Dec 08, 2019

Cancer (41)

“Never be afraid to trust an unknown future

To a known God”

• Corrie ten Bloom

My wife of 58 years (June 10) and best friend Eileen had been diagnosed with terminal cancer of the esophagus, which has now moved to the stomach. She has received radiation to reduce the original tumor (which worked), and has undergone chemo, which reduced or eliminated the original tumor, but the new tumor in the stomach requires a different chemo to slow its’ progress. This blog gives my thoughts, fears, prayers, and hopes during this challenging and difficult time.

This weeks has been an up and down week. Eileen finished the latest round of chemo pills, and started the off-week on Wednesday. She did not feel good that day, and Thursday had a really down day. We did not make it to our Bonsai Club dinner that evening, as she felt nauseous all day, and ate very little. Friday was better, and she ate normally, and then on Saturday she ate very well. If I remember correctly, it is similar to the last time she had the off-week from the chemo pills. We will find out how the effort to stop the weight loss is working on Monday when we go to see the oncologist. He mentioned last time that they may do some tests in this time period. We will see if that is still the case.

Other than the snow storm (9 inches) on Monday, it has been a quiet week. Barbara helped and she got many of the Christmas decorations out and put them up, under the direction of Eileen. Life goes on, and yes, life is still good. We went to our son Drew and Emily’s house and had an opportunity to hold the little one for an hour or more. She is really cute, did not open her eyes once, even when she ate! Clara is the first of our children or grandchildren to have hair when a newborn, very dark like her Mom, and over an inch long. What a joy to hold the little one.

A friend of ours has been giving us pre-cooked meals that help to diversify our dinners. All I have to do is heat them up! That does make things easier for me and keeps things more appetizing for Eileen. While I can always fall back on pasta (Eileen loves pasta and butter, just plain), to have choices really helps. Of course we has lots of turkey (I had cooked a turkey breast right after Thanksgiving), but that quickly becomes tiring.

God has blessed us with wonderful friends, and a loving family, and that is about as good as it gets at this time of life. We had so much to be thankful for at Thanksgiving, and we value greatly every moment of each day we are together. We see the blessings of each day, and are happy. We have learned to accept this process and journey we are on, as it is truly a part of life for each of us. we have been granted the time to taste it fully, and it has brought out so much love into our lives that would not have been expressed without this prolonged time.

Meditation

Loving One, we are grateful for all of life You have let us live. The ups and downs of life are a journey like no other, and only when looking at it from the vantage point of this time can we appreciate and understand the path. We will understand more when the journey is complete, and we will see through Your eyes how it all plays out. The meditation on gratitude we are taking is giving us the ability to see all from Your perspective, (at least a bit closer than before), and offering solace during this phase of life.