by John Creasey
Their marriage relationship disintegrated into an emotional battlefield. Dad retreated into an interior, private place, emotionally withdrawn from family while his outward demeanor with others was friendly and engaging. His actions were confusing to me. Mom was often angry and hostile at home, but her friends all believed her to be a paragon of kindness and Christian love. Mom’s actions were bewildering and unsafe. I was never sure what to expect.
Separating seemed to be the way they dealt with conflict. If not physical separation, certainly being emotionally aloof, refusing to talk to one another for days, sometimes weeks. Those times were agony for my brothers and me. The atmosphere inside the walls of our house felt as cold as an igloo in winter; my fears hung like icicles on their silence. ~ DLT diary, 2015
I’ve always told our children, when making important decisions, “Keep your options open as long as you can. Think things through carefully. Options are good.” Today is that kind of day. Only today, options are not our only issue. So is time. Every day we delay is a day our problem grows more deadly. We cannot put our options on hold this time.
There are myriad forms to fill out it seems, boxes to be checked, questions to be asked and answered to the best of our ability. And we wait. In the interim someone explains to us that the multi-disciplinary group discussing Dixie’s and other patient cases consists of a surgeon, oncologist, radiologist, pathologist, pharmacist, nutritionist, researcher, social worker, chaplain and perhaps one or two others I have already forgotten. An amazing array of medical knowledge to say the least.
Early in the afternoon we are met by a physician who, we are told, “specializes in your disease.” Also a nurse who manages patient care, a patient team coordinator who serves as scheduler, and a nutritionist. The physician is Dr. James O. Park, a surgeon whose specialty is colorectal, liver and pancreatic cancer care.
I first notice his hands as we greet one another. They are small, clean and soft. He is medium in height, hair jet black, glasses, wearing a dark blue suit, white shirt and tie. His voice exudes the confidence of a doctor in charge as he tells us the medical team has reviewed Dixie’s data and agrees she qualifies as a candidate for surgery, if she concurs. On the back of a file folder he scribbles lines depicting his view of Dixie’s internal organs, explaining as he goes what to him makes perfect sense. To us maybe not so much.
We listen intently anyway as he outlines what he calls the “Whipple surgical procedure.” My iPad is open, but his explanation is in such rapid sequence taking notes is out of the question. Eventually he concludes by saying if we decide to go forward, surgery will of necessity be followed up by radiation and chemotherapy. Are there any questions? Are you kidding? Yes, there are hundreds. We just don’t know what they are yet.
I ask the first one that comes to mind as I look at this doctor who seems way too young to be someone who knows what he is talking about. Pancreaticoduodenectomy. Seriously? Is this really a word? And the “Whipple procedure,” as he calls it, turns out to be an extremely difficult surgery for both patient and surgeon. Dr. Park says it is in fact the “Cadillac of all surgeries,” very big and very complicated, so I ask if he has ever done this before.
He offers a knowing smile, one suggesting he has heard this question at other times; then in a quiet but very confident voice he answers, “Yes, I have done over nine hundred Whipple surgeries to date. In fact, it is all I do.”
Well, this is not quite the answer I had expected. I ask Dixie, “What do you think?”
“I think we should do it,” she replies. “We have prayed for guidance and for healing. This seems to be a part of our answer.”
University of Washington Medical Center is, of course, a teaching hospital. Dixie will undergo surgery with the attending physician being Dr. Park. We understand that a 5th year resident doctor will hone his present and future skills by working at the attending physician’s side, along with a room full of other team members who are at varying stages in their medical studies. Maybe this is what is meant by doctors and nurses “practicing medicine.”
Ever the mentor, even in this Dixie agrees to participate in both UWMC and the renowned Fred Hutchinson Cancer research programs connected with SCCA, aiding in research for better ways to diagnose and treat those who at a future time may be on this same journey. Her question of me throughout life as we make our way into and out of difficult seasons has always been, “What do you think God is teaching us now?”
We share with Dr. Park that we believe in, and have experienced in our lifetimes, the healing power of God. We are asking for a miracle of healing now, at the hand of God. Concurrently, we respect the mind, heart and hands of the physician, the practice of medicine, of medical science, and of the varied disciplines of medicine, naturopathic and spiritual healing. Our Creator and Redeemer works in many ways “his wonders to perform.” As we have always done throughout life, above all else, we trust in our Lord’s perfect will. God willing, the outcome Dixie and I look forward to includes many more productive and joyful years together!
And so at 5:30 on Friday morning, 7 March 2014, Pastor Gary is waiting when we arrive at the hospital. We huddle for words of comfort and prayer and then walk with Dixie to the staging area where she is admitted for surgery into the University of Washington Medical Center.
4
Looking for Signposts
Set up road markers for yourself;
make yourself guideposts;
consider well the highway,
the road by which you went.
~ Jeremiah 31:21
Memory is a curious thing.
Like when a Reader’s Digest article awakens a poignant memory for me that, in turn, triggers an avalanche of childhood memories.
In my early forties and with much of childhood still a virtual blank, a Christmas scene with vivid detail suddenly drops into my memory bank. The scene is our dining table, piled with special foods and presents, all gifts from Dad who is not living at home at the time. He separated from Mom a few months before. Although he is not here, nor is my deceased brother, Franklin, there are places set for them, both remaining empty. The only gift I can recall from that occasion is a silk robe for my mother. It is the most beautiful robe I have ever seen, a deep maroon red with big white flowers. I never saw her wear it.
I remember another incident when my parents are about to separate. I am around three years old and my mother is leaving, taking only me with her. I cry hard and long until I become ill. My Grandmother Barbee is crying, too, silently standing by the door, outside. I suspect she is the reason for my mother’s rage. Mom deeply dislikes grandmother. My mother stays, my grandmother leaves, her return visits rare and only when other family members come with her.
That was then. This is now. Shadowy places can still be scary and dark. This new part of my life journey is all of that. Dark and scary. And lonely, too. Yet here in my Valley of Shadows, I have discovered what should have been obvious to me going in. Without light, there can be no shadows. Looking to the Light of my life has been my rod and staff that brings me comfort. The shadows are a reminder that my Light is always with me. Something I’ve not always known. ~ DLT diary, 2015
Friday 7 March. The hours pass slowly in the waiting area, a fairly large room with fifteen or twenty people coming and going at any given time. A male volunteer serves as coordinator who, every once in a while takes a phone message and then motions to someone, saying, “The doctor is ready to see you now.” Those who’ve been called follow him and disappear from sight behind a door at the far side of the room. Moments later, the volunteer returns and resumes his place at his desk. At this point, I invariably look at the clock on the wall, asking silently, will we be next?
Michele has taken the day off to be with us; well, mostly with me as it turns out. Late in the afternoon one of our neighbors who works in another Seattle hospital drops by to check on how things are going. I am surprised to see her, but grateful. She stays for a couple of hours until needing to catch her bu
s ride home. The volunteer continues to work the room; everyone else it seems, but not us. There is only a handful of people still waiting when at last he heads in our direction. He motions to us. We stand as we hear the familiar, “The doctor is ready to see you now.” I look at the clock. More than six hours have come and gone since we first arrived in this room.
Michele and I follow the volunteer to the mysterious door we have been staring at all day. It opens into a small windowless room, with table and chairs, where we are greeted by Dr. Park. We gather close around the small table and listen carefully to every word as he states, very matter-of-factly, that Dixie’s cancer tumor has been removed along with other no longer needed human parts and everything disassembled has been re-attached. Just another day’s work. He assures us everything has gone well and we can now see her in recovery. She will be drowsy, but awake. He then excuses himself saying, “I have to go. I have another surgery.”
“Another surgery? Right now?” I blurt out, incredulous at the thought.
“Yes.”
“As complicated as this one?”
“The same. Another Whipple,” he replies, reaching for the door. “I will check on Dixie tonight and see you later.”
I look at Michele and shake my head with a sense of relief. “I’m glad we were the first.” We walk out together and down the hall to the recovery room.
I should pause here, in case you may be wondering why so often in this narrative, I use “we” instead of “Dixie,” or “she” or “her.” When one you love deeply is going through cancer surgery or any other traumatic major happening in their life, it quickly becomes a “we” event. And while much of what happens is hers alone to bear, the truth is, we are all affected as well. We are on this journey together whether we want to be or not.
Monday 9 March. It’s 5 o’clock. We are forty-eight hours post-surgery now. Michele is sitting across the hospital room, knitting. Dixie is reading the Sunday Seattle Times, her favorite issue of our daily newspaper. And I am writing to the growing number of people from all around the world who have spread a blanket of prayer over us over these last few days.
Our personal lives and ministry of late have been an emotional and spiritual storm. Like Elijah of old, we’ve had to believe God is somewhere in the storm and just ride it out until we can see him again. Only weeks ago Dixie and I were reviewing our life together, setting personal and ministry goals in a lovely, quiet setting in a desert we both find refreshing. Then our world turned upside down!
I have connected with seminary leadership in Kiev, notifying them of our situation and of the necessity to cancel my trip into Russia. Since I am scheduled to teach later this month, my not being available puts them in an awkward position. Fortunately, a brother from New Zealand is contacted to step in and take my place.
I also notify our immediate family and, as president/executive director of the CASA 50+ Network, apprise the organization’s board members of what is taking place. It remains unclear to me at present, but I feel as though we may have just entered the most precious season of Dixie’s and my sixty-year journey together since first we met.
As word of our circumstance spreads, hundreds of pastors and ministry colleagues, many friends and even total strangers stop whatever they are doing to begin praying for Dixie. This prayer covering of our Protestant, Catholic, Jewish and Muslim friends, combined the best wishes of our non-religious friends, stretches around the world and is amazing to think about! We are humbled and strengthened by our Lord’s peaceful attention to us here at storm center.
Dixie feels strong at this point. Less than twenty-four hours after surgery, she takes a first short walk, then sits for a few minutes in a chair. Today, she has taken two longer walks and plans one more before day’s end. Little signs of progress are big on the path back from life’s edge toward health and wellness.
When the doctor first said, “Ninety-five percent chance of pancreatic cancer,” we were stunned silent. Twenty-four days later, post surgery, I am here with the woman I met for the very first time and fell in love with sixty years ago in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Twenty-four days of words like nervous, tense, anxious, hopeless, lost. Words dealt like cards of despair from the hand of a shady dealer.
Yet in these twenty-four days we have also been reminded of words like peace, calm, trust, faith, hope; words reassuring us we are never far from the Good Shepherd. None who trust in him ever are. We are not lost. We are found. Not only by the Shepherd, but by others, too. People are emerging from our past and present, bringing with them the Light of Hope and Joy, Peace and Love. It is what family is about. God’s family, burning brightly for one another, candles pushing back the darkness surrounding us. During twenty-four dark days, with prayer and encouragement and acts of kindness, the family of God has been Light to us.
Each day I look for signposts giving direction on this part of our journey, telling us where we are, but there are few. Dixie shares with me, for the first time, an awareness she received in prayer months earlier, suggesting something major would soon be coming her way. She had said nothing, thinking it a premonition more about my health issues than any of her own, preparing her to deal with what might take place. Instead it has been the opposite.
We pray for healing and for obedience, confident in our asking, secure in his will. She speaks of a great peace in preparing for and coming through this major surgery, as though being embraced by the Holy Spirit in some unseen, yet beautiful way. And why not? She is the child of a Father strong and faithful. It is a battle, no doubt about it. It is a hard time. But she is uncomplaining and courageous in the face of our Enemy Cancer.
You have put more joy in my heart than they have when their grain and wine abound.
In peace I will both lie down and sleep; for you alone O LORD, make me dwell in safety.
~ Psalm 4:7,8
On Day 3, the remaining hospital spaghetti is removed, except for one line leading to the epidural located in her back. Doctors are smiling. Nurses are talking about “the woman in 4332.” After all she’s been through and at her age they say her recovery is remarkable. She takes two walks today, sits in the chair for a few minutes and for the first time in several weeks, Dixie eats real food. You know, the kind you have to chew before swallowing?
Soup broth and an egg salad sandwich, of which only the bread does not make the trip. The egg salad is gone, though we are not sure where exactly, since her plumbing is pretty well rearranged down there. We find humor in imagining how the salad may be exploring new twists and turns right now, asking for directions on its intended mission. But whatever happens, it’s down there for sure, breaking in new frontiers of assimilation.
A couple of hours later things are not going well. The food has created an upset. One of the resident physicians says, “No worries, we just have to go a bit slower reintroducing food to her system.” The drink Boost is suggested. Unfortunately, the hospital doesn’t have it available. She needs the calories and content to help restart the engines so I leave to find a nearby 24-hour Safeway and purchase a carton of Boost.
Tonight is the first night I return to our home. I’ve been sleeping on a makeshift bed on the floor in her hospital room. It is Dixie’s first night away from Michele or me since arriving in the hospital. I think she is looking forward to it. As it turns out, there are two Code Blues during the night, together with the usual “I need to check your . . . ” wake ups, so Dixie doesn’t get much sleep.
5
Song Sparrows and Hummingbirds
I saw little of the Barbee side of the family. Grandfather Barbee was tall and robust with deeply tanned skin and beautiful white hair and mustache. He was a handsome man, as was my father and his older brother, Dick. Both his sons resembled him in looks. Grandmother Barbee was tall and dark skinned, her long smooth and shiny hair was dark as well with sprinkles of grey, worn with an elegant bun on the back of her head. I remember her as always being pleasant. Of her four daughters; two were tall, thin, attractive, and openly desp
ised by my mother.
Mom had a particular distaste for Aunt Lettie. I can still hear her belittling words in my head which she repeated often to me: “You will turn out to be just like Lettie!” I knew it was not a compliment nor an endearing remark. I saw my Aunt Lettie at Dad’s funeral and was shocked at my resemblance to her. Hindsight tells me that jealousy was a strong motivating factor for Mom’s disparaging words. ~ DLT, 2015
I sleep through the night in my own bed, finally getting up at 5 o’clock, stumbling around getting my bearings, an indicator of the stress I am feeling, but not owning. At last I realize I am an hour late for whatever the day has in store. None of our clocks have been changed over to Daylight Saving Time.
I walk into Starbucks on 8th Street, pausing to look for my cell phone, hoping it is on my person somewhere. It has my Starbucks app. It finally shows up in the last pocket while the guy behind me has to be wondering.
“Tough day already,” I murmur, glancing up. “Couldn’t find my phone. Had to be sure so I can order.”
“What is making it so tough?” he asks.
I might pass off a question like this with some banal response were it not for the funk I started out with that I can’t seem to shake.
“My wife is in the hospital.”
“Is it something serious?” he asks, his eyes now expressing more than a casual interest.
“Yeah, pancreatic cancer,” I reply, wondering why I am telling him this, while showing my phone app to the barista. “A blueberry scone and a grandé latté, please.”
At the same time the guy is ordering from the other barista.
“No, no,” she puts up her hand, pointing to the guy next to me as I push my phone toward her. “He already took care of it.”