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| Isaac & his Mimi on the day he left for college |
I forgot to mention earlier the disaster that my parents came home to. Well, In late May when Connie & I were in Rochester, Minnesota to help my parents move back home, my dad got a call from Alec (Kristie’s son). He went over to their house to get the heat turned on for my mom & to make sure things were clean & ready for them to come home. When he went down to the basement he opened the door & discovered over 6 inches of standing water covering the basement floor! The Friday before (he called on Sunday) there was a torrential downpour that flooded the area. Many people had flooding problems in their homes. Apparently the sump pump in their basement wasn’t working & my dad didn’t know. Since no one was home, no one knew about the flooding so it just sat for a couple days, soaking into the drywall & studs, as well as the furniture, books, carpet, etc. Thankfully the men involved in “A Cup of Cold Water”, a group of men who use their home repair skills to serve people in their church (Grabill Missionary), were able to come to the rescue. Mike Davis became the point man until my dad got home. L&L Specialists (a company owned by Bob’s cousins) came in & cut off the bottom 4 or 5 inches of the bottom of every wall & placed blowers all over so that the drywall could dry & took care of the mold that was growing already. Mike & his crew moved all of the furniture, books, decorations, decorations & decorations out of the basement & put them in the garage. It took a long time before my mom was able to go to the basement. She never really did spend much time there again.
Back to July. A couple of weeks after my mom helped Bob get a job, we had the Anderson Summer Gathering at Uncle Steve & Aunt Cathy’s. This is a day we always look forward to. My dad & his 6 sisters (Betty Bowyer, Sandi Anderson, Pam Norton, Cathy Culler, Kim Culbertson & Debbie Fuentes) have quite the large clan going these days! There are always new kids showing up every year. If I count correctly, Cloyd & Alta (Inlow) Anderson have 69 family members, most of whom show up for this party. My mom was feeling well enough to attend that day & she had a great time seeing people. She looked great that day! She still had a very sensitive stomach because of the radiation burn to her colon, but she didn’t pass up Uncle Steve’s homemade ice cream!
From the time she was released from Parkview in May through August, my mom had to go in to the oncology office for weekly (or biweekly) labs & infusions. She liked to get the infusions later in the week so that she could have active weekends with friends & family. The infusion of electrolytes, anti-nausea meds & sometimes blood products always made her feel better. She loved it when she felt good enough to go to church, but because she was so fragile & weak from all she had been through she didn’t get to attend every week.
The first week of August she went in for her regularly scheduled labs. Early in the week everything was normal. However, when she went in on Friday, August 6th, everything had changed dramatically. I got a call from Connie telling me that her labs were bad & my parents wanted us at the oncology office pronto. The three of us girls squeezed into a small infusion room with our parents while my mom finished her infusion. When she talked about what was going on, she cried, not out of fear but out of a deep sorrow for her family. My dad was crying, too. He could hardly speak at times. Several of the nurses who had helped her with her infusions over the past few months came in & told her how sorry they were to hear that her cancer was back. Many of them had tears in their eyes when they spoke to her. Dr. Nattam ordered a bone marrow draw the following Monday, with an appointment scheduled on Wednesday, August 11, to go over the results.
On Wednesday, August 11th (my parents’ 47th anniversary), Connie, Kristie, Bob & I met my parents at the office on what turned out to be a tragic day. Dr. Nattam came in & sat down beside my mom. He held her hand as he told us that the cancer was back, & it had come back aggressively with a furious vengeance. She had already gone through the most severe chemo protocol that Mayo Clinic had ever given a patient, so all conventional chemo treatments would be of no value. There was one chemo that is in the approval stage with the FDA that Dr. Nattam thought might be worth trying, but since it wasn’t on the market, he would have to jump through many hoops to get it for her. In reality, there was nothing more that could be done for her. When Dr. Nattam had finished, we were all in tears. My dad said he wanted to pray. Dr. Nattam, the man my mom had been pursuing with the gospel, prayed with us. He was visibly shaken because he had gotten to know my parents & grew to hold my mom in a special place in his heart. He told one of his nurses later that he had never witnessed such faith in his life.
As soon as Bob & I got out to our car, I checked my phone (Bob & I left our phones in the car because we didn’t want to be interrupted during the appointment) & saw that Bob’s mom had been trying to call. Bob called her & learned that our nephew, Chadd Kelley, was at Parkview having brain surgery following some sort of hemorrhage. We went straight from Parkview North where my mom’s oncologist’s office was, to Parkview Main where Chadd’s family had gathered. Chadd is Bob’s brother Bill’s son. Chadd had experienced an arteriovenous malformation (AVM) near his brain stem. It is a condition that he was born with, but no one ever knew existed. Had they known about it, he could have had surgery to repair it before anything like this happened. Most individuals with this condition die from it before the are old enough to drive. Chadd is 28. He most likely survived so long without a problem because he is a health ox. That morning he woke up with a terrible headache. His friend, Jerry, called 911 for help. Chadd was conscious until he got into the ambulance. Later that night we were able to visit him in the Critical Care Unit. His wife Sarah was by his side, talking to him, touching him & loving him. He had a tracheotomy & was on a ventilator. Chadd is so tall that his feet hung over the bed, so they adapted the bed to accommodate his height. The CCU lobby was filled with friends & family who came to comfort each other, Sarah & Chadd’s mom Judy. That day was an exhausting day, in many ways. We learned that my mom had a very short time to live & also had the unthinkable happen to Chadd, who was young & in perfect health.
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