It was a bit overwhelming to me, not only that so many things were happening to me back to back, but now I had a death sentence hanging over me. I began to sink into a depression and just wanted to sleep and not think about it.
They had once again taken me off of morphine and now would give me Dilaudid for pain instead. Most of my pain was now mental, but I would ask for more Dilaudid every time they would allow me to have it so that I could escape reality and sleep.
After a while, the Dilaudid effects would not last as long and I had to deal with reality during my waking hours. This was when I began to talk to God and ask him why this was happening to me. I even blamed God because I knew he could have prevented all this. After all, didn't he promise that once I became a christian that stuff like this would not happen to me? Didn't he say that he would be there for me? I was not ready to accept that this could be my fault and that I was in this condition because I didn't take care of my body. God was supposed to take care of me in spite of myself. I let anger start to control what was left of my life, not realizing the damage I was doing in the process.
Now it was time to repair the urethrae tube to stop the fluid from leaking into my abdomen at which point they could take the drainage tube out of my stomach.
The surgery was scheduled and performed quickly, but they wouldn't take the drainage tube out until they were sure the repair worked. So when they would get me out of bed and make me walk around, all my collection bags were hanging on the walker as a reminder to me that I was on the downhill slope. My anger increased. My thoughts were such that they were making me do things that I didn't want to be doing if I was just going to die anyway.
As it turned out, the repair did not work and I was forced to make the decision for the doctors to remove my left kidney. The surgeon that came to me with this decision was a pessimist and pointed out that with as little time as I had left to live, I wouldn't need both kidneys anyway. So I gave in and told them to go ahead and take the kidney. This came as good and bad news for me. The bad news was that I would lose a perfectly healthy kidney. The good news was that after the surgery would come stronger pain meds. I wanted to just sleep through it all and wake up dead.
I woke up one afternoon, from my Dilaudid induced sleep, to find the Gaither Homecoming show was on the TV. The Crabb family was singing and as I came more and more into awareness I began to pay attention. The song that they were singing was titled "Through the Fire".
I listened as the words spoke to me as though it was Jesus himself telling me that the "promises" I was blaming God for breaking, were not real. They were a false belief that I had come to that as a christian I was somewhat invulnerable to the bad stuff in this world. As I listened to the words to that song I began to realize that it just ain't so. God didn't promise anywhere that I could do whatever I wanted with my body and if I was a follower of Christ I would be protected.
The words are as follows:
He never promised the cross would not get heavy
and the hill would not be hard to climb
He never offered victory without fighting
but He said help would always come in time
Just remember when you’re standing in the valley of decision
and the adversary says give in
Just hold on, our Lord will show up
and He will take you through the fire again
I learned that afternoon that I was in a battle and that what I actually was in the process of doing was giving up. There arose in me a fighting spirit with the knowledge that God would come in time if I would just fight the battle. So that's what I determined to do.
I knew that I was not prepared yet to fight this battle, because I wasn't equipped with the knowledge I needed to fight with. I prayed to God that he would lead me to the knowledge I needed, especially since I had a decision coming up about Chemo therapy and possibly radiation.
I will deal with that decision in the next post as well as tell you about the folks God had already placed in my life to help me with the knowledge I needed.
Friday, September 11, 2009
Monday, September 7, 2009
The Beginning
It was Friday before Easter, 2009 and my life was completely routine.
Little did I know that the next morning would be the start of a battle that I was totally unprepared for.
I had given up my land line and was dependant on my cell phone for communication with anyone outside my home, however, lately my cell phone would not receive or transmit calls inside my home.
Therefore, when I awoke on Saturday morning, doubled over with pain in my abdomen, I could not call for help. However, I remembered that I had received a text message recently so I sent a cryptic text message to my brother Stan that simply said, "Help me!".
It had the desired effect and about 20 minutes later Stan came rushing in completely out of breath asking what was wrong.
Now it should be stated that I had a past history of heart problems and was grossly overweight, so he came in with the expectation that I was possibly having a heart attack.
When I told him what the problem actually was, he was unsure what to do but decided to stick around a while to monitor the situation. The pain continued for about 2 hours at which point I began to have "the runs". The pain was such that it was difficult for me to move around, but the situation called for me to get to the bathroom as soon as possible. Several times I didn't make it in time and poor Stan was left to clean up after me.
Saturday afternoon the pain subsided and I thought it was all going to pass, however, Sunday, Easter morning the pain was back with a vengeance. This time I couldn't get a response from Stan, so I texted my sister, Beth.
When she arrived, she called the rest of the family to find out what to do. It was then that I realized that I had not urinated in almost three days. When I told her that, she decided that I needed to go to the emergency room.
It was there that I was diagnosed with renal failure and scheduled for dialysis.
Things from that point are a bit of a blur for me as they dosed me with morphine and put me in a critical care unit. I went through dialysis twice before my kidneys started working again, however, by this time I was diagnosed with colitis.
The morphine was continued as the abdominal pain had returned and I was in and out of awareness of my surroundings. I recognized most of my visitors, but the morphine and the toxins in my body put me in an alternate reality. While I was aware of the actual reality, I was also seeing things that weren't actually there.
I became paranoid and thought that I was being held against my will and everyone was in on it. It was very strange, because as I became aware of the false reality, it would morph into something different that was just as real to me as the previous visions were.
The pain was such that they gave me a button to push that would shoot morphine into my IV to relieve the pain. The problem with this was that I was pushing the button without realizing what I was doing. I have been told that I had developed a twitch in my thumb that would push the button repeatedly. As a result, I OD'd on the morphine.
They stopped the morphine, but the hallucinations continued. I was watching my life being played out on TV, and the TV wasn't even on.
I don't know how long this lasted, but for me it was an eternity. Meantime they decided to do a colonoscopy to check things out and discovered that I had a cancer in my colon. It was decided that surgery was needed to remove the cancer and the family gathered in the waiting room.
After the surgery, the doctor came to the waiting room to tell the family that they could not remove it all and that it had spread to my bladder and my liver. It was determined that it was in stage 4 and I was given six months to live if I did not receive chemotherapy and two years to live if I did get the chemotherapy. They said that I was told this, but I don't remember it. My memory was that it was just a couple of spots and nothing was said about my mortality.
After giving me antibiotics to clear up the colitis and I recovered from the surgery, I was finally sent home to contemplate the decision to do the chemo or not. At this point I was leaning toward doing the chemo, because that's all the knowledge I had about my condition. However, before I could make the decision, the pain in my abdomen returned.
I was taken back to the hospital where they proceeded to put me through multiple tests to find out why I was in pain again. This went on for several days and my stomach area began to swell up. When the doctor would ask where the pain was located, I told him that it depended on which side I was laying on. When I would turn, it felt like I would slosh, which as it turned out was exactly what was happening.
They drained almost 8 liters of fluid from my abdomen and found that the fluid was urine. It seems that when the surgeon was cutting the cancer out that he accidentally cut the urethrae tube going from the bladder to my left kidney.
At this point the kidney doctor said that they could try to repair the tube, but he was not optimistic that the repair would be successful and he wanted to remove my kidney. He said that because of the short time I had left, it would not be of great consequence. Well, this was a surprise to me as it was the first time I became aware of the death sentence that I had been given. Needless to say it had a profound effect on my mental state. I had never considered my death in such a way as to have it close at hand. It wasn't that I thought I would live forever, but I thought I had plenty of time left.
I have not mentioned my relationship with God before now because it didn't seem as important as it now had become.
My battle within has now begun.
Little did I know that the next morning would be the start of a battle that I was totally unprepared for.
I had given up my land line and was dependant on my cell phone for communication with anyone outside my home, however, lately my cell phone would not receive or transmit calls inside my home.
Therefore, when I awoke on Saturday morning, doubled over with pain in my abdomen, I could not call for help. However, I remembered that I had received a text message recently so I sent a cryptic text message to my brother Stan that simply said, "Help me!".
It had the desired effect and about 20 minutes later Stan came rushing in completely out of breath asking what was wrong.
Now it should be stated that I had a past history of heart problems and was grossly overweight, so he came in with the expectation that I was possibly having a heart attack.
When I told him what the problem actually was, he was unsure what to do but decided to stick around a while to monitor the situation. The pain continued for about 2 hours at which point I began to have "the runs". The pain was such that it was difficult for me to move around, but the situation called for me to get to the bathroom as soon as possible. Several times I didn't make it in time and poor Stan was left to clean up after me.
Saturday afternoon the pain subsided and I thought it was all going to pass, however, Sunday, Easter morning the pain was back with a vengeance. This time I couldn't get a response from Stan, so I texted my sister, Beth.
When she arrived, she called the rest of the family to find out what to do. It was then that I realized that I had not urinated in almost three days. When I told her that, she decided that I needed to go to the emergency room.
It was there that I was diagnosed with renal failure and scheduled for dialysis.
Things from that point are a bit of a blur for me as they dosed me with morphine and put me in a critical care unit. I went through dialysis twice before my kidneys started working again, however, by this time I was diagnosed with colitis.
The morphine was continued as the abdominal pain had returned and I was in and out of awareness of my surroundings. I recognized most of my visitors, but the morphine and the toxins in my body put me in an alternate reality. While I was aware of the actual reality, I was also seeing things that weren't actually there.
I became paranoid and thought that I was being held against my will and everyone was in on it. It was very strange, because as I became aware of the false reality, it would morph into something different that was just as real to me as the previous visions were.
The pain was such that they gave me a button to push that would shoot morphine into my IV to relieve the pain. The problem with this was that I was pushing the button without realizing what I was doing. I have been told that I had developed a twitch in my thumb that would push the button repeatedly. As a result, I OD'd on the morphine.
They stopped the morphine, but the hallucinations continued. I was watching my life being played out on TV, and the TV wasn't even on.
I don't know how long this lasted, but for me it was an eternity. Meantime they decided to do a colonoscopy to check things out and discovered that I had a cancer in my colon. It was decided that surgery was needed to remove the cancer and the family gathered in the waiting room.
After the surgery, the doctor came to the waiting room to tell the family that they could not remove it all and that it had spread to my bladder and my liver. It was determined that it was in stage 4 and I was given six months to live if I did not receive chemotherapy and two years to live if I did get the chemotherapy. They said that I was told this, but I don't remember it. My memory was that it was just a couple of spots and nothing was said about my mortality.
After giving me antibiotics to clear up the colitis and I recovered from the surgery, I was finally sent home to contemplate the decision to do the chemo or not. At this point I was leaning toward doing the chemo, because that's all the knowledge I had about my condition. However, before I could make the decision, the pain in my abdomen returned.
I was taken back to the hospital where they proceeded to put me through multiple tests to find out why I was in pain again. This went on for several days and my stomach area began to swell up. When the doctor would ask where the pain was located, I told him that it depended on which side I was laying on. When I would turn, it felt like I would slosh, which as it turned out was exactly what was happening.
They drained almost 8 liters of fluid from my abdomen and found that the fluid was urine. It seems that when the surgeon was cutting the cancer out that he accidentally cut the urethrae tube going from the bladder to my left kidney.
At this point the kidney doctor said that they could try to repair the tube, but he was not optimistic that the repair would be successful and he wanted to remove my kidney. He said that because of the short time I had left, it would not be of great consequence. Well, this was a surprise to me as it was the first time I became aware of the death sentence that I had been given. Needless to say it had a profound effect on my mental state. I had never considered my death in such a way as to have it close at hand. It wasn't that I thought I would live forever, but I thought I had plenty of time left.
I have not mentioned my relationship with God before now because it didn't seem as important as it now had become.
My battle within has now begun.
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