The Beginning, Part 2

   Allison's lungs were permanently damaged.  The next several months were spent moving in and out of hospital rooms as she struggled with bacterial meningitis, a collapsed lung, and infections in the catheter.  Finally, the central line was replaced, and her health began to improve.  The doctors told us she would never run track, but we thanked God daily for the life that was given back to us!  That summer was amazing!  Her hair grew back brown and curly, she began to put on some weight, and we were cleared to take the most wonderful family vacation to Pigeon Forge!  The sight of our two beautiful girls playing in the pool, listening to recorded story books, riding a carousel, laughing at silly jokes was like a precious gift straight from heaven!  The fear and anxiety that had plagued our hearts and minds for the last year was finally lifting, and we felt a new freedom to look to the future with hope and joy. 
   In August 1990, Jim received word that his infantry battalion would be deploying soon as part of Desert Shield.  The commander was a Christian who cared deeply about all of his troops, and he suggested that Jim stay back with the rear detachment because of Allison's health.  After much prayer and discussion, we agreed to thank the commander for his concern, but assure him that Allison was greatly improved.  Jim needed to be with his soldiers, and they deployed together in early September.  It was a frightening time for all of us, but I fell right into the role of Mrs. Chaplain's wife. . .I started calling and visiting the other wives, trying to encourage them if I could.  The Chaplain's wives started meeting together weekly to pray and share concerns.  The fear that our husbands might not come home was the main subject one day, and I remember sharing that I really didn't have that fear.  During Allison's diagnosis and illness, I felt that I had been to "hell and back", and I wasn't afraid of anything else life could throw at me.  I wonder now how I could have been so foolish and arrogant.
   One Saturday night in late October, Allison got sick again.  My parents kept Bethany while I took Allison to the emergency room at Vanderbilt with a fever.  She was checked out by a doctor on call and we were sent home.  She started to feel worse, though, and we went back the following Tuesday.  She was diagnosed with pneumonia, and we were sent home again with antibiotics.  Wednesday morning, she seemed to feel better, and my parents went home, but on Thursday morning, she was vomiting and very weak.  I took Bethany to a friend's house and drove Allison to Blanchfield Hospital on Fort Campbell where she was diagnosed with dehydration and hooked up to fluids immediately.  Just a short time later, she was sitting up in her bed, eating gummy bears, watching cartoons, and laughing.  The doctor had sent some of her blood to the lab to be checked which was routine whenever she ran a fever, and the slip came back that her white blood cell count was about 300.  Since normal is between 6000 and 10000, the doctor assumed a mistake had been made, and had it rechecked.  It came back even lower.  I didn't understand. . .she looked wonderful, but we were loaded into an ambulance and sent to Vanderbilt immediately.

The Beginning, Part 1

   Well, now that I'm on my 3rd post, I suppose I should go back to the beginning and tell my own story.  Our daughter, Allison, was diagnosed with leukemia when she was 22 months old.  We were spending the summer with Jim's parents in Portsmouth, Virginia, waiting for our first military assignment.  Those first few weeks were a nightmare. . .I remember asking the doctor if she would survive, and she answered honestly that she didn't know.  Allison's age and very high white cell count were 2 major strikes against her.  After what seemed like endless transfusions, surgeries, and chemo, we celebrated the day of remission!  Allison came home to Grandma's house with us and we began a new "normal" of flushing tubes, changing the dressing over her catheter, administering medications, and going back to the hospital for chemo. 
   Then, during Labor Day weekend, we drove to Fort Campbell, Kentucky, where Jim would begin his career as an active duty Army Chaplain.  The very next day, Allison and I were at Vanderbilt, meeting the new pediatric oncology team that would keep her alive.  She and I both quickly fell in love with those amazing, caring people, as well as with the other pediatric patients and their families.  Most of us had nothing in common except that our kids had cancer - it felt like joint membership in an exclusive club - we needed each other and we all spoke the same language.
   Our beautiful, extroverted little girl quickly made friends wherever she went . . .she had no problem speaking her mind to whoever would listen!  On many occasions, we heard her say, "I'm not a boy!  I'm a girl!" when unknowing strangers would look at her little bald head and comment about how cute our boy was!  And she loved chapel!  As the music played, she would hold her little New Testament so that she could sing from her 'hymnal' just like we sang from ours.
   In January, Allison got sick.  We thought she might have chicken pox, so she was admitted to Vanderbilt for IV treatment.  She continued to worsen, started having trouble breathing, and after two lung biopsies, was diagnosed with interstitial pneumonia.  Her doctor moved her to intensive care where she was sedated and intubated; he confessed that he believed she was dying and he didn't know how to stop the progression of the lung infection.  Finally, our doctor came to us one morning with good news - all of the cancer doctors in the hospital had met to discuss Allison, and one had shared that he had seen a similar response in a much older patient receiving very high doses of a particular chemo drug.  The treatment was not an antibiotic, it was a steroid; and the results were immediate!  Within 2 days the tube was removed, she was moved to a regular room, and a week later discharged!

A Personal Journey

Grief is a very personal journey.  Granted, there are real warning signs that grief may be turning self-destructive, but we need to be careful not to confuse an individual's need to express grief and loss in a personal way as a sign that they are 'stuck in their grief'.  An Army psychologist once asked us to check on a couple whose grandson had been killed in a motorcycle accident the previous year.  He was very concerned about them, and when we asked why, he told us that he went to their home and saw a huge picture of the grandson in the front entryway.  He saw the picture as a sign that they weren't moving on in their grief.  We saw the picture as a sign that they loved their grandson - that's not a grief you can 'get over'.  What is normal grief - taking a lawnchair to the cemetery and sitting there all day? lining up matchbox cars on a son's tombstone? standing in the kitchen and crying through dinner preparations?

Press On!

Last Saturday, Jim and I went to the funeral of a young man . . .a college student, an athlete, a Christian, a dearly loved son and brother.  The pastor's eulogy, "The Empty Seat" was based on the passage, 1 Samuel 20:18:  Then Jonathan said to David, "Tomorrow is the New Moon feast.  You will be missed, because your seat will be empty."  I couldn't help but think about all the 'empty seats' in my life, and the tears started to flow.  But, the pastor admonished all to "press on"!   Yes, the grief is hard!  Yes, I can't sleep, can't eat, can't stop crying!  But, I will press on!
God is good!  God is in control!  God has a plan!  I used to think of those words as cliches, simplistic proverbs that couldn't fill the empty void in my heart.  Now, I see them as truths that I must take hold of to be a good steward of the grief God has given me. 
"Stay on the path that the Lord your God has commanded you to follow". Deuteronomy 5:33