Marveling at His Grace

Feb. 9, 2008

Busy time

Wow, it has been a long time since I was here. Now that I have decided to post, I just don't know where to begin. Let me take a stab at starting at the beginning.

In October, we learned that my sister has cancer. She had some crisis-type medical issues. Those were resolved and she began treatment at M.D. Anderson hospital in Houston. She lives in southwest Louisiana, where we grew up. And M.D. Anderson is the closest cancer-specialty hospital for her.

But Karen felt like they had very little consideration for her wishes and she was not pleased with the way they treated her as a person. I sent the message to her that they had a branch of Cancer Treatment Centers of America near us, in Tulsa. She came to check it out and chose that option.

CTC has very few in-patients. They arrange for people to fly in, and (I assume) bundle the cost of the airline ticket into the treatment that the insurance pays for. Then they arrange for hotel rooms at places like the Radisson at a cost to the patient of only $30 a night. I assume the balance of the room cost is passed on to the insurance company too. I guess the insurance company figures all this is cheaper than paying for a hospital room for the same amount of time.

Karen stayed at the hotel for about a half week while they evaluated her. Then she came to stay with us for about a month.

Instead of looking like a hospital, this place looks like a nice hotel. And instead of making the patient go from one building to another for tests, exams and treatment, (like at the hosptial in Houston,) everything is in one building. They really try to make it easy on the patient and they will work with you. But it does take a while to "get on the same page, " as they say.

At this hospital, each patient has a person or group of people in charge of their treatment. They decide what they think is necessary, set up the appointments, then notify the patient. We had some communication problems that needed to be straightened out. One day we had several morning appointments, then had another one in the afternoon. So we sat down to lunch in what we thought was a free period. Then a little guy comes up and asks if she is Karen. When we said yes, he said she had missed a physical therapy appointment. He said they would reschedule. It turns out, they had made the appointment, then called and left a message on her cell phone. The trouble is, cell phones don't work where I live. We live in a very rural area and we are far from a cell tower. We finally told them that when it came to appointment notification, they would have to use the list of phone numbers we gave them (my home number, my cell number) until they talked to a live person.

We let them schedule appointments as they thought was necessary because we felt that was the thing to do. One week we spent four days there, for various reasons. This included going in to the hospital during ice storms and long-term power outages, when people should not venture out unless they absolutely have to. Now Tulsa is about 50 miles away from my home. It takes an hour and a half to get there. It was hard on us all. 3 hours transit each time plus appointments took a toll. Karen and I were tired. Then we would come home and I would do what laundry and dishes I could before going to bed. My husband and kids were being ignored. We had laid aside the schoolbooks, knowing that it would only be for a time. After three weeks or so, we all had enough. We got tired of jumping when they said so. We sat down with the scheduler and told her that Karen was dependent upon me. And I had committed to one day a week and that was it. Blood work, physical and occupational therapy, exams and chemo and anything else would all have to be scheduled on the same day. They really didn't like that, but there was nothing they could do.

By this time, Karen was feeling well enough to have one solid day of appointments. When she first came to stay, she was forced to get into a wheel chair when we got to the hospital and I would wheel her to appointments. Over time, due to the chemo and the physical and occupational therapies, she began to feel better. She felt well enough to walk. I am very encouraged by this.

At first, we were told at first they only schedule chemo during the evening. There was one night when they didn't start it until 7:00. It lasts about 6 hours. We got home at 2:30am, then I got up way too soon to take the kids to P.E. the next day. The kids had been putting up with enough--I wanted to keep up with their outside classes for the sake of consistency.

Then we learned that we were told wrong--they do chemo at all times of the day. So we had another talk with the scheduler.

Another load off our backs was the frequency of the chemo treatments. At first, they wanted her to have one treatment a week. After she had a couple, we learned that her treatments were adjusted to allow for simultaneous radiation treatments. But Karen rejected this because she figured her body couldn't take both at the same time. When she made that clear to them, they decided to give her stronger chemo and space the treatments three weeks apart, instead of weekly. These are so potent she can't take them more often than that.

Having them spaced like that allowes her to go home for awhile. She now flies in and out as necessary. We loved having her here and tried to make her feel at home. But nothing beats your own bed in your own house. And that will make it easier on my family. We didn't have much of a Christmas with all that was going on. We had a tree and presents. But we didn't have time for any of the traditions we normally do. I feel like we really didn't have Christmas. But you do what you have to.

Karen is due back on Valentine's day and her next chemotherapy treatment is scheduled for the following Monday. She will stay a few days to make sure the treatment doesn't make her too sick, she fly back.

We missed a lot of school. We might have to do summer school to catch up. But just because we didn't have school doesn't mean the kids didn't learn. They learned commitment to family. Consideration for others was a lesson reinforced. And confirmed once again was the concept that God abundantly provides Grace for us every single morning.

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