Marilyn: a mother's story Hello. My name is Marilyn. I am 67 years of age at this point in time. I am married. Have been for fifty-seven years. I have four living children, 2 boys and 2 girls. Suzanne is my third child and she is the one I'm going to talk about today. About nine years ago, eight years ago, in 1991it was, she had not been feeling very well for about a year. We were very confused. She'd been going to a doctor. She was a very athletic girl, very active, very involved, but she had been tired and depressed and all these things that just didn't seem like her. In late September of 1991, she had a seizure, a grand mal seizure. She was living in an apartment with two other girls, and of course it scared them about to death. They had the presence of mind to call the ambulance and she was taken to the hospital and she was out for several hours. We urged the doctors at that time to find out what was wrong and they said maybe it was just a quirk, and it wouldn't happen again. But the following Wednesday, while she was at the hospital to get some tests, it happened again, and they still said, why don't you just wait and see, but they did put her on some seizure medication so that it might not happen again. She had a CT scan, which we insisted upon, and they did find a small, dark mark on her left frontal lobe, and so, they again said why don't you just let it go and see if it grows or if it changes. Well, we didn't want to do that so we did pull some strings and got her into a brain surgeon here in Salt Lake City and he again x-rayed and did the scans and said, why don't we wait for a few months. But we said no, so he scheduled a biopsy for November. In November she had a biopsy and we were told, oh, don't worry, there's no problem, we'll just get it taken care of, and there's no chance that it's cancerous. But it came back cancerous. Resilience in the face of adversity So she was then again scheduled for another doctor and another program so to speak. This doctor recommended a new trial where she would have chemotherapy plus she would have radiation twice a day. And so she started this out for six weeks. The chemo went a little longer, but the radiation was twice a day for six weeks, five days a week. She continued to work. Suzanne's a hair stylist, very talented, and had a huge clientele. And she would go where others would just give up with the radiation because they were so tired, she'd continue to work throughout the whole time. She'd go in the morning and get her radiation and go back and work and then she'd go up again in the afternoon and go back and work. And most of the time, she would even drive herself, where at times she wasn't feeling well enough I would take her, especially after she'd had some chemo. After all that was over, they of course did more MRI's and found that the tumor was still growing. And so they tried a new protocol for her to see if that would help. Well, that didn't seem to help either, and in October we sent her to some friends in southern Utah to see if she could start feeling a little better if she would just rest. We knew they would take care of her and there would be all distractions were taken away. And at that time, she had a new kind of seizure, which was called a "focal" seizure. And of course that panicked us again. But we also found out at that time that this seizure was starting to affect the movement on her right side, and where this tumor was on the left frontal lobe, was sitting on her motor strip. So we were very panicky as she started to drag her foot just a little bit. And have problems. The doctors at this time kept putting us off and telling us that it wasn't serious and that they were doing all they could. But come January, February, we felt that they were not doing what was necessary, and so my husband started contacting all over the country and finding out what was available, and the doctors at this time told us to just take her home and let her die. That if she did live, her quality of life would be so bad that she could not enjoy life. A difficult time Well, Suzanne said we'd change doctors. She insisted she had faith in the Lord she knew that she would be healed, so we were doing all we could to make her dreams come true and to make sure that she had every opportunity to get healed. Of course we were devastated along this road. We did contact, with the help of her doctor, finally, the University of California in San Francisco where they handled a lot of brain surgery patients. And with a long story, we were able to send our information down to them. We flew down and they okayed her and she had surgery. They mapped her brain, where it could be removed and where it couldn't, and did evaluations and in March she had brain surgery, removing 90% of the tumor, which had grown quite a bit at that time. They couldn't remove the last 10%. They felt if they did, that it would leave her permanently paralyzed and with no hope of any recovery. And at that time when we took her to California, she could no longer walk. Her leg was completely useless, and we kind of carried her wherever she needed to go. She's not very big, and so it wasn't too difficult, but we were kind of funny in some of the things we did. She's a beautiful girl, and everywhere we have gone, people have raved about her and taken such good care of her, and loved her, except still they said just to take her home and let her die, which we couldn't do. While we were in San Francisco and waiting for her to come out of surgery, we did a lot of praying. And we promised the Lord that we would take care of her as long as it was necessary, and we loved her and we tried to have the faith that she did that everything would be well. She underwent the surgery very well, came out, we returned home with a new protocol of chemotherapy, which she continued a little longer with her original doctor. This chemo did not work, either, and it continued to grow. We tried another chemo and that didn't work, and so this time he again said, you'd better take her home to die, she is not getting any better. Her leg had improved but it was returning again to the weakness, so it was very difficult for her to walk. Taking a chance At that time we changed doctors and went to an oncologist at a new hospital and she listened to our story and told me that everything that was done was correct as far as she knew. Specialized in brain oncology and so she told Suzanne at that time that there was only 5% chance that she could do anything for her. We, of course, heard the five percent and it scared us to death. But Suzanne heard there was a five percent chance and said I'm going to be healed, I know it. Well, she started the chemotherapy, which was in the experimental stages by this doctor, and had wonderful care from this lady. She and her nurse were superb, and they treated her with so much love and respect. She had to go to the hospital to have this chemo, and it was so affecting her, it made her so ill. Of course she had lost all her hair before and she lost it again. And when she got back from San Francisco she had about 17 ball caps and different caps that everybody had brought her. One of her favorites was a sequined cap that just glowed when she wore it, and she was back to ball caps again after her hair had grown back in a little, and of course this chemo wiped her out again. But she always had her face made up when she was feeling good enough, and never left the house without looking well in one of her cute ball caps. But this chemo was very difficult on her, and would bring her white blood count down to so dangerously low they never could repeat it. She was supposed to have five different ones, sessions, and she had to be in the hospital for three or four days while they administered this. And as I said, she would have to have nuprogen and different things to try and build her blood back up and we'd have to keep her isolated so she wouldn't get around anything where she could catch an infection because she didn't have the strength to fight it. This went on four times. She was too weak and her liver was being damaged, and there were too many problems for her to have the fifth chemo. Her spirit won But, lo and behold, the tumor had stopped growing. A miracle had happened. The Lord had blessed her, and she has been cancer-free since that time, around 1993 the end of 93 until now. And she goes each time each six months to have an MRI, she is still cancer-free. But this didn't leave her completely healthy. The tumor had rested on her motor strip and it left her with what they call a weakness, not a paralysis, although it seems very similar. But she's had to be fitted with a brace so that she could walk, she's had to learn to write all over again, with her left hand, she's never been able to return to her vocation, and she has had a complete change of life. She was a beautiful dancer, she taught dancing, she took dancing at the university, she was a hair stylist, she did all these very active and very artistic things, and they were taken from her. But she was still left with a beautiful spirit. She has continued to serve, as she always loved to serve people. She works for her church and does volunteer work, she is over the Look good feel good program for the American Cancer Society in Salt Lake City. And with her left hand, she teaches women who have had cancer how to fix their faces and do their hair and wear wigs and do these things that will make them feel better and give them the courage to fight the dreaded disease that they have. Finding love Suzanne had a miracle a couple of years ago. Another one, I should say. She met a young man who loved her in spite of her handicap, and they were married a year ago in May. And although there's still many problems that she faces, she is a happily married woman now. She had to take therapy for many years, she's had to learn to walk again, even with her brace, to do so many things that we take for granted. Use of a cane when she leaves the house, because she has no recovery if she slips with her right leg. She has a great faith in our Lord and Savior. She still hurts. She serves him and serves her family. Loves to help her nieces and nephews. Loves to have them with her. She's limited, she had to learn a lot of speech again, because it was also on her motor strip and she basically in some ways had to learn to talk. I think it strengthened all our faith. Everyone has to go through trials, and she has been an example to everyone she meets. She has so many friends and people are always wanting to help her, and she in turn, helps them. She's helped many people who have lost their faith and helped them to make right decisions. Life is God's gift to us. What we do with our life is our gift to God. And that's how she has lived her life. She has a lot of faith. She's had many unfulfilled expectations but she has set her goals, and that is important to her, that she can do something to help others. If you ask her how great a punishment this has been, she will say it has blessed her in many ways. She has learned so much, she has been strengthened, and she knows that some day when she's with her Father in heaven, she will run and walk and do all the things that she misses so now. She was a special child when she was born. She has a sweet, loving and trusting spirit. It always draws people to her and people have always clustered around her. She had so many friends at her wedding that people were waiting for two hours, just to wish her well. We're grateful for her, we love her, and we thank the Lord for keeping her with us, even though her quality of life was not what she had expected. We love her as she is, as she does her best every day. Have faith Trials seem something we all endure. I've always been the type that wanted to get past them but they are part of life and sometimes are our lives. I'm sure each of you has faced a challenge or two in your life, maybe cancer, maybe something else, maybe being the caregiver, which I can testify is very difficult. And maybe thinking it's just, if this just would happen life would be okay, if we could just get past this. And maybe it will. Or maybe things will be okay. But we each have to face our ordeals, whether we're the one with cancer or whether we're the caregiver. And no matter how hard and how much we love the person we're caring for, at times we get tired and worn out and want relief ourselves, and want maybe a little of that help for us. Each one of us will have to face our own ordeals. Maybe nothing like Suzanne's, maybe worse, but it seems sometimes in each of our lives, there are things we don't want to bear. But if we take them one day at a time, if we have help from each other and if we trust in the Lord, and know that when we can't go on, He will help, and give us the courage we need. And if we face it head on, look for a new doctor, look for a new friend, look for someone who has what we need to help us through that trial, I know that the Lord will be there to help us. |
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