Posts Tagged ‘cancer: a family affair’

31
Aug
2016

Cancer: A Family Affair (Part 5 – Conclusion)

Matt_Stephanie_Couple_Shoot-93

Written by Matt, Stephanie’s husband, guardian, and steadfast calm in her biggest storm.

When I first heard that Stephanie had cancer, it wasn’t through Facebook. It wasn’t through word of mouth or even a phone call. I learned the news at the same time she did, because I was by her side, sitting in the chair next to hers at the doctor’s office. I was there.

Hearing the news made my stomach drop to the floor. Instantly, I became aware of a shortness of breath. I can only compare it to getting hit incredibly hard. You don’t feel pain at first, but you know it’s coming, and you know it’s really going to suck. Talking to the doctor, getting connected with oncologists and radiologists and getting meetings set up was the initial, “let’s deal with this” shock.

Then we got back to the car. That’s when the wave of pain hit.

Was this real life? Did that just happen? My mom had just died four months earlier, was my wife going to die next? Then what happens to me? I never told Stephanie at the time, but in my head I immediately went to the worst-case scenario. I went there once, and never went back. From then on, we had to live in the reality of the moment, but also make positive strides each day. So onward was the course. Even if you’re baby-stepping, make sure you baby-step forward.

Cancer is a literal hurricane that rips through every aspect of what your life was. Whatever plans we had for the future we had to let go of. We had to stay low to the ground and choose to not let it sweep us away. While shattered pieces of our dreams of having kids and buying a house swirled around us, cancer wouldn’t take us. Stay low to the ground and move forward, but find shelter.

The good news is that we did have a storm shelter, so to speak. It’s God. It’s still God. It’ll never stop being God. He’s our refuge. Get there, stay there. We found comfort in knowing Jesus as our Savior, and knowing that He was protecting us the whole time. We knew He wasn’t done with us, and that He’d use this situation for good. When people think of Jesus, they may think of someone who lived a long time ago and preached love and peace, laughing with children and holding lambs from time to time. That He was perfect. So perfect in fact that some don’t think He was ever real at all.

But people don’t see the whole picture. Jesus didn’t hide emotions. He cried over losing those He cared about. And He got angry, flipping over tables and yelling at people. While still God, He was also human and felt what we feel. And few see Jesus as the warrior He is and will come back as. The whole good vs. evil thing that plagues our world — He is the good. He was and continues to be our good. I shake my head and am brought to tears when I think of what would have happened if we didn’t know Him through the entirety of our journey through cancer. There’s a chance we’d be divorced. Steph could be dead. I could be dead.

Cancer sucks. But it galvanized our marriage. It gut-checked us. When we got married, we said vows to each other, but at the time never truly considered facing situations that would force us to “put up or shut up.” At diagnosis, we chose to “put up” and live out those vows. Because that’s what marriage is. It’s not surface-level rainbows and butterflies. It’s ugly and dirty and downright hard. But when you muck through the trenches with God as your anchor, the payoff is better than anything you could ever imagine. After all, we’re now in Austin, five years after God put the promise in our hearts when cancer wasn’t even on the radar. We still have dreams of family and buying a house someday, but those dreams look different than they did before.

This journey has also taught me to live a bolder life. Frankly, I used to be the type to think that if things didn’t work out in my favor, and if they didn’t work out perfectly, they weren’t meant to be. In the past few months I’ve stepped out and done things that the old Matt would call me absolutely insane for doing. But I’m glad I’m doing them, and I’m in a far better spot because of it. Swing hard, and swing for the fences. No one comes to the plate hoping to hit a weak grounder back to the pitcher. Taking chances and falling on your face is a guarantee, so you might as well make the falls worth it. Take big chances and bet on yourself.

Finally, invest in people. Take the good that life gives you, be the good you want to see, and do good for others. Take good, be good, do good. There’s nothing to be gained in the pursuit of vanity. “The good stuff” is in people, not things. Life isn’t a guarantee, and days don’t repeat themselves. January 25, 2012 happened once. August 31, 2016 happens once. Life ebbs and flows and is as unpredictable as the forecast of a Colorado weatherman. At the end of the day, what matters isn’t your status, intelligence, or bank account. It’s people. Growing old together may not be a guarantee, but the effect you have on others is. Make your life count for good.

IMG_0228

John 1:5 (ESV)

“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”

25
Aug
2016

Cancer: A Family Affair (Part 4)

13087780_10207225326724724_705818078849851090_n

Written by Todd, Stephanie’s youngest brother who was 21 at the time she was diagnosed.

Occasionally after receiving a bill in the mail, I set it down on the counter, tell myself I’ll take care of it in a few hours, and forget about it for weeks, sometimes even months. When the sight of the bill on the counter triggers my thinking about paying it, I’ll sometimes push the thought further back into my mind, only for it to reappear when the next bill arrives. This bad habit of mine – described in psychological lingo as avoidance coping – was the strategy I first used to cope with Stephanie’s cancer diagnosis and treatment. For months, I refused to seriously think about her battle, because doing so led to painful thoughts.

I remember well the day in January, 2012, when Stephanie called me and told me that she had just received a cancer diagnosis. Sitting in the passenger seat of my wife’s car, I thought to myself that the diagnosis couldn’t be too bad. Sure, cancer is serious, I told my wife, Amy. And a hysterectomy is also serious business. But I was sure that 25-year-olds couldn’t die from it. And so when Amy and I flew out for my sister’s surgery a week or two later, I was saddened by the invasive surgery Stephanie had to undergo, but also comforted by the thought that it would act as a magic bullet. That thought was enough for me to look down on my sister in her hospital bed post-surgery and think that, while this was a massive bump in the road in her and her husband’s life, it wasn’t a tragedy. Life for them would return to normal in a matter of months, I remember thinking.

That all changed when Stephanie’s prognosis came back shortly after her surgery. The gravity of that prognosis hit me when I realized that I would have a better statistical chance of more than quadrupling my measly college savings at a roulette table than my sister would of living another year. So what did I do with that tragic information? Stuck my head shoulder-deep into the sand. For someone who had taken that approach for years, it wasn’t too hard to do. I was in college, nearing graduation, and working hard to prepare myself for law school. And so instead of continuing to talk to her on the phone almost everyday as I had done for the previous few years, over the next few months I only called a few times. A “hey, how is chemo going,” here and there. To me, this was the best way of dealing with the situation – pretending it didn’t exist. Coping with her prognosis was like my approach to the bills in the mail I periodically receive: if I pretend they don’t exist, they don’t, at least for a while.

That approach didn’t hold up when I first saw my sister bald in person. She was in Oklahoma for my college graduation, and seeing her was like being hit with a ton of bricks. I couldn’t evade the issue any longer, and so I directly confronted her prognosis for the first time. Before walking out on stage at my college graduation ceremony to receive my diploma, I shaved my head to honor her fight with cancer. Walking across that stage and removing my cap was, and will likely continue to be, my proudest achievement.

After a recurrence of my avoidance strategy came back when I moved to Washington, DC a few months later – I refused to read her website to avoid the fear of her dying – I finally put that strategy to rest. I realized that, were Stephanie to die, I would regret not spending as much time talking with her as I possibly could. That basic thought was profound, and it influenced not only my relationship with Stephanie but with my other family members as well. I began to talk with her, my brother, and my parents much more, coming to realize the benefit of confronting her prognosis head on.

Stephanie’s fight with, and now defeat of, cancer has been defined by her courage, bravery, and wisdom much beyond her years. I am incredibly proud that she has influenced so many. Her battle, though incredibly tough over the years, has provided me with an opportunity to learn what life is all about.

156102_10150890828973255_562323254_11499487_708115729_n

Psalm 90:12 (ESV)

“So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.”

11
Aug
2016

Cancer: A Family Affair (Part 2)

Matt Shaw b&w

Written by Matt, Stephanie’s oldest younger brother who was 23 at the time she was diagnosed with stage three, aggressive cancer.

Even though it’s been nearly five years since Stephanie was diagnosed, there are certain moments and emotions etched in my memory forever. For as long as I can remember, Stephanie has been one of my closest friends. I call her nearly every day and have for as long as I can remember. I cherish the bond I have with her. When she called me with the earth-shattering news that she may not live much longer, I didn’t know what to do.

I am going to be brutally honest. Writing this post has been incredibly difficult.  I actually love to write, in fact it’s one of my favorite ways to process and reflect. I journal nearly every day, and blog on my own quite often. When Stephanie asked me to contribute to this family series, I secretly didn’t want to. It is still painful and hard to reflect on.

In January 2012, I moved to Dallas, TX to start a consulting job. At this point, I was 23 and ready to make a name for myself in the business world. Coincidentally (or providentially… you decide), this is the same month when my dear sister called me and broke the news that she had been diagnosed with late-stage cancer. Typing this, I feel those painful emotions surfacing again.

“No. There is no way.”
“It can’t really be that bad.”
“No… what?”

How was I supposed to process that? I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know what to feel. I could literally not comprehend what my sister was saying.

After I hung up the phone with Stephanie that chilly, January day, I called my mom. I needed her to clear it all up for me. I needed her to tell me that everything would be okay… that somehow Stephanie was exaggerating, or that she’d misheard the doctor. You know that feeling when you get bad news, where you kind of just go numb? You don’t really have any thoughts, and you can’t really feel anything. Do you know that feeling? That is exactly what happened as I talked to my mom.

In a surprisingly peaceful and collected voice, my mom proceeded to tell me about this wicked cancer called large-cell neuroendocrine cancer of the cervix, which she described as exceedingly rare and aggressive. She told me of the very low chance of survival among its victims, and that Stephanie was an unusually rare case. In fact, this cancer was actually so rare that there was no consensus on how to treat it.

On that phone call, something inside of me shut off. Whether consciously (or subconsciously), I decided I could not deal with the reality that my sister might die soon.

The next four years, my sister battled an endless amount of surgeries, and chemotherapy and radiation treatments. It’s difficult to think about (and impossible to perfectly empathize with) the things she went through. As much as I want to say I got through those following four years with faith that everything was going to work out, it just wouldn’t be the truth. Sure, yes, I did have some amount of peace that things would work out, although not once did I try to define what “work out” would mean. I did trust the Lord in this to some degree, but to be completely honest, more than my faith that God DID have this under control, the way I coped with this pain was by avoiding it. Anytime I would call my mom or sister and they would want to give me details about a recent treatment or current struggles, I would tell them I didn’t want to talk about it. I can’t paint this pretty picture of how I coped because the truth is, I never wanted to face the reality of what was happening.

My way of coping was to shield myself from facing what could have been the loss of my sister. In some way, in order to cope, I almost chose not to cope. I never allowed myself to face the real possibility that Stephanie would die, because that would have been too much for me to handle. Living so far away and working long hours at a new job was helpful in some way – I was able to block out all of the pain with the classic “out of sight, out of mind” coping mechanism. I think the psychological term is “coping by avoidance.”

As I’ve opened up with others in the middle of trauma or reflecting on past trauma, I’ve realized that I’m not the only one who has ever had a tough time addressing something hard like this. It’s ok to feel how you’re feeling. It doesn’t mean you don’t love them any less, or that you don’t pray for them, or that you don’t care for them with all of your heart. It doesn’t mean any of that. Grieving is difficult, and no way is the right way. I’m still not even ready to go all the way into that pain, but I’m grateful to God that I still have my sister.

My sister’s experience has taught me so much. I learned about what true HOPE means when Stephanie stayed positive through nauseating treatments and exhausting tests and transfusions and surgeries. I learned about STRENGTH when she kept diligently going to treatment and sharing her story with the world, carrying the weight of everyone’s concern on her shoulders as she set off to put the devil to rest with her faith. I learned about GRACE as my sister took all the bad news and made tough decisions with class and peace. Finally, I learned a little more about LIFE and how to live it.

Stephanie is brave and courageous and determined and strong and driven, and she is living a life worth being proud of. Life is hard. Who we are in life is determined by how we respond in times of adversity, and I am so thankful to have her in my life to show me what a life worth living looks like.

Matt Shaw and Steph

John 16:33 (ESV)

“I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”