On Friday, November 16, 2012, we received devastating
news. We went to Huntsman for his
scan. We knew there was a problem when
we met with the doctor and he didn’t discuss the scan first. Usually he will tell us the results first
thing. Instead he proceeded to ask Paul
how he was feeling. He asked a lot of
questions about his gut (tenderness, severe pain, etc.). Paul told him it is the normal dumping
syndrome pain. Which can be very severe
at times.
After we got that out of the way, he discussed the scan with
us. He said, “Unfortunately, I do not
have good news for you…you have a couple of tumors growing in your peritoneal
cavity. “ What? We were both in shock! I thought,
“Did he just say what I think he said?”
I knew that was bad news because I had read a lot about Paul’s type of
cancer and the likelihood of it spreading to his peritoneal cavity was
extremely high. I knew if that happened,
we didn’t have a fighting chance!
The oncologist proceeded to tell us that there was no
treatment. He told us that they could
not do surgery and that chemotherapy would maybe increase his life by a couple
of months. When we asked him how long
Paul has, he hesitated and then told us typically people with this type of
cancer will last about 6-8 months. He
told us to remember these are just statistics…Only God knows when it is his
time.
I cannot adequately put into words how I felt at that
moment. I started sobbing…Millions of
things ran through my mind…In fact, things started to flood my mind so quickly
that I don’t even really remember what my first thought was besides this is
really bad news. Paul was definitely
calmer than me. In fact, I was shocked
at how calm he was. I think even the
doctor was surprised.
The next thing I remember, a social worker came in to talk
to us. She was very kind. I honestly don’t remember much of what she
said except that we needed to tell our little girls that night about their
daddy. I didn’t want to tell them. I didn’t know how to tell them. Seriously, how do you tell a 9-year-old and a
6-year-old that their daddy’s cancer is back and he is going to die? I knew that other people had been through
this and they had done it. I just didn’t
feel strong enough. How could they be so
strong? How did they do it?
We also have three adult children from Paul’s first
marriage. Their mom passed away when
they were 12, 14, and 16 years old. How
were we going to tell them? My heart
ached for them too. Yeah, they are
adults, but they already lost their mom…I am just the step-mom…they are going
to be frightened…now they are losing their dad too. It all just seems so unfair…
We have grandchildren too.
Our grandchildren won’t get to know their grandpa…He is such an amazing
person to know…
As soon as we left the doctors office we went up and checked
out a book called Tear Soup from the
library at Huntsman. The social worker
highly recommended it and I remembered that a friend who recently lost her
husband had told me about it before. I
have not read it yet, but Paul has and said it is very good. We also brought home a DVD version that we
are going to watch with the girls. I’ll
let you know what we think…
While Paul was picking up the book, I started to make some
phone calls. I can honestly say that
there was serious mourning going on both ends of the phone call. My wonderful family and friends were almost
crying as hard as me. It was a prime example of “mourning with those that mourn”. The hardest phone calls I had to make were to
the older children (Paul asked me to do it—I think he knew how hard it was
going to be).
We got home. Our two
youngest daughters were at a friends house.
They let them stay there to give us time to try and prepare for telling
them the “news”. They knew something
was going on as soon as they got home because two of their older siblings were
sitting on the couch very red-eyed. Paul
told them that his cancer was back. Hailey,
our nine-year-old screamed out and started to bawl. She said, “Oh no! That means he is going to die”! I actually was a little surprised at how
quickly she caught on. It was very heart breaking…
Sophie, our six-year-old just sat there for a minute and
looked at us. She didn’t say anything
for a minute. And then she said, “Okay,
can I play on the computer now?” Her
reaction surprised me as well. I thought
she would “act” a little more upset. She
is very much a daddy’s girl. Later that
evening Paul asked her if she wanted to wrestle, she just simply said, “Nope,
you can’t because you have cancer again. “
It made him feel a little sad. He
said I can still wrestle with you (she is a serious tomboy). She didn’t really respond. Later that evening she simply looked at him
and said, “So, where’s the funeral going to be?’ I was a little worried about her
reaction.
By Monday morning, Sophie started asking more
questions. She was laying on my bed with
me and asked me when Jesus was coming back to earth. I told her we didn’t know for sure, but that
it would happen someday. Then she asked
about Paul. She wanted to know if he was
going to be resurrected after he died.
We spent time talking about that.
Then she asked me if he was still going to be alive for Christmas. I told her yes. Then she wanted to know if he’d be here for
the next holiday…and so on…then she asked about next Halloween. I told I didn’t know for sure, but that I
sure hoped so.
Monday afternoon, Paul received a phone call from his
oncologist. He told Paul they wanted to
biopsy his tumors to see if they could possibly treat it with
chemotherapy. The day we found out
about the return of his cancer, his doctor told us that they would biopsy his
original tumor from his stomach to check for some genetic things to see if
there was any kind of chemo that might work (yep, they keep the tumor in
storage after they remove it). He said
that would take about 3-4 weeks because it was in Ogden. He didn’t seem overly optimistic that they
would find something.
When the doctor called Paul he said he had been reviewing
his case and discussing it with the radiologist. They both felt that it would be beneficial to
biopsy his metastasis instead of the original tumor. Evidently, there are three types of
metastasis that can occur. If Paul has
one of the three kinds they can attempt to treat it with chemotherapy. So what’s that, a 33.3% chance that they
might be able to treat it? Oh how we
hope!
Paul will have his biopsy this next Tuesday. He has opted to have it done with a local
rather than to be put under with general anesthesia. Paul would have to fast to have a general
anesthetic…obviously it is best if he can eat.
Every time he has to fast for some medical procedure, he gets behind on
eating and then ends up losing more weight.
They will use an ultrasound
machine to guide them…if that doesn’t work, they will have to use the CT to
guide them. I think it sounds painful,
but I don’t know… Paul feels it is best. Unless something goes wrong, it will be a day
procedure. I don’t know when we will
know the results.
We spent Thanksgiving in St. George with my dad. We managed to have a nice time as a
family. We want to create as many
memories as we can. Because after all, that is what it is all about!
We have been so blessed.
There have been so many people sharing their love and kindness with
us. We appreciate all the fasting,
prayers, letters, food, gift baskets, phone calls, visits, support, etc. There are angels among us! Love you all!
