Cancer, such a dirty word.

You know, I should start from the beginning, but I’m not sure where that would be. My first up close and personal contact with the C word came rather surreptitiously. It all started with anomalies that should give most people pause. Flashing lights in my peripheral vision, sometimes so extreme there were “black holes” in my vision afterwards. Little jagged rainbows appeared sometimes as well, likely would’ve been beautiful if not so disconcerting. There were other signs, that I chalked up to random causes. Severe headaches while out fishing with a friend, that I figured were the combination of the hot sun plus a tight cap. Perhaps the scariest were the episodes after being on the roof of my house fixing some shingles. Profuse sweating, and even some trembling and nausea. Finally the headaches across the back of my head just above my neck accompanied by weakness in my legs and arms and dizziness. It was these final symptoms that sent me to the doctor.

Sadly, the doctor I chose to use was incompetent. I chose him for almost purely financial reasons ($25.00 office visit) and that was a near fatal mistake. He first diagnosed me with high blood pressure, which I had on my first visit (Something like 188/109). He prescribed medication to control my bp and heart rate, and then sent me to an Opthalmologist thinking that the symptoms I was reporting “might be” a detached retina. My blood pressure stabilized and actually started getting a bit too low on the bottom number. The “eye doctor” gave me a clean bill of health, so detached retina was ruled out.

About a month after my last visit to the quack, I started getting fairly severe headaches across the back of my head, just above my neck. I attributed these to stress, etc. Then, one day at school, about a month before Spring Break, I had a spell that seemed like the onset of the flu…bad headache, urge to throw up, weakness in the extremeties and rather sudden and profuse sweating. I was sick enough to go home from school for the afternoon.

Spring Break came and I was feeling somewhat better, although with some occasional symptoms recurring. I decided to go to Springfield and take Katy with me to attend their meeting with Kevin Presley. We had been invited to stay with Larry and Wendy Ford during the meeting, so we headed over. I’m not even sure now, but it seems the first service we attended was Sunday night. At the end of that service, when we stood up for the closing song, I had one of my spells. I felt terrible and finally went to the back row and sat down hoping it would subside. The “spell” eased up a bit and I drove back out to Larry and Wendy’s house.

When we got there, Larry and Wendy both started talking to me about perhaps going to the emergency room to get checked out. I did NOT want to go to the emergency room because I knew it would mean $$$$, so I just said no. Wendy, started talking to me in a very sweet way and persisted in the idea that I should get checked out. I rebuffed her suggestions and finally headed in and went to bed. I tossed and turned all night and when I awoke Monday morning, still did not feel well. Thinking about my conversation with Wendy and Larry turned the tide and I went in and told them I wanted someone to go ahead and take me to the emergency room to get checked out. I only vaguely remember being in the waiting area, but I remember being cold and extremely fatigued and somone getting me some blankets to lay down on a couch and cover up.

Finally they came and got me to do a CAT scan. Not too long after the CAT scan, a doctor came out to see me who would become and remains my hero. His name was Dr. Sunghoon Lee and he is a Neurosurgeon, specializing in the brain and spine. He sat us down and told us that the CAT scan revealed  a “mass” in my brain and he wanted to do a biopsy very soon. The doctor also said that during the biopsy, if the tumor looked like it needed to come out, that he would go ahead and take it. I wasn’t sure what very soon meant, but soon discovered it meant Wednesday, so I was admitted immediately and assigned a hospital room at St. John’s Hospital.

From this point, I don’t remember nearly enough details, but I do know that there was an M.R.I. done along with blood tests, etc. and so on. The ONLY thing I remember about the surgery is being wheeled into the operating room and meeting some members of Dr. Lee’s team, after that it was “lights out” and I remember nothing until trying to wake up in the recovery room on a ventilator, with a doctor standing over me, trying to get me to “try harder” to breathe on my own. I guess I had fought the ventilator as I was waking up because they had to put things on my hands to keep me from trying to pull the tube out. It is VERY difficult to breathe when you have a tube down your throat, doing your breathing for you, I have never felt such great relief as when they finally pulled that tube out of my throat.

When the staff  got me stabilized, they let  visitors in and I believe the first people in, were Dan Wissinger and Wendy Ford (I think). I immediately requested that Dan pray and especially give thanks to God for bringing me through the surgery. The night I was admitted I had called my folks who were in West Virginia, where Dad was holding a Gospel Meeting. When I got my Mom on the phone, I said “I’m in the first place that I met you…know where that is?” I was born in Springfield, in St. Johns and she immediately knew where I was. Unbeknownst to me, they immediately consulted with the brethren there and decided to start driving to Springfield to be with me, I belive Bro. Wynn Baker finished up the meeting in WVa.

The next hours/days, etc. I could give quite the list of people that came to see me in the hospital, there is no way I could name or thank all the people. I was plesantly surprised that most of my immediate family got to come up and visit me in Springfield. There was so much comfort in having my Mom and Dad, Kim, Joni, Stephen and I think Clay was there too. I told Jonathan to stay home and work because he needed to, and I’m glad he “obeyed” me…HA! Of course I had Katy and Lehua there as well. Many of the people attending Kevin’s meeting came up as did several of my fellow teachers, etc. and even my Principal. ( I still feel a bit bad for providing such a dramatic background for Kevin’s meeting!) I felt blessed, even though I had a big scar on the side of my head in the shape of a “C” and something like 43? staples in my head (Not sure about that number, but I do know that Stephen counted them and he likely remembers. You can look at pictures on my Facebook page if you want to see for yourself.) I’ll have to come back and work on this some more very soon, but I’m afraid if I don’t go ahead and publish it, I may never do so.

“C” is for cancer? “C” is for cure I think.
(picture and caption posted by Randy)

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