For almost a year I felt myself getting weaker and less able to do simple chores. I could barely walk across the street and had to sit down because my ankles were weak and I couldn’t feel the ground underfoot. Walking across the carpet at home felt like pins and needles stabbing into the soles of my feet.
One day in April my wife and I went out shopping. I pulled into the parking lot, and found that my legs and arms wouldn’t work properly. After I struggled to get into the store, I couldn’t verbalize my thoughts. I found my wife in the store and pulled on her shirt sleeve to get her attention. Feeling out of control, I just wanted to die because I thought I’d feel like this forever.
When we got back to the car my wife suggested that we stop for ice cream on the way home. By then I could talk but had limited ability to understand. Later, my wife said that a corner of my mouth drooped. Going back to the car again was a struggle to walk and maintain my balance. By the time we got home I was exhausted and felt like passing out.
When we told our family doctor about this episode, he said, “George, you have more problems than all my patients put together. I can’t find anything wrong with you.” At that point, my oldest daughter called from Tucson. When she heard what the doctor said, she told us to demand a blood test for thyroid disease which might explain my fatigue.
Thyroid medicine helped slightly, but I was still losing balance and falling down. The day I couldn’t lift a bag of garden soil for my wife was the worst. I couldn’t do anything I’d been used to doing. Spring was coming and we had always planted a garden. How would it get done if I can’t lift a bag of garden soil? Why am I so weak?
My voice began to sound gravely. My wife said I sounded sexy, but I didn’t think so. I thought I sounded like a frog. Then double vision and what seemed to be an eye infection sent me to our eye doctor. She spent most of the day testing me. Finally she told me that something was pressing on my optic nerve. I needed MRI soon. The specialist said that a scan wouldn’t show anything because I was just a depressed old man. Prozac would be the answer but he ordered an MRI anyway. I had it on Friday. On Saturday the doctor called and told us to be in his office first thing Monday because “there is something there.”
We learned that there were four golf ball-size tumors — three in the center of my brain and one in the left frontal lobe. The oncologist was waiting to talk to us. What was an oncologist and what will he say? We soon found out. Dr. M. explained that the four tumors were most likely cancer.
We would need a good neuro surgeon soon. All my symptoms: aphasia, loss of balance, eye problems, partial paralysis, and weakness were all proof of the severity of the cancer. We needed a biopsy, fast.
We returned home in a state of shock. Where would we find a neuro surgeon? Then we thought of our friend who worked in the University Hospital. All of the neurologists were at a conference, she said. But the department head was there and she arranged for us to see him the next day and she would go with us. He looked at the scans and no one said anything. Then he said that it didn’t look like a metzi. (Metastatic) I didn’t know what he meant but he and our nurse friend looked relieved. The tumors appeared to be inside my brain but he would perform what he called a needle biopsy.
The day came for the biopsy. As my wife drove to the hospital, I saw the streets disappearing and the sidewalks taking over — a scary feeling. Loss of control. I didn’t know where things were. All reality was gone. At the hospital they gave me medication that kept me able to respond while they were drilling a hole in my head but kept me from being scared. Afterward, the doctor said that I had CNS Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma.
Over and over, my doctors checked email from Sloan Kettering Cancer Research Center for survival statistics on patients 64 years old with CNS Lymphoma . None of the news was encouraging. Instead, Sloan Kettering sent a report warning not to give Whole Brain Radiation to one as old as me as it would only hasten death. By this time my wife had to feed me and help me dress. I drooled and could not think straight. But I prayed for help — just to feel like a human being again. Our 45th wedding anniversary would be in four more months and doctors predicted I only had three months to live. My wife had just recovered from Guillain Barre and I felt she deserved some joy. It wasn’t fair.
Anger at my doctors for not discovering the cause of all my problems kept me awake those first few nights after the biopsy. Why didn’t they diagnose me sooner. Why did I have to become so deteriorated? Now my wife will be a widow and I will never see my grandchildren grow up. One night I had a vision. It was someone who had been killed in an accident. “Why are you spending energy being angry when you can use the time you have left loving your family. Do you think I had time to say goodbye to my loved ones? No. It was so quick it was a shock to them. “From then on I knew I was going to be OK. I would live each day as it comes. And so I have.
I asked our pastor and all our friends and family to pray for me. The prayer chain grew and spread and peace came to me. I suspect hundreds were involved. There were two offers of a “laying on of hands” and I took advantage of both. Many angels on earth appeared in those days. The first one visited my hospital room, bringing us the gift of hope when he said that his cousin had recovered from CNS Lymphoma ten years previous. After that, we kept running into more friends, acquaintances, and neighbors who covered us with kindness and encouragement — more angels offering gifts of hope and assurance.
When chemotherapy paralyzed my intestinal tract so that my stomach bloated and pain became unbearable I prayed that God would take me home or fix it. A nurse aid came to my room the next day, saying that she had once had that problem but fixed it with Colyte — the medicine usually given to prepare for colonoscopy, something the doctors had not mentioned. They agreed to try it, however. The problem was fixed.
The possibility of death caused me to reflect on my life’s accomplishments. I was pleased that my life had been fruitful and blessed with many answers to prayer. I believe that prayer helped make the chemotherapy less toxic and more effective in destroying cancer cells while protecting non cancer cells and organs.
This spring, 2014, marks the sixteenth anniversary of the day a biopsy revealed brain cancer, giving me twelve weeks to live. After I was pronounced in remission, I asked God to help get my memory back. In November 1998, I wrote three pages telling about my feelings and how grateful I was for surviving and regaining my memory. The following year I built a small backyard pond. My wife let me make my own mistakes as I still hadn’t recovered the ability to follow directions and to predict what would be needed next. I struggled physically and mentally and it took almost a year, but we still have that pond, stocked with fish and a reminder of what I still can do even though I move and think slowly.
I love to tell this story of miracles and wonderful people who came into my life to offer support and encouragement to me and my wife. We celebrated our 45th anniversary with a big party, renewing our wedding vows up in the Colorado mountains. My legs are weak both from the damage done by the cancer and from the chemotherapy, but I can think and function in a way that was not expected. I’ve lived to see my grandchildren grow up and have enjoyed many happy times, including my 80th birthday party.
George Brandt
anngeob@msn.com