An Ordinary Life Touched by an Extraordinary God – Part Seventeen

For those of you who don’t know or maybe have never experienced it, chronic pain from illness or injury, over time becomes more and more difficult to live with. One thing it usually causes is fatigue. Doctors generally prescribe narcotics for chronic pain but these cause drowsiness and make living a normal life virtually impossible.

Thus, I wanted to deal with the pain as the first solution had run its course.  What to do next? My oncologist felt chemotherapy would solve my problem but chemo is poison and kills both good cells and bad cells. Not the best answer in my point of view. I discussed this with my oncologist, Dr. Lee, and I suggested surgery to him. It seemed so simple—just cut the offending growths off and be done with it.

Dr. Lee pointed out to me that the offending cysts sat on my liver. The liver has a very important role in our bodies. It cleanses our blood, among other things; therefore it is full of blood as it goes about its business. He said most surgeons are reluctant to cut into a liver except in extreme circumstances. To me this represented an extreme circumstance so I insisted. He called around and one day told me he’d found a surgeon who would do the surgery.

I’ll call her Dr. Nice as I don’t recall her name. I found her sympathetic, caring and kind. She, too, voiced her concern but since I was adamant she agreed to schedule the surgery. Since she knew it would require a blood transfusion and she felt it would be best to use my own blood, I deposited blood at the hospital prior to the surgery—two pints, if I recall.

On a day in April, 1999 I went under the knife for the fourth time due to the cancer. This scar, evidence of my many surgeries joined two other scars from operations on my abdomen. My husband and I referred to the result as my “road map.” Despite all the concern, the operation went well.  The surgeon reported to me that she removed only a small portion of my liver and that may have been the reason I had no difficulty following the surgery.

I remember well the day I went home from the hospital. A friend came to drive me home since Larry couldn’t take off from work. As we drove home the news on the radio related a shooting at Columbine High School. It was April 20, 1999, a day none of us will ever forget. At home, ensconced on my faithful blue floral sofa I watched horrified with the rest of the country the events at the school. It was a glad day for me as I recuperated from the operation but a sad day for so many.  I rejoiced in my renewed health but mourned the heavy loss of life on that day.

I need to report here that the “ultimate answer to the pain”, as I thought of this surgery, lasted only a few months. By October the pain returned and with it the need for another answer.

Looking for a lasting solution I made one of the worst decisions of my life.

An Ordinary Life Touched by an Extraordinary God – Part Sixteen

My doctor assured me when I quit taking the morphine there’d be no withdrawal to speak of. I went through three days and nights of withdrawal and since I’d been assured that that wouldn’t happen, it caused confusion in my mind about what was happening to me. I felt tremendous anxiety, panic, and fear. I felt afraid to go outside, to get in a car—to go anywhere.

The nights brought the worse symptoms and I spent three mostly sleepless nights. One evening when I was assailed by a great deal of anxiety, something I usually don’t experience, I called a pastor friend of mine, Pastor Kaster or PK as we called him.

I described to him what I was going through and related to him I’d taken morphine for the last month. He immediately made the connection and said, “You’re going through withdrawal. This doesn’t mean that you’ve become an anxious person or will be having panic attacks later on. He advised me to hang on, keep praying and like most things in our lives—both good and bad—that , “this, too, will pass.”

Heartened by his words, even though I still felt the anxiety, panic and fear and still didn’t get much sleep, I knew the reason for it and knew with God’s help I’d get through this okay.

And I did.

Feeling somewhat better after quitting the morphine and with the promise of pain relief I set out several days later for my first appointment with the doctor who would do the aspiration. Now this procedure is not for the faint of heart—at least any who faint at the sight of needles.

After putting on a hospital gown, I lay down on the examining table and he produced a needle approximately eight inches long (no exaggeration)! (Well, maybe it only seemed that long to me but it was long.) They sterilized and numbed the site of insertion and placed the needle through into the cyst on my liver, then extracted the fluid. I chose not to watch and didn’t feel much discomfort during the procedure. Next, as though on a spit, they rotated me on each side, in turn and reintroduced the needle and did the extraction—four times. It was some comfort that a camera helped them know where to guide the needle.

Well, when they finished and I dressed in my street clothes and I walking to my car I checked myself. NO PAIN!  That hadn’t happened for several months. What a relief. I’m not sure if my feet touched the ground as I returned to my car.

But, alas, in two or so months, the pain returned. Back I went to the doctor’s office for a repeat procedure. Relief for another two months. Then back for another procedure. But this one was different in that after they’d finished, I fainted. I didn’t know I did until I came to and realized someone was placing me back on the examining table. Of course, they gave me a few moments to recover then I was escorted to the doctor’s office and he told me they wouldn’t be doing another one because of the possibility of a life-threatening infection. I left, pain free, wondering what I would do in when the pain returned.

I looked to the only place available for an answer—God.

An Ordinary Life Touched by an Extraordinary God – Part 15

After all the solemnity of that day in 1992 after my surgery, no problems arose until 1998 when the pain started. It was a day in July as we were returning with my mother from a trip to Nebraska. We’d taken her for a small family reunion that consisted mostly of cousins she rarely saw.

We were driving along on the return trip and I felt a definite twinge of pain in my side. As my usual reaction to that sort of minor thing is to ignore it, I ignored it. But it wouldn’t be ignored. As the days went by the pain worsened until I visited my doctor who upon reviewing my medical history referred me to an oncologist, Dr. William Eng Lee.

Dr. Lee is of Chinese descent. I liked him immediately. He’s kind and caring and listens to his patients. The only problem, at least from my point of view, rested in the fact he felt chemotherapy the only answer. I didn’t. The last thing I wanted was poison dumped into my body.

Because I refused chemo and was in pain he gave me morphine. The entire month of August I took morphine. Any time I needed more I just called the doctor’s office. The nurse would say, “I’ll call in and renew your prescription. You don’t need to be in pain.”

What I remember of that August is very little except sleeping. At night I slept in bed. In the daytime I made a nest on the living room sofa and slept there. My husband set up a small table next to the sofa to hold necessities, mostly water and pills, but everyday he clipped off a red bloom from the neighbor’s huge rose bush that hung over the fence into our patio. He’d once bought me a set of three miniature green glass vases and he’d place the single red rose in one of those. Every time I opened my eyes I saw the beautiful rose. It remains to me today an expression of his love.

I got a call from the doctor one day asking me to come in. At the appointed time a friend drove me over since I couldn’t drive because of the morphine. The doctor said he’d talked to other doctors about my case and he’d found a doctor who suggested aspiration as an alternative to chemo.

It seems the cancer when it attached to my liver consisted of a series of fluid-filled cysts so removing the fluid would lessen the pain. Eager to give anything a try I set an appointment for the first of September. Next, I needed to get off the morphine. Dr. Lee assured me any withdrawal symptoms would be minimal.

Unfortunately for me, he was wrong.

An Ordinary Life Touched by an Extraordinary God – Part 14

A few years later we moved to the Denver area to be close to family. One Saturday in early spring all of the family, including the kids, decided to go for a bike ride. The weather was typical Colorado—gorgeous and sunny with a slight warm breeze lifting the leaves. A perfect day.

As we prepared to start out a wave of pain engulfed me. I gripped my middle and knew I couldn’t pedal a bike anywhere. Concerned, my daughter tried to make me comfortable on their bed then they left for their ride as I urged them to go on. Soon I sat up feeling better and wishing I’d gone with them. I puttered around the house for a bit then, like a wave, the pain attacked me again. It came in waves and this felt worse than the first bout. I literally rolled on the floor clutching my middle. It eased up—for a period of time—then hit me, again. It probably wasn’t as bad as the pain of childbirth but a close second.

After the family arrived back at the house, my husband and I went home and on Monday I made an appointment to see a doctor. Strangely the rest of the weekend I’d been spared the rolling waves of pain. When I described what I’d been through she determined it was my gall bladder and recommended removing it since if we left things as they were, I would have more attacks. “Best to take care of it now,” she said.

I agreed, not wanting to endure another round of such excruciating pain. She referred me to a surgeon, Dr. Sally, and before I knew what hit me I was in the hospital, under the knife, as they say.

The operation went well and the doctor pronounced it successful predicting I’d not have to go through that particular pain again. But one fine day while I was recuperating in the hospital, Dr. Sally entered my room followed by my entire family including my brother but minus the grandchildren.

They all eyed me a little strangely I thought and I wondered what was up. Quite solemnly the doctor said to me, “I wanted your family here when I told you what we found. After we removed the diseased gall bladder we discovered small growths on your liver. We had them biopsied and I’m sorry but they are cancer. I have an oncologist I want you to see after you’re home and recovered from the surgery.”

I looked around at the solemn faces on my dear family and thought, so? I said to the gathered assemblage, “I was diagnosed with cancer when you were born,” indicating my daughter. “No one thought then that I would live to raise my two babies but here I am. I raised my kids, which was all I asked of God back then. But now I’ve even seen my grandsons. God has been good to me all this time. It’s okay. The rest is in His hands.”

I don’t know what anyone thought of my short speech but I’d rehearsed it in my head many times in case this day ever arrived and I meant every word. If the cancer had returned I was ready for whatever lay ahead.

When I saw the oncologist, he confirmed to me that the biopsy revealed the cancer was the primary cancer, ovarian. I was surprised after all the years that had passed but thankful that God had spared me through all those thirty years.

What would come next, I had no clue.

An Ordinary Life Touched by an Extraordinary God – Part 13

As I said in my previous post, I’d gone to Dr. Pitt annually for about two years. He, of course, knew my medical history and like most doctors found it intriguing.

On my third visit he said to me, “It’s been almost twenty years since you were first diagnosed with ovarian cancer. I’d really like to go in to check you out. See if we can find out where we’re at now.”

Surgery isn’t one of my favorite things to participate in especially if I’m the one on the operating table. But he convinced me it would be in my best interest to have this exploratory operation. I agreed to go ahead with it, albeit reluctantly. What difference would another scar on my abdomen make, anyway?

We scheduled a date and I went under the knife, again. The difference this time proved to be nothing was removed—or put in for that matter. I’d had so much removed before I wondered sometimes why I wasn’t hollow. (Unfortunately it fills up with fat, wouldn’t you know.)

A day or two after the surgery, still in the hospital but finally coherent, Dr. Pitt came in to talk with me. His demeanor was somber as he said, “I went in hoping to see nothing out of the ordinary but it appears to me there are ‘seeds of cancer’ on your liver.”

“What do you mean, “seeds of cancer?”

“It means there’s the start of something there, I think, but that we shouldn’t do anything right now. Sometimes disturbing it makes it worse. But it needs watching. It doesn’t appear that it’s causing you any problems at this time.”

“No,” I said. “I feel fine, except for the surgery of course. And I’m not going to worry about it Worry doesn’t help or change anything.”

“That’s the spirit, but it does bear watching.”

Over the years I put the matter out of my mind—even the watching part. I’d escaped the “Big C” one more time. What could a few little seeds of cancer do to me anyway? My God is bigger than those.

However, cancer has a way sometimes of coming back and smacking you in the face when you least expect it.

An Ordinary Life Touched by an Extraordinary God – Part 12

In 1971 we moved to a small town in eastern Oregon, Enterprise by name—a peaceful little town nestled at the base of the Wallowa Mountains. The mountains were often referred to as the Alps of America. No cardiologist resided in this sleepy little town. A drive of fifty miles west to LaGrande turned out to be the closest place one could be found.

Since we, at this time, had no medical insurance and the job promised to Larry before we moved vanished when we arrived, we were, as they say, broke. Therefore, after we’d been there several months and my medication for the tachycardia ran out I made a decision. The trek to LaGrande was too costly, a visit with a doctor even more, so after talking it over with the Lord I put my life in His hands and trusted Him to take care of my medical needs.

The heart problem gradually decreased till it was no more. I found out, though, that I couldn’t take anything for pain like Excedrin or drink anything with much caffeine. This I could live with.

Then in 1976 we moved on to Missoula, Montana looking for steadier work than could be found in such a small place. One of the first things I did when we arrived in new city was find a doctor, an OB-GYN. This I’d been admonished by the Air Force doctor in Arizona to do and schedule a yearly checkup and make sure it included a Pap smear.

This I did every where we went. I found Dr. Pitts in Missoula and he proved to be good fit for me. He took great interest in my medical history and set out to watch over me. There’s a funny story about my first visit to his office. If you’re a woman you’ve no doubt seen a gynecologist. There you sit in the examining room on the table--with the stirrups—in your rustling paper “gown” and very little else feeling so vulnerable. And there I sat waiting for someone I didn’t know.

The nurse left me there with, “the doctor will be in shortly.” Okay. I sat and stared off into space after I’d checked out the room. Nothing out of the ordinary there, merely the pictures you’d normally find of various female parts and a baby in utero. A knock on the door and the doctor opened it, then stood there clipboard in hand. He looked at the clipboard, looked at me, looked down at the clipboard, looked at me again. He closed the door without entering leaving me wondering what was up.

A few minutes passed then he knocked and re-entered. I’m sure he noticed the questioning look on my face as he said, ”You’re Beverly Luke?”

“Yes.”

“Your patient record says you’re thirty-seven and when I looked in a minute ago I thought you were an eighteen year old girl.”

Astonished I could only chuckle and say, “Really I am thirty-seven.”

After a couple of years on my third visit to him he approached me with an idea he had since my cancer history intrigued him. I’ll write next time about what he proposed to do and the outcome.

An Ordinary Life Touched by an Extraordinary God – Part Eleven

Life went on as it always does, after I came home from the hospital. I took my time and moved a lot slower during this trying time, I’d learned by now that getting stressed, hurried, or even getting excited brought on what I called episodes. I tried each time my heart raced to count the rate but how accurate I was, who knows. I think they were usually over 300 beats per minute. About this time because of my forced inactivity, to my distress, I gained weight. I went up at least two sizes. It took me several years to lose the unwanted pounds and I never went down to my youthful weight but at least found a satisfactory and more healthful weight.

Not too long after my hospital stay—in the Psych Ward of all places—I scheduled a visit with my doctor. Not a psychiatrist (I know what you’re thinking) nor even a cardiologist. Just my regular general MD. He had me lie back on the examining table and when listening to my heart, wonder of wonders, my heart started racing. This was a first. He took my pulse and said, “You really do have a problem.” That was the first time he believed me. Yes, I should have sought out another doctor when this whole thing started. Not sure why I didn’t but he came highly recommended and he was on our insurance plan. I never did like him very much, though.

Finally, I got a diagnosis. He said that I had “idiopathic electro tachycardia” which when translated into plain layman’s language means that the part of my heart that controlled the electric impulse that regulates the heartbeat chose to go crazy periodically resulting in a rapid heart beat. The idiopathic part means, as he explained it to me, that they didn’t have a clue about why it happened. But it could be fatal. “No kidding.” This was back in the early Seventies and not as much was known about this condition. Today it’s called Atrial Fibrillation as well as other similar terms.

My life could finally really return to normal. The doctor prescribed a medication, Inderal, and this kept the problem in check. I found I still needed to keep my caffeine intake down to almost non-existent levels plus there were several over-the-counter pain meds I couldn’t take. None of this bothered me. The relief to have my regular life back made up for any inconvenience. The weight gain did bother me and since that time I’ve had an ongoing struggle with my weight. Anyone who’s ever needed to lose weight knows what a struggle it is. If you could just give up eating completely…sigh. Guess not.

I attribute my still being here, alive and kicking, to my heavenly Father’s intervention. I’ve reached the conclusion that when we’ve finished what he sent us here to do, even if we’re not always sure what that is, then He will take us home—and not a moment before. Our lives truly are in God’s hands. I’m glad about that, aren’t you?