Some Background Info

Tim had not been feeling well for several months, but attributed all of it to the stress of serving as interim principal and director of transportation. During Hurricane Harvey relief, many people commented on the amount of weight he had lost (nearly 40 pounds) and the fact that he just didn’t look good.  When a friend and coworker suffered a gallbladder attack, he decided it would be a good idea to just get it checked out. Initially, he was treated for ulcers and was scheduled for a CT of the abdomen on Thursday, September 14.  At noon on Friday, the 15th, he received a call from a doctor and friend filling in for our PCP telling him that the CT showed a mass and some lesions.  He was referred to a surgeon the following Monday and scheduled for a biopsy on Thursday, September 21.

Before Tim was brought out of the operating room, I was called back to recovery and told that it was not good and the surgeon was confident that it was cancer.  A long time friend and OR nurse, Sherrie Ritter, was with me the entire time the doctor was explaining things. She gave me the best advice that truly fit my slight obsessive compulsive need to be organized.  She told me I would need a notebook and to keep up with everything so that I could advocate in Tim’s best interest. (My notebook deserves a post all its own - more to come on that.)

The surgeon called a radiation oncologist from the bedside and had us go straight there - Tim wasn’t even fully coherent.  We consulted with the radiation oncologist and he referred us to his medical oncology partner for the following day, Friday, September 22.

At this point we did not have pathology reports and all were consulting based on an assumption. We appreciated the quickness with which we were seen, but left Friday’s appointment feeling completely hopeless. The medical oncologist we met with gave us the option of surgery and a colostomy or 5 1/2 weeks of radiation, followed by 6 weeks of chemo, then surgery to remove the tumor, then another round of chemo.

 At this time, Tim had been on a liquid diet for seven days and was starving for food. The doctors advised that he continue on a liquid diet until radiation began to shrink the tumor. We had no idea what exactly to tell the kids and really didn’t even know what life he might have left.  Our minds went to the very worst scenarios. I know that the Holy Spirit intercedes for us and our sermon series right now is in Romans so I held on to Romans 8:26-27.

26 In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for usthrough wordless groans. 27 And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.