Category 5 Hurricane

In a recent conversation with someone, I was asked how I can cope “so well” through all of this, how am I not breaking and falling apart etc. As I tried to think of ways to describe how, a major storm came to mind. You know it’s coming, there’s warnings. So you batten down the hatches. I feel like that’s what I’ve done for myself mentally. I’ve boarded up the windows and doors and am prepared for the torrential rain and devastating winds that just keep hammering. All my focus is on survival. No outside influences are able to change that focus. Every ounce of energy in me goes to making sure this storm doesn’t destroy us, doesn’t break us, doing everything possible to protect Jacob and get him through this seemingly endless cyclone of events.

Jacob is one month post amputation now. Chemo started again on Thursday. This cycle has been especially hard after everything Jacob has just been through. It rips me apart inside saying to him that only weeks after losing his leg, that this is a good thing for him. After the last 2 weeks of working him so hard to gain strength and mobility back, watching him smile and laugh and exert all his energy with so much determination despite the pain – to filling his body with toxins only to weaken him to the point of being unable to stand, unable to eat and drink, and most of the time to even speak, is really, really tough. Jacob continues to have no appetite since the surgery. My guess is that the feeding tube will remain for a good length of time now. It does make giving some of his medications much easier and takes a bit of stress off of him knowing he doesn’t have to put any energy into trying to get food down. Even water has become unappealing to him. Within hours of the chemo beginning, mouth sores began which makes eating and drinking even more challenging. As always, we can only take this hour by hour, minute by minute.

On Wednesday we got to see the X-ray of Jacob’s leg. He has 12 screws along a plate that runs the entire length of the leg now. The fibula was purposely broken at the top to fit. The top of his femur and the tibia are held together by the hardware. The bones will not fuse until after chemo is done. Until then, Jacob can bear no weight on his leg in any way. We are mentally prepping for up to a year before healing takes place and we can start the heavy rehabilitation into a prosthetic leg. While the X-ray looks pretty crazy, it is so so amazing to see his leg with no massive, ugly tumour. I don’t see screws and plates, I don’t see a “little backwards leg”. I see a cancer free leg. An opportunity to live. To run and jump and play sports. To chase his brothers and shoot hoops and be the farm kid he wants to be so badly. I see a beautiful leg.Jacob is finished now with the chemo drug Cisplatin. He had his last 2 bags put in and is now at his “lifetime dose”. This is partly scary and partly really great. Scary because we know it kills the cancer cells very well and he can never use it again if needed. Really great because it is the hardest drug given in this protocol. He is currently on 17 different medications, most of which help him through the side effects of the Cisplatin. It’s been 31 days now since Jacob and I have been home. It’s hard to say when home will happen. We may end up back at Ronald Macdonald House after he is discharged from the hospital because he still cannot use a toilet, and we are unsure if he’s able to sit in a vehicle yet to get him home. The incision around his upper leg is still a concern as well so that needs close monitoring.

Evan spent a week with Jacob and I at RMH which was so so good for him. And for me. He struggles the most by far. It was such a joy to not hear him crying on the phone daily, or saying goodbye to him and watching him sob as Ray drives away from the hospital.

Thank you for the continued prayers, which we know are being prayed all over the world for Jacob, as we ride out the category 5 storm we are in.

Praise You In This Storm

Casting Crowns