TRUST IN GOD, THE GIFT OF HINDSIGHT, AND THE UNIVERSAL SHIFT

First an update and then some reflection.  6 months of chemo done!  12 out of 12!  There was never a delay, we met the most amazing staff at MDA, and are crossing that finish line!  We disconnect on Thursday.  I rang the bell today at MDA and became quite emotional.  What a gift to ring that bell and begin to close this chapter of my life!  There’s much to process, but one thing that continually stands out in my mind is I am honored, humbled, and privileged with the task of taking you and your prayer intentions on this journey.  Every day I carried this particular cross, I took your intentions and packed them on my shoulders.  I asked God to bless us all in our struggles, bring healing to us, and to let us know His presence.

Some have asked me what my reaction was to a cancer diagnosis.  Well, if we are being honest here, I’ve had my share of surprise pregnancies, so a surprising cancer diagnosis, while very shocking, was perhaps a little tempered by my previous surprises.  I say it was tempered, because God has continually shown us the power of our trust in him.  When we got pregnant with our first, we didn’t have pregnancy-covered insurance.  Surprise - we got it 1/2 way through the pregnancy, and boy did we need it - John was an expensive little tyke.  When we got pregnant with our fourth (surprise again!) I was shocked and concerned.  4 kids in 5 years, who does that and how do parents survive it?  These many months later, we have a 21-mo-old Andrew who is a remarkable boy - happy and a delight to be around.  The older kids love him and dote on him.  In many ways, he is a glue for our family.  If we didn’t have him, how would life be different?

God has shown us time and time again that his hand is in our lives, guiding us, guarding us.  Our children are just one example of that.  Even with the cancer diagnosis, I knew He was going to take care of us, no matter where it took us, even if it meant the end of my life here on earth.  

I am thankful (I know I use the word a lot) for how the diagnosis came about and the events that followed. We first heard that the tumor was cancerous from our less than verbose and detached surgeon on the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, which was also the day after Ash Wednesday.  After finding out, I immediately thought it was going to be one hell of a Lent, but I knew we could count on the intercession of Our Lady and found comfort that we found out on her day.  

After a hospital dismissal, and sharing the news with immediate family and some dear prayer warriors, we realized I had to be readmitted.  We chose the MD Anderson Emergency Room at the encouragement of a man who was only known by my sister-in-law, but would become my oncologist (unbenknowst to us, he was a saving grace to us during this entire process).  Late that night in the ER, I had my first CT scan.  And were soon told after that they could not find any cancer in my body.  The first time I happened to see the images of that scan was a month ago.  At our appointment with our oncologist, David said, “Those are supposed to be small intestines?”  

The silver lining is, if I hadn’t had the bowel blockage as a result of the first surgery, I would have had to wait to get into MDA, wait for a scan, and would have been toiling in anxiety.  But God granted us comfort that night, less than 24 hours after the diagnosis, with the knowledge that the scans showed no more cancer.  This gave me the opportunity to focus on just the bowel blockage, and not worry about what came next regarding cancer.  Also, unbeknownst to us at the time, I would have needed a second surgery anyway, so it was perfect that I had it when I did - that way I could recover sooner, and start chemo sooner.  And in spite of my ballooned mess of intestines, I didn’t need an ostomy bag, news that surprised even the doctors.

Whenever we get pregnant and have a baby, I have this thought of the universe shifting.  Let me try to put it in words for you.  Something is new, someone is here, a great and powerful change has occurred; the earth made room for one more life.  God allowed another soul to be part of our lives.  Everything is altered and we can’t go back to the way life was before.   There is a similarity with cancer.  You change, life changes, and it becomes part of your history - it changes your perspective.  In these great shifts of life, we can accept with joy the new realities we face when we seek God in the midst of it.

I write all of this out to remind me and tell you that hindsight is a gift - we can see God working in our lives if we let him.  I have this image of me walking down a road.  Before me is a country dirt road - kind of like the road to Grandma and Popems' lake house.  As I’m walking, I turn around every now and again.  Every time I look behind me I see a new crop of flowers pop up.  I walk some more and am sometimes unsure of what path to take, but look behind again, and I see the beauty of following His will.  It gives me confidence and courage to keep pressing on.  It’s hard to see the fruits in our lives unless we look back on the past and see our Master Gardener and his will coming to fruition.  

Onward to Heaven, brothers and sisters!

Find joy in the midst of rainy days, right Andrew?

- Kate wrote this.  Not David, in spite of what it says at the bottom of this post.  Kate is not tech-savvy enough to change it.

Finally, (if you didn’t see it on FB) we will be starting a novena tomorrow (8/31) to St. Peregrine that will end the day before my scan on Friday, September 9th.  We would be honored if you followed along.  

St. Peregrine is the Patron Saint of Cancer Patients.

St. Peregrine was known for his holiness but also for a miraculous healing that he received.

He was scheduled to have his leg amputated because of a cancerous growth. The night before the surgery, he prayed for healing, received a vision of Christ coming down from the cross to touch his leg and was completely healed.

St. Peregrine Novena Prayers

Dear holy servant of God, St. Peregrine, we pray today for healing.

Intercede for us! God healed you of cancer and others were healed by your prayers. Please pray for the physical healing of…

Kate - that the cancer is completely gone from her body never to surface again.

These intentions bring us to our knees seeking your intercession for healing.

We are humbled by our physical limitations and ailments. We are so weak and so powerless. We are completely dependent upon God. And so, we ask that you pray for us…

Day 1 – Pray for us, that we will not let sickness bring us to despair

Day 2 – Pray for us, that we may persevere in hope

Day 3 – Pray for us, that we will have the courage to offer up our suffering in unity with the Cross

Day 4 – Pray for us, that the loneliness of our suffering will be consoled

Day 5 – Pray for us, that the fear of death will be replaced with the hope of everlasting life

Day 6 – Pray for us, that our suffering will not rob us of joy

Day 7 – Pray for us, that in our pain we will not become selfish but ever more selfless

Day 8 – Pray for us, that this sickness will teach me to depend more and more on God

Day 9 – Pray for us, that our lives will glorify God alone

We know, St. Peregrine, that you are a powerful intercessor because your life was completely given to God. We know that in as much as you pray for our healing, you are praying even more for our salvation.

A life of holiness like yours is more important that a life free of suffering and disease. Pray for our healing, but pray even more that we might come as close to Our Lord as you are.

Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen

The Talent of Cancer

I can't believe it's been since April since I've posted!  Time has flown with the end of the school year, the start of summer, and all other details that life entails.

God gives us all talents, gifts, abilities.  I have a friend whose at a training conference right now.  At the end of her day, they asked her to write 10 qualities of her greatness.  What a challenge.  Do we spend enough time reflecting on what makes us great?  If we know what our qualifiers are, can we then serve God that much greater knowing what he has given us?

A few weeks ago, I was thinking of the parable of the talents.

“For it will be as when a man going on a journey called his servants and entrusted to them his property; to one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. He who had received the five talents went at once and traded with them; and he made five talents more. So also, he who had the two talents made two talents more. But he who had received the one talent went and dug in the ground and hid his master’s money. Now after a long time the master of those servants came and settled accounts with them. And he who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five talents more, saying, ‘Master, you delivered to me five talents; here I have made five talents more.’ His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant; you have been faithful over a little, I will set you over much; enter into the joy of your master.’ And he also who had the two talents came forward, saying, ‘Master, you delivered to me two talents; here I have made two talents more.’ His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant; you have been faithful over a little, I will set you over much; enter into the joy of your master.’ He also who had received the one talent came forward, saying, ‘Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not winnow; so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.’ But his master answered him, ‘You wicked and slothful servant! You knew that I reap where I have not sowed, and gather where I have not winnowed? Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and at my coming I should have received what was my own with interest. So take the talent from him, and give it to him who has the ten talents. For to every one who has will more be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away. And cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness; there men will weep and gnash their teeth.’” - Matthew 25: 14-30

Cancer became a part of my life, in a sense, a talent.  It was up to me to decide what to do with it.  Do I bury it, become afraid and bitter?  Do I use it?  How do I use it? 

I know a lot of you who will read this are dealing with so much in your lives, yucky marriages, GBS, Crohn’s disease, miscarriage, infertility, stillbirth, Lupus, loss of a family member, depression, waiting for a spouse, financial issues, family issues, difficult or unplanned pregnancies.  These are just a few things that I know some of y’all are going through.  

How do we turn these into talents?  How can we bless them, multiply them, and make five talents more?  We can use anything that comes our way for God’s glory.

I became aware of, and consequently fell in love with the virtue of universal mortification/redemptive suffering freshman year of college.  When we can answer the question why is there suffering in this world, and what we do with it, life takes on a new dimension.  It gives us an opportunity to attach meaning to it - it makes life worth living.  When I discovered the virtue, it became a crux of my spiritual life - offering up my piddly sufferings for the sake of my salvation, my family’s salvation and the world’s.  Since February, the severe pain that I was in, and the uncomfortable side effects of chemo, I’ve had an opportunity to offer up my suffering for you.  

I was browsing though my alumni magazine and saw that Jeff Cavins had written a new book: When You Suffer.  It does a beautiful job explaining suffering and what we can do with it. I want to say more about the book, but Jeff does such a better job, so here’s a link to his book and a great video of him talking about it. It’s been a comfort and an eye-opener.

As for an update on what’s physically going on: Round 5 I had an allergic reaction to oxaliplatin - that’s the one that’s pretty toxic.  Most people have a reaction around round 8, but Christmas came early for me.  It was solved with lots of benadryl and hydrocortisone.  Luckily, I didn’t need epinephrine.  As a result of that reaction, I will no longer receive oxaliplatin.  The 5-FU is far and away the more important drug.  The new protocol is that I still go in every other Tuesday, get my pre-drugs: 2 nausea blockers and an immune boosting steroid, then I get hooked up to the 5-FU and carry around my handy dandy chemo in a fanny pack for 2 days.  David disconnects at home 46 hours after the start of infusion, and then I’m free again!  These days the nausea is pretty much under control and my biggest complaints are some minor hair thinning, chemo taste, fatigue, and side effects from the steroid.  I still have neuropathy from the oxali, too, but that will go away eventually.  Not too bad, all things considered.

I’ll end this post by going back to the first paragraph: what are 10 qualifiers that make you great?  Let me add cancer to my own list, for if I use it for God’s glory, it is great indeed.

New Normal

It’s been a while since we’ve updated the vast majority of people who have been such an amazing support and group of prayer warriors.  Without further ado, here’s what our daily lives have looked like.  After I made it out of the hospital (Big yay!), we were able to find a nanny to help us around the house from mid March to mid April.  By that time I was able to lift my babies, do housework, and act like life was mostly back to normal.  Your generous donations enabled us to hire her and help our family out.

Since chemo started, life has worked itself into a new schedule.  Non chemo weeks are great - I feel mostly normal and life looks very much like it did before we knew about the cancer.  Chemo weeks are rougher.  Our moms have been amazing.  They handle the kids on the week of chemo and leave me to rest through it.  Currently I am receiving the third treatment - the dose will be finished at 3pm today.  The biggest complaints are nausea, fatigue, numbness, tingling of fingers and toes, and an inability to tolerate anything cold.  These symptoms last until Friday or Saturday and then begin to taper off.  It’s a strange time of life, but we are grateful for an excellent oncologist and staff at MDA, and for really good medical care.  

When we met with our oncologist on Tuesday, he greeted us with good news regarding more pathology results.  Without going into medical jargon that I barely understood, the results are as follows:

1.  The cancer is bad luck — not environmental, and they’re 95% certain that it’s not genetic.  From this we may also conclude that children are not likely to deal with this.

2.  The cancer was growing at 50% which is an ideal number for they type and dose of the current chemo plan.  In short, if the cancer is growing too slowly, the chemo won’t find it as easily, and if it’s growing too fast, it may not kill it fast enough.  50% is literally the best possible outcome. 

3.  I am immunopositive for CDX2 - good marker of mature colon lining.   5 year survival rates are much, much higher if a person is immunopositive.  The results of this study just came out in January!  

We left that meeting with our spirits high.  

The meals have been amazing, and they will continue to serve us the remainder of chemo.  I don’t know if I mentioned this or not, but at the beginning of the year, David and I discuss our goals for our marriage, kids, etc.  One thing that both of us felt called to was hospitality to our friends and neighbors.  Oh, the irony!   The jokes on us.  We have been so blessed by your hospitality, your concern, your care, and your prayers.  

Speaking of prayers, I am humbled and honored to be praying for you, your loved ones, and your intentions.  Since the start of chemo, I have been asked to pray for a huge variety of requests.  On chemo days, I get blood work, see the doctor and staff, then finally go to the infusion room (it is an all-day affair).  When David and I are seated in the infusion room, and we have a few minutes to ourselves, we turn our attention to your needs and prayers.  We begin by saying this prayer:

O my God, We thank you for this cross you have allowed us to carry.  Please give us the strength and faith to persevere so that we may bring glory to your name while withstanding the burden of its weight.  Thank you for offering us a share in your suffering. We know that you have always been, are now, and ever will be, at our side every step of the way.  Thank you also for every “Simon” that you have sent to help us bear this cross.  We have prayed so often that this thorn in our flesh would be removed, but we trust that your grace is sufficient.  Change our hearts troubled cry of “How long, O Lord?” into words of trust “However long, O Lord”.  May we seek only to do your will and to unite our sufferings with your passion.  Help us to not get lost in our own self concerns, but may we find in these trials a way to greater virtue, a call to prayer, and a path to trust in you alone.  Permit us not to waste our pain, but to make of these struggles a sacrificial offering for others.  Lord, when we are weary and we fall, exhausted under the weight of this cross, please give us the courage to press on as you did.  Lord Jesus, we embrace with love our cross, as a share in your own.  By your grace, may we carry it all the way to the vision of your glory.  We abandon ourselves totally to your will.  Christ Jesus, we trust in you.  Amen.

I randomly found that on a prayer card at my parents house when I was writing down many of your intentions.  After we say it, then we pray for each of you by name.  One thing that has been remarkable for me to hear is how you have shared with me when a prayer request has been “fulfilled.”  To see your joy in the midst of your own struggles has been a real light to me.  I love that I am able to offer prayers of thanksgiving to what was a prior prayer of petition - jobs acquired, healthy pregnancies,  and so much more.  Many requests have not gone as expected - death in the family, sick children, surgeries required, cancers galore.  

I wanted to share with y’all a tidbit from Fr. Mike Schmitz’s podcast from March 13th called “It’s nothing personal: Dryness and Difficulties.”  At the end of it, he discusses discouragement.  I wanted to share with you some of his words (slightly edited for readability).

Here’s what Fr. Mike had to say about our wounds.

“We also have our own wounds… But sometimes God lets you endure the discouragement [and the wounds].  He lets you live with it.  Why?  Sometimes it’s those discouragements that leads you to him more than ever.  I know this is how God got my heart.  It wasn’t through my amazing awesomeness, it wasn’t through success or achievement.  It was through my wounds.  And through my being discouraged with my own wounds that God said, I’m not going to give you healing.  I don’t want your healing, I want your heart.  God allowed me to experience certain wounds because he doesn’t want my healing, he wants my heart.  God says to St. Paul, my grace is sufficient for you.  You live with this wound because my power is made perfect in your weakness.  I want your heart more than I want your healing.”  

Full podcast HERE.

I want to end there, but wanted to say one more thing.  Thank you for journeying with us and for your continual flow of prayers.  The mystical Body of Christ is a beautiful thing to be cherished!

Love to all!

Kate and Dave

Free prayers! Get them while they're hot!

There are so many personality tests out there that you can take.  Tells you the things that you already know about yourself, but now you have letters and words attached to your personality - INFP, ESFJ, Melancholic, Phlegmatic, etc.  The Catholics got into this market, too.  There is a spiritual gifts assessment, too.  Some friends and I spend an evening doing this months ago, and one of the strongest ones for me was Intercessory Prayer.  Meaning, when you ask me to pray for you, I will.  I've always felt a strong desire to pray for others.  That being said, I’m not very good at praying for myself, which is why these past two months have been really great, because I have had all y’all praying for me!  The last post I said I would be praying for you during chemo.  And some of you have sent me prayer requests. I wanted to let you know that I am writing prayers requests down and I will bring them with me to every chemo session and I will pray for you by name.  So if you want me praying for you, send me an email, text, or message me on FB.  

I originally said chemo was going to start on Monday, but we moved it to Tuesdays.  Tomorrow’s day 1!  My blood work is great, I have regained so much strength, I am continuing to recover really well from the surgery, and the port is put in and ready to go.  Thank you in advance for the prayers!

Love to all!

A happy happy Easter to everyone!  The Lord is truly risen!

And now, a moment to melt your heart:

Thomas giving his cousin, Becca a sweet kiss during Easter celebrations.

Fol-on-foxy-lady

Like I said last time, every day I feel better and better.  I am walking around more, eating full meals, albeit a limited diet, and life is returning to a new normal.  It’s funny how busy it can be even though I’m not doing much.  Kids have a way of keeping you busy.  

The doctors feel I am doing so well, they want to start chemo end of the month.  Here’s the dirty deets: Chemo cocktail called folfox (What does that fox say?) - 2 drugs.  One is platinum (keeps cells from dividing) and the other is 5-FU (keeps cells from multiplying).  Well it is appropriate to call chemo FU, right?  Side effects are fairly minor all things considered - severe sensitivity to cold (like use an oven mitt to take things out of the fridge), numbness in fingertips and toes, sores in mouth, on hands and feet, and other typical chemo stuff.  My gorgeous set of locks will happily stay in tact and I should be able to carry on my daily activities quite normally.  

We’ve been inundated with cancer information.  We had the opportunity to meet with two oncologists, one last Friday and the other yesterday.  One of the great things about MDA is all of the doctors communicate with each other, so you aren’t relying on one person’s medical expertise.  Therefore, we can go with any doctor and expect quality medical care.  The great thing about meeting with those oncologists is that we were able to attain vast amounts of information and start connecting some dots.  The official cancer diagnosis is stage III (followed by numbers and letters that I won’t get into what they mean because it’s very nuanced) appendiceal adenocarcinoma carcinoid tumor.  Thanks to this diagnosis I can no longer exclaim “It’s not a tumor!” 

I’ll break it down:

Stage III - based on size of tumor and where it spread to - spread past 3 layers of the appendix, but not past the fourth layer (fat), and was found in the lymph nodes

Appendiceal - Found in the most ridiculous organ of your body. 

Adenocarcinoma - cancer that forms in mucus-secreting glands.  Breast, colon, pancreas cancers, etc. are all adenocarcinomas.

Carcinoid - slow-growing, non-spreading type of neuroendocrine tumor originating in cells of neuroendocrine system.

The chemo is to treat the adenocarcinoma.  We are calling it the insurance policy plan (adjuvant therapy).  Without treatment very likely cancer will return and with treatment, the number goes down to 25%.  We’ll take it!  

It will be 12 cycles given every two weeks, and I’ll be finishing up the end of September.  

Following chemotherapy, they will do a CT and we will go from there.

Physical update complete.  The only thing I would add here is when chemo starts, I’d love to offer it up for you and your intentions, so please feel free to let us know how we can pray for you.  Our specific prayer request is for the chemo to kill any rogue cells quickly and efficiently.  We are offering continued prayers of thanksgiving for all you have done for us.

David wants to provide an update for you regarding physical things for the house, but he’s dealing with a birthday boy (Thomas turns 3 today!) who is throwing a fit right now.  It’s his party and he’ll cry if he wants to.

Love to all!

Famine to Feast (Someday)

My darling wife, home at last.  

Dear world.  I am home - been here since Wednesday morning.  Thank God for an amazing surgeon (Dr. Ch) who championed my release 2 days prior to her fellow’s wishes.  Being home really is the best medicine.  I’m eating better, resting better, and so happy to be around my happy family.  We thank God for the amazing network of support that has done SO much for us already - meals, house cleaning, financial support, child care.  

Before all this chaos entered my life, I was living in my own bubble of the chaos of 4 little ones at home.  It was good - lonely and fulfilling, depended on the moment.  I went on with my simple life - emptying the dishwasher, teaching our now 6-yr-old how to add, dressing the kiddy bugs for their adventures at Mother’s Day Out and Pre-K, managing disputes, you know - living life as a overworked, overtired mother.  But there was peace. I have (as you have read) an amazing supportive husband, and I knew I was doing my best to follow God’s will and raise little souls to love and fear him.

With this diagnosis and the trauma of surgeries/bowel obstruction and all that entailed, I was thrown into a situation where my main focus of life shifted.  No longer worrying about whether the kids made the beds,  the focus was to survive, to make it moment by moment.  I can honestly say that I have never experienced such pain, nor have I known such an outpouring of grace from God, and prayers from our Lady, and the Saints.  This is what meant the most to me: your prayers truly sustained me in the weakest moments.  I have heard people in the past say how they could feel your prayers.  Now I can say I palpably felt every offering of yours and still do.  

This cancer diagnosis has done something remarkable for me - I’ve been under your attention in a very different way.  So many people from my past and present have come out offering support.  I liked living a life under the radar, so I wasn’t sure how this was going to go.  We needed prayers, so we pleaded to you, and you have responded.  We are humbled - truly humbled and grateful for your support in our lives.  This isn’t how I would have pictured this year going, but as things have played out, I’m flabbergasted by your outpouring of love.  Thank you.  Thank you.  Thank you.

Every day is better than the previous day.  I am eating better bit by bit.  Yesterday I tried my hand at a PB&J with no adverse reactions.  Today I ate a boiled egg.  You don’t know how awesome normal bowel function is until it’s gone and they stick a plastic tube down your throat.  I am regaining strength slowly, and my mental focus is improving.  David and I are processing and the kids are acting like they always have.  

The road is long, but as each day brings signs of improvement, I don’t lose hope easily.  I’m thankful for some relief for my body as I recover.  One of my favorite things about these past three weeks is the opportunities I’ve had to pray.  I could have twiddled my thumbs in that hospital bed, but I listened to the Rosary, the daily readings, podcasts about the good work that we offer to God (Fr. Mike Schmitz, you rock!).  In some ways it was like a retreat, but better than a retreat because I was suffering - I was able to physically offer up my sufferings to unite me to Christ and to bring you with me as I drew closer to Him.  I prayed for every single one of you - prayers of thanksgiving and prayers for your deeper conversion closer to Christ.  One of the daily readings was about Christ’s temptation in the desert (My sister-in-law and I also watched Fr. Dave’s talk on the Holy Spirit and the desert - highly recommend).  After hearing that reading thousands of times, for the first time I was able to relate to Christ on a very different level - I was fasting, too, like I have never fasted before (and wouldn’t choose to on my own - It’s not so safe to do that to your own body, I would think).  How weak and how tired I was (and still am), how he avoided temptation when he was so weak and tired.  I prayed for the strength to bear the suffering as he did.  Oh Lent - you offer us opportunities.  Let us take you up on them so that we can suffer with Christ and in doing so, gain his strength, his support, his graces.

As I continue this journey, especially when the chemo starts up and I get really uncomfortable again, those prayers for you will continue.  

We cannot stress enough our gratitude for your outpouring of love.  I love each of you so deeply.  Thank you.

Freedom!

Really short update tonight.

If everything goes well overnight, Katie will be discharged tomorrow, and will finally be coming home!

She is cleared to eat a full diet, but will be taking things very slowly to start with.  She'll primarily be on the BRAT diet - Bananas, Rice, Applesauce, Toast - for a couple days, then will start adding one or two foods per day until she's back to a normal diet.  

We will come back to the surgeon in about a week for a checkup, then will be meeting with a couple different oncologists to find the one we like.  She's still very weak relative to before the surgery, and is not allowed to pick up anything heavier than a jug of milk for about 8 weeks.  She won't be able to care for our kids alone for a while, so we're working on finding some help around the house on a more permanent basis.  

The blog posts will probably be much less frequent now that she's home, though they may pick up again once chemo starts, or perhaps after we meet with the oncologists and know more about what to expect form chemo.  We'll see. 

I know I say this every time, but I really can't thank you enough for your prayers and support over these past 2 weeks.  You have sustained us through what we hope is the hardest part of this illness, and we're looking forward to life resuming some kind of normalcy, even if it won't look like it used to for a while still.  

Thank you again, we love you, and may God abundantly bless you!

David