Cancer Round 3 part 4

While we were arranging appointments for me this past week and getting my medical records together, I started practicing what I said I was going to do—living as if every day was my last instead of spending a lot of time thinking about dying. It’s been a great week. Dozens of text messages, lots of email, gobs of phone calls, and several cards in the mail came our way. Several of our kids and grandkids have come for visits. Our granddaughter, Emma, spent four days of her fall break at our home.

This past week we played cards and board games with the grandkids. We watched grandkids in their soccer games. We celebrated Jordan getting an internship with an accounting firm for her last semester in the spring. We rejoiced with Shelby getting her first job out of college with the Indiana Highway Patrol as a CSI. We prayed with Darby about her health challenges that kept her out of college this semester. Madelyn was home last week from New Orleans Seminary, and we enjoyed time with her. We attended Naomi’s volleyball game where she and the other seniors were recognized. We booked a vacation house for next summer on Lake Hartwell for all 27 of our family. Libby worked with me in my greenhouse. We celebrated two birthdays this past week. It has been an amazing week, and I expect each week will be just the same.

When I received the confirmation that my salivary gland cancer had popped up its ugly head up again, a retired cardiologist friend in southern California told me that I needed to go to the research/teaching hospital that had the best reputation for treating my kind of cancer. We started with what we already knew. I had two surgeries by our local ENT surgeon, and I was treated with proton therapy at Emory University for Round 2—the neck dissection and proton therapy for the high grade mucoepidermoid carcinoma in 2020. I am also being treated for Blepharospasm at the Emory Brain Center.

We wanted a second opinion, so a very good friend in Winston-Salem, NC, who is on the medical center board arranged for us to get an appointment quickly at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center. We are grateful to the medical team we saw there as they were the first to actually see the cancer in an MRI.

God sent us an angel through our friends at Wake Forest Baptist. Dr. Ed is a retired chair of Radiation Oncology. He has taken a keen interest in my case and has done significant research, and he and other physician friends have informed us that the best place for us to go for treatment is the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center at the University of Washington Medical Center in Seattle. I will have a biopsy done on November 6 at Emory as the physicians at UWMC need that to determine if they will use targeted therapy, immunotherapy or neutron therapy. UWMC has the only clinical neutron therapy system in the USA. 

Having three different bouts with cancer, here are some things I have learned:

1.       Get the facts about your cancer diagnosis. Ask questions. Take a family member with you. Information is power.

2.       None of the “coulda woulda shoulda” and more of “no regrets.” Don’t waste time worrying over what is already past. Live in the present and enjoy every day.

3.       Tell everyone who is interested that you have cancer. You do not want to walk this journey alone. The more people who know about your health challenge, the more people who will be praying for you.

The greatest lessons I have learned are from the encouragement, prayers, and shared Bible verses from family and friends. These have been the greatest prescriptions that I have received.