BY ROBERT BLASKE
On July 27th
of this year I will be 19 years cancer-free after a serious Whipple operation "Pancreaticoduodenectomy"
in 1994. My wife, Dolores, got the telephone call from the doctor that I had
cancer. She came into the bathroom to tell me while I was sitting on the
toilet. As she said the words, "He said you have cancer..." the toilet throne spit in half from top to bottom.
While water and ...(you know what) spewed all over we sat on the edge of the bed and
laughed and cried. The operation took 7 hours and I had 5 or 6 rubber hoses
sticking out of my stomach for both food and drainage. I recall how the cancer
ward nurses hovered over me like guardian angels.
My Christian faith sustained me through all of
this because I dreaded the removal of each hose, each IV replacement,
and every blood test. I prayed constantly and it did seem to help - especially
on the last hose (the "G tube" I think they called it) was removed by
a woman doctor who confided, "I've never done this before." All the
other doctors had assured me "this won't hurt". Well, like heck it
didn't hurt when they pulled a tube out. I prayed... and she began pulling. I think she was praying too. Our prayers
worked! It didn't hurt.
Dolores
also learned to become a nurse as our vocabulary included terms like
"Oncology" and IV's and ICU.” At the same time she was forced to
learn where the hospital cafeteria was located- while stuff like that was left
to husbands. One time she caught me just as I was headed toward the floor in a
faint. The staff immediately hung a sign above my bed and I was labeled for
life:
I kept a
copy of the notes she took, but just seeing them again brings tears to my eyes:
She also learned how to care for the tubes the
doctors had placed in my stomach and to keep them clean. I watched her
trembling hands pour meat tenderizer down the tube to try to get it unstuck. My
poor wife was constantly emptying yucky bags of stuff or cleaning a deep wound
in my stomach that had to heal from the bottom upward.
As far as
learning nurse stuff, you can add to that her excellent job of head holding. If I were to complain about
wife-service during this time in my convalescence, it would have to been
because of a hospital rule which required that you weren’t allowed to go home
until you pooped. Now, you'd think a wife would poop for you so you could claim
it as your own and get outta’ that place, but no way!
Recovery
time at home was slow. One thing about cancer is if you're interested in weight loss the reduction is
drastic. From 165+ I dropped down to about 125 lbs. I was forced to drink a lot
of stuff like Ensure, Jell-O, oatmeal, and bland things. I couldn't wait to get
my teeth into a gooey Éclair. At first food didn't taste so good.
Later,
I went back in the ER several times with diarrhea and vomiting. Something was
wrong. Finally went back to hospital where my Oncologist put together a team of
doctors to help me. One of these was an infection control man who found out
that I had 7 different microbes working on me. He solved the problem with
heroic does of antibiotics and stuff called Bioxen that caused me to have
"Redman's Syndrome" - ugh!
At home our air conditioner is broken
and a tropical storm flooded the street deep enough for boat traffic. The
Visiting Nurse can’t make it to the house for several days. My Oncologist has
found a suspicious spot on my spleen. They can’t do a biopsy on the spleen to
see if it’s cancer. It’ll have to be removed. Maybe the cancer is back. The
court suggests that the girls might be given permission to go back to live with
their mother, our granddaughters say they’d rather stay with their dad. My
depression sets in. My body is not the
one I know. My thoughts spiral downward caught in sewer of morbid thoughts.
Back to the hospital. I’m
angry and snap at Dolores. Then guilty for all she’s done for me. I’ve been the taker and
she’s been the giver. She holds my head and we both cry. An old Army nurse
walked in and suggested that I, “Tough it out!” I’m angry at that comment until
a gray-haired black cleaning lady who had overheard added sympathetically,
“It’ll be alright, honey.” I fought back the tears and smiled weakly. The
doctor assures us that pills will help me coup with this down mood, but her
words are meaningless. How can a pill help solve my kind of problems?
We ended up going back to the teaching
hospital where 30+ other doctors looked at my records and concurred that
an spleenectomy was needed. As it turned out, the mark on the spleen was
a collection of blood vessels "hemotosis?", but I'm glad we no longer
had the cloud hanging over us of possible problem of another spot of cancer again.
These 19 years have
indeed been a gift from God. I've been able to chop wood, do gardening, paint
the house, travel to exotic places, and enjoy a normal healthy life.
There had been a
certain assurance knowing ok I'm going to die from cancer. I faced that fact
and surprisingly, because of my faith, was able to accept this knowledge, speak
of my own death with others, and still feel confident that I belonged to Jesus
and could rely on His promises. All those words from sermons, bible stories,
the psalms, and the hymns came flooding back to bolster this belief. "Just
as I am...", "Rock of Ages...", and "A Mighty
Fortress..." took on a whole new meaning. With certainty I am able to say
there is a "Peace that surpasses all understanding" for those who
open their hearts. I'm sharing this with you because it brought me peace and
made sense out of this nonsensical life we live. If this is not true then we are
indeed lost. For me the answer is, why not take the gamble that there is a God?
If there is.......... make a commitment and get off the fence!
What did we learn from all this?
• Dolores and I
have a new appreciation of one another. Love is not just a teen-age romp in the
back of the car, it’s more of a self-sacrifice for a soul-mate who has chosen to be
with you for the rest of their life. Add in the blending of souls - true, "the two shall become one."
• The evil of
cancer was not the doing of this Creator of harmony. . Each year is a gift for
being together… a blessing from a loving God. I’ve been cancer free for 18
years. For me, my Christian faith provided a mainstay where my spirit clung to
the thin thread of hope. In the face of death all those hymns, words from the
Psalms, Bible verses we memorized as children, bits and pieces of sermons…all
come together with clarity in meaning.
• Depression is
your own worst enemy. It’s bad enough trying to fight back with a weakened
body. Add a weakened mental resolve, destroy hope, see death as relief and your
odds for survival are diminished. Proper medical treatment will reduce this
threat.
• We want to be
in control. It’s our body and we know what it needs cause we’ve been inside it
for such a long time. HOWEVER, you are not a doctor so listen to your mother,
“Stop playing doctor! ” It’s just going to get you in trouble. Do try to find
the best there is for treating your particular problem – a Board Certified
doctor, a hospital that has cutting-edge
technology, and an experienced medical staff who have successfully dealt with this
hundreds of your kind of cases.
• Most people
care. People who work in a hospital are there cause they care. Why would you
want to make their lives more difficult by complaining constantly about little
things? You know that people work best when they’re appreciated and praised and
thanked for the work they do. Why not take time to thank the person who
delivered your food tray? Did it diminish you to smile at a nurse or take time
to listen?
• I’ve learned
that all of life’s problems can’t be solved to our liking. Bad things happen to
good people. Being a Christian doesn’t mean you are perfect. We all do dumb
things and make mistakes. We still have to face trouble, but it sure is
comforting to know there is someone who will help you when you’re down near the
valley in the shadow of death being crushed from all sides. When hope is gone
you’re being pulled down in the sewer. You can’t control it all by yourself
because you’re “Fall Prone.”
My cancer problem was just a
portion of how the "roof fell in" for our
family. Like Job it seemed like everything was falling apart in my life at
that moment. It's so easy to blame God and to ask "Why?" Remember,
God
didn't create evil. We did. We can search for hidden cures, witches' brews
guaranteed to cure cancer, and blame others - these are just a few of the
ways to avoid the direct answer and the fear of death.
After a while I got back to
church for the first time after the operation.
The Pastor greeted me and said how the congregation had prayed for my
recovery. I responded, "It's good to be back in the land of the
living." A
few moments later the scheduled Psalm 116 was read. In part it says;
"...for you have rescued my life from death, my eyes from tears, and my feet from stumbling. I will walk in the presence of the Lord in the land of the living."
Was that ever a message from God!
So you see, I am now
your messenger from God. My job is to share this experience with you with
the talent and skills He gave me. In turn, please share this with your loved
ones who are in fear and assure them that it is possible to survive if you hold
on to hope and the knowledge that no matter what, Jesus will see you through the
shadows when you walk through the valley of death. If then you should die,
rejoice in the fact that you have indeed been redeemed to live an eternal life
with those faithful saints who have gone on ahead. The pathway is there before
you and He has never left your side.
Vaya con Dios! Go with God !
Later that evening, I turned a few pages, and there was Laura Upthegrove. Odd coincidence that I had a 12 year old young girl as one of my 7th grade students who was a distant relative. I learned that Laura walked the streets of old downtown Stuart, Flordia with the gun in its holster just like you see her in this picture. Now, that sparked my imagination big time! Why would this lovely young lady be wearing a gun? What had happened to her to make her leave her husband and two children to take up with a known escaped convict, John Ashley, and his gang? I was reminded of the similarities between these two and the famous criminals of that time, Bonnie and Clyde. Look at her face. That's not the face of a hardened woman who's seen a rough life. Here she was in the middle of the Roaring 20's living the fast-paced life with booze and guns hiding out in the midst of the Everglades. Just think that our Colony Street neighborhood was once considered to be part of a wilderness inhabited by alligators, racoons, and more mosquitoes than it has now ! So my historic research and novel writing began to fall together. There were still the gaps that had to be filled such as the reasons for leaving her husband and children. The only reason that I could see for Laura abandoning two children would be if there was abuse. From the abuse idea there had to be a point where she said to herself, "That's it! I'm not taking any more." Then I recalled the true story about a mountain lady who sewed up her husband in a bed sheet and beat the heck out of him. Laura headed into Stuart, boarded the train, and that's how she met John and his gang who were in the process of robbing the passenger train.
