A new wrinkle

“I know him!” Memorable December moments

A new wrinkle

The Cancer Hiccups post was getting long enough to become a novel. This post is part 2 of that post, simply because these hiccups won’t go away. I wrote in the 12/13 update on that post that we’d had “a new wrinkle,” and since this post details our attempts to iron out that new wrinkle (while still battling hiccups), I thought I’d title it that way.

A quick catch-up

If you’re just joining us, here are the Spark Notes:

In September, Carolyn had surgery to remove what we thought was an enlarged lymph node in her jaw that had become painful. We discovered that it was actually a rare, destructive salivary gland cancer. With that news, doctors order a PET scan to determine abnormal activity. In addition to the area of that one salivary gland, the back of her tongue/tonsils and several lymph nodes in her abdomen/groin area showed up as active.

We had known something was up in her abdomen/groin area because for a couple of months prior, she’d been experiencing pain and soreness. Doctors had attributed that to enlarged lymph nodes due to sarcoidosis.

After consultation with doctors here in Blacksburg and at Wake Forest Baptist, Carolyn had a second surgery to make sure all the initial salivary gland cancer was removed. At that time they also took tissue from her tongue/tonsils area to study.

That was last Tuesday. On Thursday, she went in to her local ENT here to have the drain port from the surgery removed. In doing so, her blood pressure dropped dramatically, and an ambulance was called. She was able to go home, but pain in her abdomen and legs erupted and became so severe, we took her to the ER and before we knew it, she had spent two nights in the hospital, just getting her pain under control. A CT scan showed enlarged lymph nodes that were even bigger than the CT scan from October. It was these lymph nodes, pressing against her ureters and kidneys that were causing the pain.

In order to understand what was going on in these nodes, they did a needle biopsy. She was also placed on a high dosage of steroids in order to attempt to reduce the lymph nodes and control the pain. It worked. She was able to return home on Saturday and has been taking it easy since then as she continues to recoup from the surgery and pain incident.

The new wrinkle

This morning we went to her local oncologist, and while she didn’t have the test results back from the needle biopsy, both she and Carolyn were pleased of how the steroids had helped and believed that the lymph nodes were sarcoidosis (we’d been told that by the docs at Wake Forest as well). So we prepared to go to Winston-Salem tomorrow for the next post-surgery consultation and also to catch her docs there up with the incident last week in the hospital.

I was just about to walk into lunch at El Gran Rodeo with our church staff after our weekly meeting when Carolyn called and informed me that her local oncologist had called with preliminary results from the biopsy – non-Hodgkins lymphoma, cancer. She asked me not to say anything at the time, to wait while she gathered her thoughts. It was a surreal lunch and afternoon. In retrospect, I think that’s what caused me to lose in corn hole when we played on our return to the office.

Responding in prayer and praise

Carolyn was home with Sam when she got the phone call. Adelyn and Carolyn’s mom were on a shopping trip. Sam was able to pray over Carolyn an incredible prayer, one that spoke truth, comfort and power. What a blessing to be led spiritually by your son at such a time. It sounds like a Jesus Juke, but amazingly enough, Adelyn had been inspired to write a song last night. I was watching TV in the man cave when she came out and played/sang it for me. I was stunned. Not because it’s so good, but because it is now so fitting to this moment – in so many ways. It is a melody for crying out to God.

After Adelyn and Teresa returned from their shopping trip, Adelyn sat down in front of the fire place, and she played it for Carolyn. I wanted to share it with you

Now before you think we are some kind “super spiritual” family. We are not. We are sooooo normal. Quirky. Strugglers. Scared. What makes us unique at all is only our rabid confidence that Jesus is who He says He is. He is our Savior.

We are clinging to Him even as we are crying out.

So many are confused about being a Christian. Trusting Jesus is not so that you can go to heaven when you die. That’s the eternal blessing, eternal life. Trusting Jesus is supposed to make life fuller, deeper and more meaningful TODAY. Being a Christian is about enjoying a love relationship with Jesus daily. We suffer. We strain. We stress. We hurt. But that’s what makes Christianity so radically different from every other world religion. It alone addresses the hard reality of this broken world with real answers and real hope.

I wrote in Cancer Hiccups a section called “How to Respond,” and I think it’s worth re-sharing, simply because it’s STILL what we’d ask:

How to respond:

Don’t freak out. We are not. It is what it is, and we are not in control. Our life perspective is centered in the bedrock certainty that God is great, and God is good. That He is love. Nothing can touch us except what He’s appointed. It doesn’t feel good, and we certainly have questions, but since cancer is a reality (again), we are confident that His grace will be sufficient each day.
Speaking of grace… we may have bad days. It’s ok. We’re not perfect. Jesus is. Please don’t hold Jesus responsible for our imperfect responses. Give us grace, and pray that our bad days and shaky moments are few. And don’t be unnerved if/when either of us snips, snaps, gripes or struggles. It’s normal. We are going to lean heavily on strength of Jesus, confident in Him. Any failure to reflect Him is not due to His brightness but our dullness.
Pray. I think that goes without saying. Seriously.

• Pray for Carolyn’s thought life and mind as well as healing.

• Pray for the surgery to not be damaging to facial nerves. This was answered!

We have lived with the craziness of cancer for 27 years. Whoa. You know what has ushered us through these moments? God’s love has been poured through your prayers. He’s real, folks. So pray. I can affirm with great confidence what the apostle Paul says in 2 Corinthians 1.11:“…you join in helping us by your prayers. Then many will give thanks on our behalf for the gift that came to us through the prayers of many.”
It’s not fun. It’s an interruption. It’s an inconvenience. However, like all of life’s hiccups, it’s an opportunity. There may be some moments of genuine suck along the way. Don’t be alarmed, and don’t get discouraged if we need to be reminded to not be alarmed.

One verse comes to mind during these ridiculous days of fighting cancer on numerous fronts:

Now we have this treasure in clay jars, so that this extraordinary power may be from God and not from us. We are afflicted in every way but not crushed; we are perplexed but not in despair; we are persecuted but not abandoned; we are struck down but not destroyed. We always carry the death of Jesus in our body, so that the life of Jesus may also be displayed in our body. (2 Corinthians 4.7-10)

Watch

What does one do in days like this when you’re hit from all angles? You grab Jesus’ hand, and you get back up. Pray for us to keep getting up. Interestingly, I preached a Christmas message Sunday night entitled Let Others Watch in which I shared that “when God works in our lives, it invites others in to watch, and it moves them to worship as well.” I feel so unworthy to ask anyone to “watch” our lives during these days of turmoil, because I know how imperfectly we attempt to reflect a perfect God. It is also not something fun to watch. But with your prayers, I’m going to say with great humility… pray and watch.. and see for yourself how Jesus deals with wrinkles.

He is just too good to not be praised.

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Also in Our Cancer Saga

Carolyn was first diagnosed with Hodgkin's Disease in 1991. Since then, it's been a wild, crazy cancer saga.