Walking through Fire

It was October 2016.  Anton had started a brand new teaching job at the high school level and was working on an incredible steampunk version of Romeo & Juliet.  He started getting canker sores.  That's what we thought, anyway.  Several of them, around the inside of his gums and lips.  They would heal and then return in new places.  He saw a dentist and eventually a periodontist.  It was likely stress, they told him.  From the new job.  He took several rounds of antibiotics.  He tried over the counter rinses and pain numbers.  The show came and went and was wildly successful.  But he was tired.  Run down.  By December we thought he had a mild case of the flu.  He developed a really sore throat.  I had just recovered from two weeks of flu-like symptoms.  He had what I had, I announced.  You need to sleep, I told him.  

"I can't sleep though...I'm in too much pain.  I feel terrible" he lamented to me.

On Saturday, January 7th, he coached our daughter's volleyball game.  He coached our son's basketball game.  He went to school for a rehearsal and set-building day, but came home early.

I should stop right there.  I need to tell you that Anton doesn't leave any rehearsal early.  He doesn't quit.  He is a work horse with a high pain tolerance and a "get it done" mentality.  I wish I could say I sensed something, but when he came in the door that day looking pale and cold-sweating and when he sat down on our couch with a heavy slow motion, I should have known inherently that something was really wrong.  But I didn't.  And instead, I have to tell you that I nonchalantly blew the whole thing off a bit.  He has the flu.  That has to be it.  (I said to myself).  

He looked at me with weak eyes and said "I can't swallow."  What does that mean?  You can't swallow?  "My throat is so sore...I can't swallow my own saliva".  Here is where I want to tell you that I jumped up and took action.  Only I didn't.  I stayed right there, in my recliner.  I suggested he had the flu.  He asked me to take him to the ER.  

Wives?  Have you been there?  When your husband has a cold and thinks he is positively dying?  I was there.  He has a sore throat and he wants to go to the ER?  I can at least tell you that I held back those words.  I didn't say them, I only thought them.  

When they started blood work and a CT scan, I was seeing dollar signs.  I thought "all of this for a sore throat?"  Hours passed.  I left with Keira for a sandwich.  We called Anton and asked if he wanted anything.  He did, but they wouldn't let him eat.  We returned and football was playing on the hospital t.v.

We passed a young man being wheeled out of the ER with his wife and parents.  "Finally, getting admitted and a real room - that'll be better" they said as we walked by.  Sad, I thought.  Being admitted stinks.  

I returned to Anton's side and the door opened behind me.  The doctor suggested that the testing he needed would have to take place at a different hospital, and I immediately assumed we would make an outpatient follow-up appointment.  I started looking for paper to write down who we should call.  No, she replied - they would be transferring him via ambulance.  Non-negotiable.  Her face was somber as she stared at both of us.  The kids, oblivious to this, played quietly.

Friends, that was my moment.  Right there in ER room 8.  

I froze up inside.  I distanced myself from what was happening.  I moved away from it.  I knew somewhere deep inside that all was not well.  This was not a sore throat.  I wouldn't allow myself any further than that.  I stopped myself and steeled up.  

The kids went to a friend's to sleep over.  I moved in slow motion and I moved rapidly.  I met Anton at the second hospital.  He arrived on a stretcher, chatting up the EMT's.  "My wife!" he said, cheerily, when he saw me.  That's his typical greeting.  My wife!  He shouts it across rooms.  He whispers it in church.  He says is as he's falling asleep.  

The next two days were a blur of tests and boredom.  Anton felt lousy, but they gave him pain medication to help with the swallowing.  We watched HGTV and tried to nap in between IV beeps and visitors and more tests.  

Monday, January 9th, Anton's hospital doctor walked in our room.  Her face serious.  Her tone quiet.  She touched Anton's arm.  She looked at us and then at Keira who was in the corner.  She said "I have news.  It's not good.  Do you want her here for this?".

Here's how that sentence falls on you physically: I sat up straight.  Without meaning to.  I just bolted up.  My eyes darted over to Keira.  Then to Anton.  My heart started beating rapidly.  Like I was running, only I was sitting as still as I ever had.  My adrenaline forced the blood straight up into my neck and face like a rocket.  I felt like lava.  Heavy.  Solid.  On fire. Burning up. My heart melting.

"Please, can you just word it in a way that won't cause panic?..."  I heard myself say that as I glanced over at Keira.  I didn't mean it though.  What I meant was "No.  Walk out of here.  Take your words and walk them right on out of here.  Whatever you're about to say that's going to upset our entire world...I need you to keep it.  Don't say it.  Please, don't say it."

She looked at Anton with compassion.  "You have leukemia."  And her words hung in the air like smoke.  Wafting around and getting in your eyes and your heart and your lungs.  And I wanted to cough and cry and throw up and fall apart.  Instead I just sat there.  Frozen.  Anton looked at me and we locked eyes.  And it felt like forever that we sat like that, but it was only a few seconds.   

She said other things.  Biopsy.  We're not sure what type.  Few days.  Chemo outpatient. All we can do here.  I heard her, but I didn't.  I looked out the window and she walked out eventually, taking all of what we used to be with her.  

I climbed into the hospital bed with Anton and we collapsed into tears.  Keira came over and crawled up with us, and we spoke gentle truth to her.  Daddy has cancer.  We're going to get help.  God is gonna take care of us.  She was so brave.  No tears.  Only strength and innocence.

Two days later we learned that Anton had Acute Myeloid Leukemia with a rare presentation in the mouth.  We also found out that it was aggressive and had to be treated immediately with chemo.  In those first couple of days we received so many mixed ideas about treatment and prognosis that we felt constantly confused.  It seemed the plan changed daily.  We finally learned that Anton was to receive inpatient chemotherapy at Medical City Dallas by one of the top doctors in the state.  This was both a comfort and a blow.  What little we knew about chemo seemed to be done on an outpatient basis.  What you see in the movies.  A small clinic, a chair, a patient hooked up for a few hours.  

Instead, he went by ambulance to our third hospital.  We arrived within minutes of each other again and he said those words I expected as he rounded the corner to his new room on yet another ambulance stretcher; "my wife is here!"  

Within two hours, we were speed educated on what was coming.  30-45 days in the hospital for the first round of induction chemo.  1-3 weeks home.  Then 4-6 rounds of chemo after that at 5-7 days inpatient each time.  21 days off in between to heal.  This type of presentation requires Stem Cell Transplant, almost always.  We digested what we could and cried through the rest.  We held hands tightly.  We stared in disbelief.  We were numb and exhausted.  We were aching for our children who could not grasp the seriousness of cancer, let alone a blood cancer. 

I wish I could tell you that I was a rock.  That my faith was sure and solid.  That I was strong.  But friends, I was messy.  I was a sponge.  My faith was shaky and scary.  I was weak.  I was angry.  I was frustrated and consumed with pain.  I was afraid to my deepest core.  

I told Anton "this isn't the deal we have" and I wept in his arms.  I reminded him that we are growing old together.  We are traveling to Japan some day.  We have kids to raise and stuff to do.  I climbed into that hospital bed repeatedly and we sobbed together, asking God why and trying so desperately to understand how He had allowed this for our life.  

I have never walked through fire like this.  I have never watched someone I love this much be so sick.  I have never understood the agony of having the father of your children ravaged by a vicious disease or of having to come to terms with the notion that he might not survive this.

Until now.

But I want you to know, there is unbelievable HOPE and COMFORT in the eye of this awful storm.  Our valley is deep, but God!  Our path is dark and stormy, but God sends His people to rally around us.  The love and care we have received is vast and wide and covers our darkest hours.

And here's where I'll stop for now, but there is much more to tell.  So much more...