Two days ago at this time, my sister Peggy had tongue cancer! Have you ever heard of it? To my recollection, I never had heard of it. In fact, when I heard that she may have it, I thought "well at least it wasn't in a serious spot". Now after going through this, I can not believe I ever thought that. I think it was because you never really hear about it.
Back up about four weeks ago. After my son's basketball game which both my Mom and sister Peggy attended, I asked them if they wanted to grab some lunch. My Mom said yes but Peggy had something else to do. While at lunch, my Mom said that she needed to tell me about Peggy. She has a spot on her tongue that was not going away. Her son had told her to get it looked at by a doctor. Peggy went to her doctor and he told her that it could be a virus or cancer. WOW! He wanted to treat it with antiviral medication to see if it would go away. If there were no results he would schedule her to have it biopsied. Of course, we were all hoping that thing would shrink and go away, but it didn't. She went for the biopsy which she said was extremely painful. The results came back that it was benign! Great! Reason to celebrate!
Her doctor decided to treat the spot with steroid shots. Very painful for her, but hey, at least it wasn't cancer! I talked with her several times during this period and she really felt like she would put up with any pain associated with this, just thank God it wasn't cancer. Then the Doctor that was giving her the steroid shots sent another sample of the tissue to pathology. The call came on a Thursday night, it was Cancer! I capitalize it now because over the next few weeks, Cancer was huge in our lives! My sister Cheryl called while I was at a basketball practice and told me the bad news. I froze! I was only a few blocks away from my parents house and just felt like I needed to go there. When I arrived, I found my Mom and Dad both in tears. Their pain was obvious. I just felt like I was there to try to calm them down. I tried to console them as much as possible and asked them what they feared the most. They both responded "death". I wanted them to say this because I felt like I could work backwards with them and soothe them with all of the "she can beat this thing" talk. I, myself, still wasn't feeling any kind of fear and I think I still felt like this cancer was not a serious cancer (what is the difference!).
My sister Peggy lives upstairs from my parents so I decided to go upstairs. She was in her room with all the lights off and I just went to her, hugged her and told her how sorry I was that she had to go through this. At this point, I still did not know what "going through this" meant. I remember thinking about all we do to avoid certain things in life. If you go to the doctor and he says that your cholesterol is too high putting you at a risk for a heart attack. So you go on a diet, start exercising more thinking that will protect you from having a heart attack. Or you go to the doctor and he tells you that are pre-diabetic so you start making some food and exercise changes so that you don't get diabetes. But there are no guarantees in life about your physical body and unfortunately this is one of those examples.
Now you are probably thinking that if she just would not have smoked she could have prevented this. And you would have good reason to think that. But Peggy never smoked a day in her life. In fact, she has led a very clean life at that! She was in no risk group for this but yet she did get this. How could this have happened to her? We will probably never know.
Things started happening very quickly after this point. The first two days, I was still feeling very selfish about the whole thing, wondering why when I went through some of my tragedies everyone wasn't scared to death for me at the time (they were but I was too victimized to see this). Then I felt so guilty about the way I felt that I begged GOD to change me and he did. I sat in front of my computer and decided to learn more about this tongue cancer thing. I read and read about all the medical parts and felt like I understood what it was all about. I still wasn't really changed or moved by what I read. Then I stumble on to a site where people who had this cancer told their stories. All I can say is that I went from 0 to 100 really quick! I was so unbelievably amazed by what I read. These stories gave me a whole new insight and understanding about this cancer. I cried, I cried, I cried. I could not imagine that my sister would have to go through any of this. Every ounce of compassion I had in my heart poured out. I was filled with this feeling of love, protectiveness, compassion and faith. I had to talk to someone about this. I wasn't looking to teach anyone what I had learned but I guess I just wanted to tell someone that I learned alot. I immediately called another sister and just asked her if she had read anything about tongue cancer. She very abruptly informed me that you can not trust what you read on internet sites. I was a bit blown away by that response. Do you think that I am stupid or something that I do not know how to differentiate what I read about? Do you think I am just a sponge for bad information? I read about real people with real stories for heaven's sake! I quickly got off the phone and felt my bubble begin to burst. After all, how could we be of help to Peggy if we had no idea what it was that she needed help with? I sat down and started to tell my husband about what I was feeling and it was like I hit a brick wall! "This is happening to your sister, not you," he said. "Why are you getting involved in this, it is not your problem so just stay out of it". I was furious with him about this and in my head I just kept thinking "She is my sister and she is in pain, I feel some of that pain"! I felt an overwhelming need to help her.
At this point I need to tell you a little bit about my sister. She is 15 months younger than me and is 48 yrs. old. We have been very close at different stages in our lives and we have also had times where we have been very distant. We are pretty much opposite personalities and always have been. I have 6 siblings all together and for the most part, we are all close. Peggy and I have led very different lives. She is very practical and I am not. She sort of lives her life according to a plan of cause and effect. If you do this, you will get that. If you do this you will never have to worry about that, etc. Even though I started my life like that, I am not like that now. I have always felt that Peggy was a rather selfish person and rarely extended herself to help others unless it elevated her in some way. I do not know if this is really how she is or if that is just the way I have viewed her. She has had her share of ups and downs and at this point in her life, is single. She has a son who is 19 and away at college so her time is mostly her own. She is a very private person compared to the rest of us and you will rarely, if ever, find her talking about anyone else. unlike myself. She has always been the athlete of the family and is more health conscience than the rest of us. My relationship with her has had many peaks and valleys but she is my sister!
The day after my epiphany, I was with Peggy and the rest of my family after church. It was never my intent on sharing with Peggy what I had learned and read about, I just wanted to somehow let her know that I kind of understood. I told her that when she had surgery I would make sure that she was not alone for one minute while she was there. She was a bit comforted by that. A couple days later, she had the big appointment with the surgeon. My other sister went with her to take notes and be her advocate. They left the appointment both feeling like she had a new lease on life. He was very positive that it was small and had not traveled and that he could get it all with surgery. They were going to set it up at outpatient surgery. I have not idea what the difference is and believe that it has something to do with insurance. I knew, from what I read, that when they get in there during surgery, things can drastically change depending on what they find. I did not share any of this with her, why would I? The next day she was scheduled to get her CAT scan to get a better picture of her lymph nodes and to do her pre operation interviews completed. My Mom and I accompanied her to that appointment. It was all so surreal! Peggy just did what she was told and seemed to be going through the motions. What else could she do?
A friend of mine had suggested that I put something together to help Peggy communicate after surgery in case she could not talk. Since that was a real good possibility, I made a notebook with questions for her and lists of phone numbers of people she may want us to contact. I also wanted a journal kept of everything that transpired at the hospital so others in my family could have some sort of continuity should we need it. At this point I had no idea if any of this would be necessary, but I wanted to have it just in case. I decided that I would be the one in my family that would stay over night with her in the hospital if it came to that. I felt like I had the best situation to allow me to do this. I also set up a schedule for the day of surgery so that there would always be someone there and someone with my Mom so she would not be there by themselves. My sister in law thought I was over the top with all of this and let me know it. Mind you, no one read what I had read. I kept those stories in my heart so that I could be more helpful to Peggy.
The day of surgery came. Everyone in my family including Peggy believed that the surgery would take about 45min., recovery about two hours and then she would leave and come home. That was the plan. Instead, surgery was delayed a couple of hours and once surgery was done, they were told she would have to stay overnight. The surgeon reported that everything went as expected, that they removed a quarter size lesion and about 1/4 inch of her tongue. He believed he got it all. There was still some concern about a lymph node that came back on the CAT scan but they would look it over in about a week. As soon as I got the word, I packed an overnight bag, gave my kids some instructions and was off to the hospital.
When I first saw her, I remember feeling very relieved that she had no swelling in her face. She seemed very calm but still very concerned. She did not talk but expressed to us that she was in pain. After everyone was finished visiting with her and left, it was just me and her together to get through the night in the hospital room. She had a quiet night but I could also see in her much concern. As she tried to break through the pain and swallow, you could see the strain. She communicated that her throat was raw (from the tube in surgery) and that she had alot of phlegm. She did not drink or eat anything but did take some ice chips.
The next morning she just wanted to leave and go home. When the doctor came in, he told her to start talking and that she would not be able to leave until he knew she could eat soft food and keep it down. Determined that she was going home that day, she did what she needed to do. So far, so good!
I need to summarize this whole thing at this point. So many miracles to share with you. First is that Peggy even mentioned this thing on her tongue to someone who immediately told her to get it looked at. That person was her son whose opinion she treasures. Had it been someone else, that might not be what she was told. Second, her doctor did not excuse it away as unimportant. He immediately got the ball rolling. Three, that after the first biopsy of a benign result, her doctor took another sample and sent it to be evaluated. Had he not done this, she could have gone through months of not doing anything while the cancer kept growing. Fourth, that it was caught early and because it was, it was manageable. There are other miracles that have happened along the way that came about because of Peggy's cancer that have to do with relationships. She was able to get rid of the cancer but the miracles will be here forever.
God is responsible for these miracles. When you ask someone to pray for your sister because she is facing surgery associated with cancer, it is sometimes hard to know what to pray for. I have learned that it is not up to us to know the answers for someone with cancer. We have no idea what purpose is served by it. Only GOD knows that. But when we do pray for someone, GOD hears us and miracles happen. They may not be the exact miracle that we hope for but they are miracles none the less. GOD wrapped his loving arms around my sister and GOD took care of her through all of us and through all the people who cared for her medically. I can't imagine that a day will ever go by that I do not THANK GOD for this!
