, this seemed the best plan of action. Larry would find a place for us and then when I felt able to take on my responsibilities, he’d come take me home.

Thus it worked out that I had two grandmas, two kids and one husband in one small trailer home and me in a hospital bed—again. My mother, when she got the word that I needed surgery again got on the phone and called her church prayer line, all our relatives and all her friends. Anyone who could and would pray she called, so I knew I was surrounded by prayer as I went under the knife—again.

Boy, was I mad! Someone just slapped me in the face and if I could have I would have slapped them back. My eyes flutter opened and looked directly into my kind doctor’s eyes, the same one who’d done my first operation. He said, “We thought you’d never wake up.” I blinked and saw my mother on one side of the bed and my mother-in-law on the other side both anxiously watching me.

It seems they had a hard time waking me up from the anesthesia. I slept peacefully long after I should have roused thus the doctor felt it necessary to slap me in the face—and that did it. I was mad when I woke up but calmed down when I knew the whole story. But the rest of the story is even better. The doctor said, “We didn’t find any mass. I was certain there was one there or I wouldn’t have put you through the operation.” I looked at my mom and we both knew God had arrived on the scene.

My husband sat in the lobby watching over the two kids and anxiously awaiting word of my condition. They swapped places and we rejoiced that the mass somehow either wasn’t there or disappeared. I took this opportunity to point out to Larry how faithful God is and that He took care of me. But Larry didn’t believe in the God I believed in. He’d been raised in the Catholic church by his mother, a devout Catholic, and somewhere along the way lost any belief he might have had in a loving, caring Heavenly Father.  This caused problems in our marriage for many years after. We had become a house divided. 

Has following God caused a problem in your marriage? 

An Ordinary Life Touched by an Extraordinary God - Part 5

My folks had five children, all of us crammed into a small house. We lived twenty miles from mom’s parents, so she systematically shipped us over to them two at a time almost every weekend and for a week at a time in the summer.  The eldest went by himself. I’m sure mom welcomed a quieter house while knowing we were in good hands.

My grandparents’ house sat half a block from our denominational college, Northwest Nazarene College, (now University). Behind their house sat College Church. For reasons known only to them they attended Nampa First Church of the Nazarene across town and not the church on whose doorstep they virtually sat. I mean, all they had to do was walk out their back door, down the alley half a block and they were at the door of the church. I haven’t figured out this phenomenon to this day but the beauty of it for me meant that in the summer when we spent a week with them, my sister and I got to attend three Vacation Bible Schools. The one at our home church in Boise and two in Nampa.

I loved VBS as it gave us something fun and exciting to do instead of chores at home. The summer I turned six, College Church erected a tent in Kurtz Park which spread out its green skirt a block or two away from gramma’s house. On the last day of VBS at the last gathering before we were dismissed, the speaker told us about how we could accept Jesus into our hearts and He would help us be good and help us when we needed help.

Now I wasn’t a bad little girl but I knew I wasn’t good, either. I didn’t lie—unless it might be to my advantage; I didn’t steal; I didn’t swear; I didn’t beat up on my little brothers or older sister—unless provoked and needed to retaliate. But I thought people might love me more if Jesus made me good so I went forward, knelt and asked Jesus into my heart. I don’t know what happened but I know I was a changed person when I walked back to gramma’s house.

I can’t tell you I lived perfectly from then on but I always wanted to please Jesus. I learned Bible verses—it helped that Grampa gave me a nickel for every verse I learned—but those verses have stayed with me, helped me and comforted me over the years.

Then I became a teenager. I didn’t set out to yield to peer pressure but I did. I never did anything bad or wild—well, not too wild, anyway. I just drifted away from following Jesus. I married, had two kids and now sat in our little house facing the “Big C” and almost certain death.

With my upbringing and my background I knew the best way—really the only way—to deal with this new, ugly situation meant turning back to the God I’d left behind. One day, the two little ones were napping a the same time, a miracle in itself, and I decided it was a good time to mop my kitchen floor. I got on my hands and knees with a bucket and a rag and began scrubbing. Then Jesus showed up. I don’t remember what He said, I just remember knowing that now was the time. There with the bucket as an altar, I made the choice to walk with Him again and that this time there would be no turning back, no matter what.

I didn’t know at that moment how this simple act would impact my life or the difficulties that lay ahead. I knew for sure, though, that I belonged to God, come what may.

Question: Have you reached that place and chosen to walk with God?  I'd love to hear about it.

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.

What is your story? Everybody has one; we'd love to hear yours.