My Friend in a Wheel Chair

I’ll start with the present and work backwards, I started chemo therapy this last Friday, April 5. I’m scheduled for two or three cycles (two or three months) with a review afterwards for possibly doing a stem cell transplant. Because I have multiple organ involvement, heart involvement being the most serious, my case is riskier than normal. I have an amazing oncologist who is also the Stem Cell Director at Good Samaritan Hospital in Portland. Along with the staff at Compass Oncology in Portland, I couldn’t be in be in better hands.

Three weeks ago I was sitting in the lobby of the Compass Oncology Clinic. I was there for a blood draw and meeting with Dr. Segal. Waiting for my name to be called, I watched as a man was wheeled in for his weekly chemo treatment. He was agitated. He didn’t want to be here. He wanted to go home. Nobody wants to be here, but if you have to receive treatment somewhere, this is the place to be.

His caregiver took him up the elevator where the treatments are administered. And, then he received the bad news. He wouldn’t be going home; he was to be transported to the hospital. It appeared he was too fragile after the fall he took which landed him in the wheel chair. Reminded me of my fall back in January. The hospital is last place most of us want to be, but that’s where he was headed.

Two weeks ago Monday I went to see my primary physician to be checked out for flu like symptoms- the typical ones- fever, cough, aches, headaches, etc. The lab test to confirm came back negative. To be safe, I was put on Tamiflu anyway which after a couple of doses I stopped taking. My amyloid infested gastro system reacted negatively immediately. I had to make a choice.

By Saturday, beyond a cough, my other symptoms were gone. Jenny and I went to the Woodburn Tulip Festival with my son, his with wife, and our grandkids. We had wonderful time. However, in the wee hours of Sunday morning my cough had returned and I had trouble breathing. Off I went to ER that morning for x-rays to see about the possibility of pneumonia. The chest x-rays came back tentatively negative. In other words, they weren’t conclusive. The doctor I met with recommended I complete a five-day anti-biotic regiment to be safe given my compromised- immune system.  I didn’t follow through on this either knowing I would start my chemo regiment the following day.

So what am I saying? I suppose for me, it comes down to making the best decisions I can based on the advice of the experts I trust along with weekly blood draw numbers. While I’m online researching regularly, I resist basing my decisions a weekend’s worth of surfing when the experts I’m employing have spent years in school and in practice honing their skills. Still, as my wife Jenny says, sometimes you just have to simply take into account how you are feeling and your instincts- sometimes regardless of what the numbers are saying.

As I left the treatment room yesterday, who do I run into but the guy in the wheel chair of a few weeks ago. This time he wasn’t in the wheel chair. We struck up a conversation. He was being treated for Multiple Myeloma. He had broken several ribs with some complications, the result of the fall he took. Now he was healing and no longer need the extra oversight provided by the hospital. I’m likely to see him again now that I’m getting weekly treatments. I think of him as a new acquaintance, even a friend.

This week I was reading, pondering, and praying Psalm 6 and Psalm 34, in particular verse 18 which says:

The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.

And in Psalm 6:2-3 which reads:

Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am languishing;  heal me, O Lord, for my bones are troubled.

My soul also is greatly troubled. But you, O Lord—how long?

And in verse 9:

The Lord has heard my plea; the Lord accepts my prayer.

I’m counting on God’s being near me, his graciousness, his hearing my plea and accepting my prayer, all on the basis of his steadfast love as it says in verse 4. This being the case, the pressure’s off me to perform in any way to get God to do stuff on my behalf other than simply ask and plead. I like it this way and am finding comfort in these words. Please be in prayer for me too that I will tolerate this next round of chemo and that I will reach an even deeper remission.

Thanks for reading!

Curt Bumcrot, MRE

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