One More Attempt

The orthosurgeon says: "That black shadow in your spine--it's arthritis! You need to see a neurosurgeon."
The neurosurgeon says: "I can't do a thing without and MRI so I have a complete look at where I'm going." After two tries when he can't lie down for more than two minutes, he says: "I don't order anesthesia for an MRI." Then what do we do, Doc? "I don't know. You need to see a physiologist."
The physiologist says: "You need physical therapy and some drugs for the pain."
The urologist says: "Your PSA is 41. That's cancer in your spine."
The oncologist says: "You can't take my chemo pill? I don't know what else to do." When asked about nutrition, his response was to say "I can't help you with that" and walk out of the room.

Every doctor looks at only his own little leaf, and no one sees the tree. So we're making one last attempt at the Cancer Treatment Center of America. They say they look at the whole person. They won't come up with any treatment until they know what we're dealing with.

What have we done to our medical professionals that they are afraid to say what they think? That they can't afford to show concern? That their nurses and receptionists must apologize for them? That they can't spend the time, even five minutes, to ask what would help most? That they pay no attention to pain level beyond a hydrocodone pill?

Where's Dr. Welby when we need him??

Dr. Who?

Why can't one doctor treat one patient? Why is it one doctor who treats a patient's hand and another who treats his foot and another who treats his gut and another who treats his lungs and another who treats his heart and another who treats his ear, and on and on ad infinitum???

Where is just one doctor who sees a patient with two conditions and treats them both? Where is just one doctor whose ears are trained to listen to all of the complaints? Where is one doctor who cannot see the pain for the possibly interesting condition?

If he has to go to 100 doctors, we'll find one who listens.

Blood Pressure

I think it's worth writing about. For the past few weeks my systolic BP has been about 50 points higher than I'd like it to be. Change of medication didn't make much difference. When I went back for 10 day checkup after change, the doctor asked what in the world could be making my BP go so high. I said it might be stress, but none of the stressors were anything I could control. I told him about my husband's health and my niece's health and my friend's financial straits and my parents and . . . He offered me an antidepressant, which I don't think I need, and he said that if I felt the need for a mild uplife I should let him know. Then he said, "And I'm going to uplift you right now. I can't do anything about those concerns for you, but I will pray that you can handle them." He said he would pray for me in his evening devotional.

I think that is the first time a medical doctor has ever offered to pray with or for me. I trust that man.

Desperate Friend

I've spent a few days helping a friend who has gotten into major financial trouble. Not because of identify theft or drugs or other bad habits, but stupidity does factor in. She isn't stupid, but she did some stupid desperate things. She may lose her house, and her credit is now zero. She can't borrow the $7,000 that would get her out of trouble and her family won't help. She's pretty much alone with this.

Another friend from her church and I are going to pay off enough to postpone the foreclosure and bad checks for another month. Maybe that will give us time to help her find a more permanent solution.

It was on-line and payday loans that did her in. She can live on what she makes but she had some extra expenses and took these "little" loans to help with them. When pay back came and she had no money, she took out another. Then the overdraft fees piled up, and it snowballed into big debt. Now, if the sharks deposit the post-dated checks she gave them, she could have criminal charges as well. The solution is elusive.

She's as good a person as I know when it comes to helping others. She has supplied the little extras her cousin's soon needed for college because he was on his own. She has made several 200 mile trips to take her friend to a cancer doctor. She volunteers to do anything somebody else needs done.

Now where are all those helpees? She needs them, and they mostly say it's too bad, they feel really sorry about her situation.

Maybe the best thing is for her to let the house go. It's still in her dead mother's name and she could walk away and let it revert to the mortgage company. It's probably not worth the tax accessor's valuation because it needs so much repair. But it has been her home most of her life and she probably can't find anywhere to rent as cheaply.

Well, I can't do much more. Neither can the man from the church. I think she's going to dissolve into a pool of humiliation, and maybe face the court system.

There ought to be some limits placed on these "quick loan" companies that charge such terrible fees. There ought to be something done to a company that would lend thousands of dollars to an elderly woman who was clearly senile and incapacitated (her now deceased mother).

And there ought to be common sense in a 50+ year old woman, but I've never been so desperate, so I won't judge her. I don't know what to do now but listen and encourage her to find an attorney to help her work this out.

Are you tired of listening to me about this, Lord? I know you've got an answer.

Good New Is Always Better Than Bad News

Ha! I have outdone myself with profoundness. But things that could be considered bad news become good news when compared with worse news. I believe that even if I can't explain it.

The bad news: He has arthritis in his spine. The good news: it is arthritis in his spine. The doctor and we thought it was cancer. Arthritis is very painful, especially in the spine, but it doesn't kill. Even though it might be so bad at times one would wish for an end to it, any end.

So now we go a whole new way with treatment. We don't have to decide about chemo, although he already said he absolutely wouldn't go that route. We are already doing something that helps with the pain, and we'll keep doing that. And we'll go back to our herbal practitioners to see what they can do for pain.

I never thought I would want to be tied down as I am now, but I am finding real joy in being able to relieve his pain. There is an intimacy in our rituals that we might have missed. There are no barriers left.

Life is good.





































a

Waiting

Waiting for anything is hard. Waiting to ride on the roller coaster, waiting for service at the restaurant, waiting for Christmas, waiting for a birth. So far, the hardest thing I've ever waited for is this waiting we're going through now. I can't even say what it is. Relief, maybe? Wellness?

The man I love more than life itself is sick, critically. His body is going away, ounce by ounce, pound by pound. Cancer is cruel. He is afraid of the scale in the bathroom, what it will show if he gets on it. When he must, he dresses for it: heavy shoes, a jacket, woolen pants. And it's not that he doesn't eat at all. I make him whatever he thinks will taste good, or at least not make him sick. Before he eats, he takes nausea pills, and afterward he goes to the bathroom. He's tired of chocolate milk shakes made with instant breakfasts, and he has been through all the flavors of the nutritive drinks on the grocery shelves. The steak he used to love is sickening, and salads have not been in his mouth for months.

Now I can put my thumb and forefinger around his shoulder bone and all that separates them is skin. How can this dear vigorous, outgoing man have been reduced to a skeletal figure who sleeps so much of the time?

It's cancer, that's what it is. And I really know what we're waiting for, but I won't say it. Not to him or to myself.

While we're waiting, we will keep holding hands and talking about the good times we've had, and the sad times, and the times of sheer happiness. And heaven.

Excitement Building

I haven't traveled much lately. Our five children are scattered from Arizona to Arkansas to Maryland to Massachusetts with grandchildren in Iowa and Alabama. If you go see one, how do you choose?? So big events have been the criterion for visiting our children. And this has been the season of big events. One grandson born in Massachusetts and granddaughters graduating from high school in Tennessee, Maryland and Massachusetts. Good excuses to take the trip we always said we would to see as many as possible.

It won't be easy. My husband's cancer has weakened him to the point that we are not going to set a travel schedule. And we're taking along a new adult granddaughter to help drive and just be someone we might need. It'll be lovely to spend so much time with just her. There are so many of us we seldom have time to do one-on-one; it's usually at least five or six in the same room.

We're awfully proud of our grandchildren. Scholarships abound for these bright one women, including a National Merit Scholarship. That would be an excuse for pride, but it really is more than that. They are beautiful young women, each of them kind and thoughtful and funny and loving and full of faith. The are women such as the world needs. They will be a doctor and a teacher and a museum curator, at least as they plan now. And if they find something that interests them more, they will do well at whatever it is.

I love that my children have built such strong, nourishing families--better than the one they grew up in. I love that they have purpose and goals that aren't measured in $$. I love that they take care of babies and animals and grass and each other. And their children are ready to launch out into the world, strong and vital.

God has blessed me even more abundantly than I knew to ask.