CHASE AWAY CANCER

2014: Looking Forward In Our Own Words…

Last year, I had the family look back on 2012 in their own words. This year, with a concussion-induced writing break and the first part of January already slipping away, I asked them to look forward. As I reflect, it actually seems more appropriate. 2012 ended in a way that we needed to sit and process. 2013 ended on a decidedly different note – one that has caused us to look forward with great expectancy. So here we are in our own words…

Darcy (7): “This year, I want to go back to our old house.” [Since Chase’s diagnosis, we have lived with grandparents for immediate and constant assistance – a thing we could not do without – but our kids miss our condo, and in truth, “our old house” often means “our old life”. How I wish I could snap my fingers and give that to them.]

Aidan (5): “This year, I want to go to Lake Geneva!” [I’m pretty sure this is the first thing that popped into his head, but it’s his story and he’s sticking to it.]

Chase (4): “This year, I just want for to have no more cancer and The Polar Express.” [I don’t think there is anything I could say to elaborate on this.]

Karsten (2): “I want to sit on my bottom!” [At the time I asked Karsten about his 2014 plans, he’d just been ordered to “sit on his bottom” at the dinner table because standing on his chair to eat his soup was deemed inappropriate. In all fairness to him, that’s an excellent goal for 2014 and a much needed one.]

Bob: My thoughts on 2014 center around motion and growth. We’ve been stagnated under the immediate and the urgent for so long. Now, we have this chance to move…to be in forward motion, if you will, away from the treatment and the upheaval and to be out from under all of that. I look forward to 2014 being a season of moving forward and growing in many facets.

Ellie: In a small way, I echo Bob. My hope for 2014 is that we find our place. We have been wanderers in the treatment phase for so long – I’ve written a few times about the urgency that barely allows you to make eye contact with life, and now, we’ve been granted the great gift of a reprieve. It’s terrifying to stop fighting and live, but it’s amazing to stop fighting and live. We’ve been given this gift of life – now we actively seek God for our place in it and the courage to assume what He has for us when He makes it clear.

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Jeremiah 29:11

With great hope… Moment by moment.

He Is Enough

Finally, a Christmas season with no new. No new babies that leave you lucky to get completely dressed each day, let alone decorate a house for Christmas. No new and scary cancer diagnosis that sends you reeling so that you can hardly think straight, let alone prepare for the holidays.

This. This would be the year we would do. Do lights and trees and the Christmas market and start new traditions. Each day would be beautiful and weighed down and slowed down in some way to specially mark the Advent and keep the Heart of our celebration at the front of our minds. …and our adventures and travels would all look so pretty under the light of an Instagram filter.

And then everybody got sick.

And Chase’s counts dropped for two weeks in a row with no explanation.

And I found myself lying face in the snow as my bruised brain reminded me that what I’d set out to do hadn’t been a good idea.

And then came the CT scan and the ER conversation about how to treat concussions.

And then I watched the Christmas season pass me by.

The cards only half done, the Christmas market abandoned, the traditions would have to wait.

Lying flat on the couch by the tree, tears streamed down my face as I struggled to let it go. I had attached my heart to these things we would do. I would be a good parent for them; a good Christian for them. These things are what would make this time special and holy. Because we need special. You see, for any of us, healthy or not, this could be our last Christmas, but somehow, with the cancer, the dark cloud of “the last” looms greater and closer. This Christmas must count because it could be the last one we’re all here together. What if…

I have continued to wrestle against this concussion, pushing for health because we’re losing precious days.

It wasn’t until yesterday, eight days into the wrestle, as I sat under the tree, feeling bitterly disappointed to miss another Advent Sunday, that the still of my heart was stirred.

God is enough.

My worship doesn’t need anything, not even the beauty and pageantry of Christmas in my beloved church. My ability to guide my children through this season is not based on events and outings. No, He who took on our broken, wretched skin, He and He alone is enough.

This does not come easily to me. I so often want to dress Him up and observe Him in a way that makes me feel special. How silly and foolish a thing to do – and it took a concussion to strip it away and show it up.

So the Christmas cards may not get sent, but He is enough.

The new traditions may not get made, but He is enough.

The old traditions may not be kept, but He is enough.

This may well be the last Christmas…but HE IS ENOUGH.

I don’t need anything else.

Moment by moment.

Of Bears Hats And Times With Dad

Today is a big day for Chase! He has routine appointments at the hospital (not big), and he and Daddy are going by themselves!! (REALLY big!)
Bob is looking forward to some bonding time with Chase and I (laid up with a concussion at home – a story for another time) am trying not to call them every few minutes. 🙂

Two things to note…
1) Chase is a Chicago Bears fan and wanted me to point out that he’s wearing his Bears hat.
2) Look at Chase’s face! I know this picture isn’t the best, but he’s visibly filling out! I love it!

Moment by moment.

12.12.13

I still remember the final push and the rush of pain and relief as the doctor held up the tiny, red child and proclaimed him a boy…and then, as they laid him on my chest, he marveled aloud to the room that the seconds-old child was holding his head by himself. Strength.

In that moment, I held my Chase Stratton Elliot for the first time. Named after his grandmothers, his great-uncle Jim, and the burden prayer that he would run after God, this child of great struggle and the unexpected came; the news of his life shocking us only three months after Aidan.

I still remember walking down the hall of the radiation center and stepping into the room on that last day, my arms full with a too white child too light for his long bones. The anesthesiologist stepped to my side and as the milky syringe emptied into the central line, my baby chanted “I’m so brave, I’m so brave, I’m so brave…” until he sighed and collapsed in a deep sleep on my shoulder. Strength.

In that moment, I held my Chase Stratton Elliot for yet another time – still my child of great struggle and the unexpected. I held him and wondered if this would be the last December 12th that he’d be in my arms.

Now it’s December 12th again and my darling child of struggle is still in my arms! Joy.

He struggles with the world even now, but his stubborn, tenacious, beat-the-odds, stare-it-down, never-say-die, don’t-mess, you-and-what-army spirit is what makes him our precious Chase.

The first time we sat across the table and heard the awfulness of this disease, I asked the doctors what was ahead and one smiled with great sympathy and said: “Let’s just start this fight, and then we’ll get him through radiation, and then we’ll hopefully get him to age three, and then four, and then…”

He saw age three, he conquered age three, and now he’s FOUR.

Moment by moment.

I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living! Psalm 27:13

Do You Hear What I Hear?

I’ve written about Chase’s lack of hearing before.

The tiny room…

The sounds I can hear that he doesn’t…

The frustration in our home as he calls and calls desperately across the house, never once hearing us answer…

Since his doctors surgically cleaned out his ears, the intense frustration has seemed to improve a little. Now, he seems to be able to hear a voice from across the room, but perhaps that’s just wishful thinking on our parts. After all, we know the collateral damage we signed on for when we started this journey.

Stimulating his hearing through his skull - fearful and wonderful — Stimulating his hearing through his skull – fearful and wonderful

And yet…

Today, as we wrapped up the audiology exam, she sat down and smiled: “I don’t usually get to tell people this, as it often goes in the other direction, but…his hearing has actually improved!” The procedure performed in November (when he was under anesthesia for his MRI) was successful and his hearing is within normal ranges in several areas. His high frequency hearing is still classified as “poor“, but even that has improved from the “unresponsive” conclusion on his last test.

Even as we both celebrate these results and wonder about the results in six months time, I am reminded again of these words…

Chase doesn’t need perfect hearing to hear the voice of God.

Thankful.

Moment by moment.