Celebration

They Told You, you were dead and so was the evidence.
You are at this moment alive, and so the evidence validates.
Let’s have a Celebration and we’ll all take stock in another day.

Yes, as promised I started to write this after my visits with Drs. Vanbuskirk and consultation with Dr. Hastroph. I did write and unlike any blog I have written in four years I ripped it into shreds, Cox. You’ll never know what I wrote nor will I probably never remember. Oh by the way, I have now had an additional elaborate test for gall bladder (my second) and a third one called a Hilda scheduled for another few weeks. With Hilda, Dr. Cox cautiously enters the field of nuclear medicine keeping his care of me always on the cutting edge. Every one, I have mentioned this test to, have never heard of it.

I will now try again on Mike’s computer, mine crashed. The appointments should have been filmed. Each assigned a special role and insight into one of the most dramatic tough encounters played out. I’ll be all over the place trying to communicate my experience so as usual, please bear with me, as Dr. Cox said, what we are discussing is profound with heavyweight consequences. Not to be taken lightly. A couple of things, co-in-sided with my appointment with Dr. Cox. They were out of the script writing department of Hollywood itself. In one of my past blogs, you’ll find an entry with regards my emergency room visit for a gallstone attack. Well, at 2 am I had the severest pain I have ever experienced in the right section of my entire chest area and around to my back. For my own reasons, I struggled with the pain and personal screams until early morning. After several years of sleeping on the floor at the foot of my bed, we convinced Kris to go to another room where she keeps a speaker system that you monitor a baby with. I have remained in my hospital bed for the over-all good of the activities that have been going on within our home these last few years. We have been extremely blessed with a home that can accommodate all the visitors we have had through the years.

At this moment my in laws, Tim and Karen are repaining our garage after painting our children’s recreation area. My sister in law was here for over a month this summer alone during which time she brought back our deck like new and re worked and guided out landscape people to give us a home that continues to bring me great comfort. I hope that all who have visited and stayed with us have experience some of the welcome afforded by a Benedictine or Franciscan in the name of Jesus. It’s the kind of hospitality that brings more comfort to the giver than the receiver. I ramble, ramble, ramble, but at this moment I ask not for forgiveness. Let me get you lost again in my ramblings. I thank you from the bottom of my heart in allowing me to have someone to share my life with. Without you, my reader, I would be a little less of a person, alone in my own wanderings. Please God, allow me some comfort in talking (writing) with my friends. In an incredibly selfish way, allow me to take immense satisfaction in those who for one moment or one seconded responded to my writings. Pat has never ceased to bring me the comfort that can only come from another who not only listens but also provided feedback of hat listening. At this moment it is so critical to my personal well being. Any kind of isolation that is not chosen for oneself is the greatest hell on earth. This blog provided to me early on by Jason and Bill Bettyas has been an intro-venous valve bringing life giving health to the isolation of my hospital bed. Thank you.

Kris and my brother in law begged me to call an ambulance and go to the hospital. Kris had been there with me before and she was in tremendous fear. I wanted to hold out to reach Dr. Cox. It was a decision that Dr. Cox pretty much equated to being absolutely stupid. I’m sure he felt it had no merit and probably felt it to be counter- productive to a cure. Although he vocalized that we were playing with an awfully big pot, my life. By the time I arrived at the office and the nurse took my vitals prior to my lab work, I was a complete basket case in both body and soul. I was devastated by my lack of emotional control and my breakdown. My heroes don’t allow that to happen. I don’t consider that strange given the short history of pain which required the changing of my body patches and taking 5 Oxycodins. The physical pain was under control, but the emotions were a shambles. Dr. Cox dropped everything and elongated my meeting until after 11 am when I went to the lab for a long series of blood draws. We spent a great deal of time discussing my depression and at one point almost forgetting the gall bladder. I went to the office with my fresh new MRI and Dexa wanting to declare the death-knoll of my enemy cancer against the good judgment of both Dr. Cox and Kris. I wanted a celebration for this moment of time declaring the cancer dead and triumph over it.

By Our, I meant my entire medical team and care givers along with all my friends and the parishioners of St. Leo’s who remember me at every single Mass and bulletin for the last four years. I wanted to thank my Pastor who promised St. Leo’s to be there for Kris, my family and friends to find comfort in each other . We, in addition to the unbelievable approval of the latest anti cancer pill by the FAA merely months prior to my collapse. At that time the evidence was 100% against me. My collapse in the street by my office at Ft. Lewis and my fight to get up and instruct my classes for that morning, became the first sign of being bed ridden for the next few years. The evidence was concrete in my bone marrow test, my MRI and Dr. Cox and his staff’s diagnosis. It was dramatic and imparted to me with a sledge hammer right between the eyes as Dr. Cox with no room for error told me man to man that I would be dead within the week. I took this announcement like a man. Dr. Cox is my man and the most important professional and friend in my life, both then and always. I called all my family together and discussed the finality of my no cure Multi Myeloma Phases II and under the guidance of Dr. Vanbuskirk, my Palliative Care Doctor, I began to cover all the detail one needs to cover in preparation for ceasing to live. Well, with all of the above lurking within my mind, I wanted a cease fire. I wanted a celebration of this one moment in time, when all the evidence pointed to remission (although first declared in ’07) and with my doctors concurring I wanted a celebration and I think that’s what I got the ok for.

Out of the meeting on Monday and Tuesday, came a hard fought blessing on my celebration. After both doctors beat me to a pulp to understand that my cancer, my myelomia will never really go away, it is incurable. It will always be lurking there as every blood cell withdrawl' s performed and that there is no question – Myeloma is incurable. However, we also fought through so many other cancers, Iukemias, HIV’s, polios that although so deathly have become illnesses that people live a normal life with and with the strength of so many other spirits and systems within their bodies live almost completely normal, extended and good lives. So many die not of their primary attacker, but at times from other places that many other health and normal lives, live through. On Tuesday, I had my blood tests withdrawn and I believe they again say I’m in remission. On Wednesday with a prescription for a gallstone screening I went to the lab for that screening and the prelims show gallstones. However, Dr. Cox has prescribed a further more powerful exam called a HIDA which is evidentally from the internet literature the big daddy of all the scans. It is not taken lightly because of the nuclear aspect of it. It will scan the little intestine, the bile flow, the gall bladder and a few other things I can’t recall presently. Could it possibly rain on my parade, honestly – that has just entered my minde as I’ve given thought to this. Thank God for my photography classes and other things that keep me more fruitfully involved. Where, am I, in the need of prayer as yesterday, so today. Kris believes this test to be sort of independent of everything else. I’ll keep you posted. I’m going to have lunch and go outside for a snooze, to read, to look at our newly painted garage door, and above all else to remember and pray for you. I'll leave you along at this point, because I can write future books about the role of my priesthood with Jesus, my marriage with Kris and everything both entail in my life. I said books, but mean volumes and perhaps a library.

The Holy Spirit will finish the work yet to be done as HE HAS ALREADY WRITTEN IN EACH OF OUR Hearts THE WORK ALREADY DONE. God bless us all.