In all things give thanks.

As I sit in Steve's hospital room at the close of 2015, I am reflecting on the past year. It seems appropriate to recognize all of the blessings in our life. And there are indeed many...Our first grandchild, Magnus turned 8 in February. In March we were able to watch as his dad brought him to the waters of baptism and witness Magnus make sacred covenants with his Father in Heaven. Later that same day, 3 generations of Chidester's stood before me as Steve and Matthew place hands on Magnus' head and Matthew confirmed Magnus a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. It was truly a joyous day!
 In April Stephanie graduated from BYU-I. While I was unable to attend due to a terrible kidney stone attack, through the magic of technology I was able to watch her walk across the stage as she received her diploma.
In early June we got to have the first of what I hope will be many visits from the Texas grand kids all by themselves. They stayed two weeks with us and it flew by much too fast. Looking forward to this summer with them again.
Later in June I was able to surprise my dad for his 80th birthday/Fathers Day. Jan and I had arranged it and the look on his face was priceless. We spent 5 relaxing days together with nothing planned but being together. It was the best visit ever. Of course I can't forget that my dad went out of his way to find us some dungeoness crab to cook. It s one of my all time favorites. Thanks dad!
July Sharon and I met up in Utah for a Stampin'Up! convention and some much needed sister time. My dear friend Patti for so many decades came and had dinner with us one night too, It was wonderful to catch up and sort of be a kid again.
August Steve and I belatedly celebrated our 37th wedding anniversary with a trip to Hawaii. It was the best vacation, the best time, the best weather, the best experience. It will be forever in my heart as truly a gift from God. I did not know it then but I would need that gift to carry me in the months to come.

With the exception of Magnus baptism, it would seem I have talked about a lot of temporal things but there is so much more. Steve firmly believes that we were being prepared for the challenges we are facing now, more than 23 years ago. Steve and I are native Californians and we had no reason to think that would ever change. God had a different plan that would put us right where we needed to be at this time in our lives.I am grateful for this knowledge and it is a comfort to me. I have also spent the past year serving with some amazing women in our ward Relief Society Presidency. We planned some fantastic service projects that really unified the sisters.I truly have a testimony that this was an inspired program for women. I have enjoyed this calling more than any other in my life (okay maybe equally with Young Women but who doesn't love serving with Young Women?). It has been a humbling and awe inspiring experience. I have been forever changed by it. I have also been able to observe the growth of Aaron on his mission.It never ceases to amaze me what the Lord can do with a 19 year old boy.
So what is in store for 2016? Well there are hopefully a college acceptance letter or two to come, babies to be born, graduations to attend, Priesthood ordinations to be performed, a missionary homecoming and maybe even a mission call or two...
What a loving Father in Heaven has in store for Steve - only he knows. I do know that he will be there for us every step of the way.Remember  Philipians 4:13

Life goes on around me...

Today is day 12 of Steve in the hospital. Other than Christmas Day, that is how I mark of the day. Michael and Brian took me to lunch nearby and the cashier said "Happy New Year". I was completely taken aback. I did not realize that it was coming up on New Years. Yesterday I went home for a few hours which turned into all night because of the weather. it was a very weird feeling. First of all it was so big. I forgot how big my house is. I spend so much time with Steve and this hospital I kind of forget what life is like elsewhere. I know I could go home more often but I really feel I want to be near Steve. Every time I leave something bad happens. One time his blood pressure plummeted and at the same time the IV line failed. Another time I left him to go downstairs and he started barfing. I felt terrible when I returned because he looked so vulnerable. So I had a bit of time since I was stranded, to see what was going on while I was away. I observed two things; life goes on around me, even if I am not involved and I have great kids who take care of each other. Stephanie made dinner which was really yummy. It was so great to have home cooking. Kimberly has been helping everyone stay on task including getting Benjamin to and from work. Kevin is always ready to pick something up after work. Michael, Brian and Britta are my comedy and sanity relief. They bring me dinner, hang out at the hospital and generally make everything feel less scary when I spend to much time thinking.

We got a new team of doctors on Monday. They are associates of last weeks doctors. That is good and bad. It is always great to have new sets of eyes on the patient and the symptoms. The down side is that you have to explain everything over and over again. Sometimes Steve just doesn't have the bandwidth for it so I do it and he fills in little details. This week the lead doctor from Dana Farber is this loud Greek guy. Brian refers to him as Nick the Greek for some reason. He has a thick accent but does have a few new ideas. While they still have not been able to relieve Steve of the most troubling symptom of bacterial colitis, his does feel its time to take the gloves off with regard to palliative care. Initially they were cautious because of long term effects of some of the medications that would make Steve more comfortable. This guys attitude is a little different. I am not sure how to take it. He seems to project the fact that Steve isn't going to be around to suffer those side effects so we won't worry about it... I mean, the most important thing to me is FINALLY getting Steve out of pain. Every day he feels awful. Everyday he is nauseous. Everyday he gets weaker. Currently he is on 4 antibiotics and an IV treatment for Thrush. How much is a body supposed to take. I want to believe that the drugs are starting to work but I am afraid I will wake up tomorrow to find we are back to square one.Tonight we were visited by yet another new doctor from a specialized infectious disease group.They are going to study all of Steve's labs and see if something was overlooked. I sure hope they find something.

What feels most ridiculous is the fact that we are at a world renown Cancer Treatment Facility and the doctors can't even treat the cancer because of the vicious infection raging in Steve's body. He was scheduled to start his second round of chemo treatments today but he is to weak to tolerate it. It will be at least another week and probably more before they can even consider treating the cancer again, The biggest bummer to me is that a scan they did on Monday shows that the tumors are actually responding to the chemo. Lets home we can keep them shrinking until they can drip more of that toxic cocktail into Steve's veins again.

Life and it's curve balls

Its been a few days since I have written but there just hasn't been much time.Monday dawned as a very low and somewhat scary day for all of us. Steve's symptoms had worsened and we were feeling very uneasy. I felt like he was not going to make it out of this hospital. He was truly completely miserable and nothing was helping. I stayed in his room that night and slept fitfully with a heavy heart.
Tuesday everyone was in town and wanted to see him, I was very leery but I gave them a little time each.Miraculously,Steve seemed a lot stronger than he had in days.Monday night they had made the decision to take him off of all oral medications and go strictly IV. This would let his gut rest and hopefully address the nausea better. They also switched to a better pain medicine. It was working very well.  He had animated conversations with each of the kids. And all was beginning to seem right with the world again. Kimber and Zach were headed in to see him in the afternoon so I headed home to get some time with my kids and a much needed shower. They stayed quite a while longer than I had hoped but Steve seemed pretty content just tired when I arrived that night. I figure this was the chemo finally doing its job. Yay!
Wednesday was the complete opposite but I chalked it up to having over done it the day before. The most results of his labs said the infection was gone so that was good news. What was confusing was why was he feeling worse then? More nausea, more pain, less comfort all the way around.The palliative care team has been great this week at addressing symptoms instead of the whole enchilada. They started making adjustments and are continuing to do so each day. One of the super big bummers was the diagnosis of Thrush. He has a pretty severe case of it and it is contributing to his nausea. The started him on the standard drug on Wednesday but it really isn't helping so today they started him on an IV medication.
Thursday was Christmas Eve. As much as I had hoped Steve would be home for Christmas that was not going to happen. So what to do? I have these fantastic grand kids 2 teenagers still at home. I desperately wanted to be there Christmas morning. I wrestled and finally came up with a plan. i would stay at the hospital until 4 am and then head home. I could help Santa with his duties and then get a little shut eye before the littles woke up. At 7 am Brian and Britta would come by and spend the morning with Steve until I could get here. The kids woke up around 7:30 and we had a wonderful Christmas morning. We were able to put aside what was happening in Boston and just be in the moment. It was wonderful. It was all I wanted it to be and I am very grateful. Sweet friends had been bringing sweet treats all week and that morning a dear friend brought cinnamon rolls. Britta had made some as well so life was very good. Too soon it was time to face reality and head to the hospital. I was really frustrated because I love my husband but I just wanted to hold on to the normalcy at home for a little while longer. I finally couldn't deal and had a much needed melt down. I cried on the phone to Steve about my frustration and I think it was a good thing. I have been trying not to show any weakness because I didn't want him to worry about me. Now I think that might have been interpreted as callousness. It was a good conversation and we aren't able to have those too often. It was a good   Christmas gift. When I arrived back at the hospital, Steve did  not look as good as he had sounded on the phone and I am glad we had the chance to share that morning. I had asked Matthew to make a traditional Christmas dinner and I would come home for it. I guess that was a little overly optimistic. It rapidly became apparent that I would not be leaving the hospital again that day. Such is life with a cancer patient.We don't know when Steve will get out of here but we greet each new day with hope.
The week has been full of curve balls and continues to be so. I am so grateful to be surrounded by the love and support of my children. This is a harsh and growing experience for all of us.We have laughed, cried, argued and hugged. The road is uncertain and I am sure there will continue to be pot holes but I know I am not alone - I will never be alone.

Well at least BWH has very sweet nurses...

So its Sunday night and I am here at the hospital with Steve. We have been here since Friday night. Well he has anyway. I did sleep(sort of) in my own bed last night. The antibiotic they prescribed for his infection has not been a good experience. Thursday when he went for hydration they were concerned enough they considered keeping him but decided against it. Friday when it was time to go for more hydration he did not have the energy which indicated that he was becoming worse. They told us to take him to Brigham and Women's to be admitted through the ER. I thought that sounded simple enough. They know he is coming. We should be on the oncology floor in a couple hours. Not so easy. First of all, the ER of a city is very different from Southern New Hampshire Medical Center. There are like 80 beds, crazy people yelling. chaos all around.So they put him in a room pretty quickly and started some fluids but then the waiting begins.We were in the little cubicle for 6 hours. Poor Steve's 6'1'' body is a tad(a lot) bigger than the stretcher he was on. He didn't complain though, just curled up in a ball. The nurses were very nice and kept apologizing and trying to make him comfortable. We finally got in a room around 12:30 am. The only thing that made sense was for me to stay the night so I did. I am very glad we brought him in because he was more dehydrated than I realized. His blood pressure was very low and they said it was because he was so dry. I am sure learning about a lot of things I never wanted to know. Going in to this little visit I thought they would just put a couple bags of fluid in him and we would be outta here. Its a little more complicated than that. After 2 days, its not clear that he will even be going home tomorrow.He has had the same day nurses for the past 2 days though that has been a huge blessing.They have been very kind and patient and for that I am so grateful.
Matthew and his family has driven 30 hours in 2 days to spend the holidays with us.I can't wait to see them. They will arrive at my house in about an hour. I will wait to see them until tomorrow though. Tonight my sweetheart does not want me to leave his side. And so I will not. If my sleeping in a chair next to him brings him comfort. I will do it for the rest of my life...

I do want to add a postscript to this. I have, as I believe my whole family has keenly felt the prayers of so many. We have an amazing ward family and so much extended family that let us know that we are not alone and never will be. I am so incredibly thankful to know that my Savior is with me and loving me. He is my strength!

The journey continued...

On December 8th we had our much anticipated meeting with the doctor at Dana Farber. He talked to us about Steve's tumors, explained that chemo was the recommended treatment -and some pretty violent chemo drugs at that. He also wanted to admit Steve to the hospital that very day so he could start him on fluids  in preparation for chemo the next day. He said that Small Cell Pancreatic Cancer is very aggressive and very rare. Only 1% of patients have it originate in the Pancreas. Typically is starts in the lungs. Just to be sure, the dd a scan of Steve's lungs and thankfully they were clear.

While Small Cell is very aggressive it typically also responds well to treatment. They will do 2 rounds of 3 days each - 21 days apart. A few days before the 3rd round they will do a scan to see if the tumors are shrinking. We will pray it is good news by then. Steve had Chemo on the 9, 10 and 11th of this month. Other than still  being very sick, he seemed to tolerate it well and went home on Saturday the 12th. On Sunday the nausea began but that was to be expected. We able the keep it under control with medication for the most part. Unfortunately for Steve he picked up a bacterial infection at the hospital but we didn't know it yet. As his symptoms worsened we called the doc and were back at Dana Farber Tuesday morning for tests and hydration. They called Wednesday to tell us about the test results and start antibiotics. Isn't modern medicine great? We can results that fast! So we start up yet another medicine. Poor guy he has a whole pharmacy by now. After a few doses it becomes apparent that the medicine does NOT agree with him.
I will continue tomorrow cause my battery is dying...

They say its 'who you know...'

While we were waiting for a biopsy appointment-and without any sort of diagnosis-we were assigned to an oncologist. If that isn't ominous, I don't know what is. We got a call on Monday before Thanksgiving from a very nice lady who said she was our 'care coordinator'. Care? Care for what? We decided we needed some better answers.Since we were going to need a copy of Steve's CT scan for the next doctor we went ahead and requested a copy. During the course of that phone call, Steve decided to ask the clerk to read him the radiologists report. It was then that we realized something pretty serious was going on. There wasn't simply one lesion - there were multiple ones. Not only on the pancreas but the liver as well. With this new information its starting to become a little clearer. But Steve is still getting sicker and all the doctors do is give him pain medicine but aren't really addressing his symptoms. In desperation we contact our reliable primary care provider of more than 20 years. He has seen the CT report and intimates that there are probably malignancies BUT he knows 2 guys that are finally doing well after similar diagnosis'. while that wasn't very comforting he did do something that finally gave Steve some measure of relief. He prescribed  enzymes for Steve to take every time he eats.Apparently his pancreas wasn't making any digestive enzymes so that's why everything upset his system. The enzymes were a godsend. They did and do make life more tolerable. But still we had to wait for Tuesday...
Why did I title this the way I did? Well, I believe that if you know God, he makes sure you get introduced to the right people. The rest is up to you. A few long time friend have made all the difference in this journey so far. I will  share a few examples...

On October 27th, a dear friend who had moved away a few years back showed up at my door for a surprise visit.While I love her to death, this was still very unusual. We enjoyed catching up and then I asked what had brought her out this way since she was living in Arizona. She told me her sweet husband had sent her out here to visit with family because he felt she needed a break. Their lives had been turned upside down by a cancer diagnosis or her husband in July. As she shared this with me a chill went up my spine. We chatted some more and then I told her she was awesome and hard things happened to awesome people.We said out goodbyes but what she told me shook me to my core. Steve had been sick for a few weeks and was preparing to go to India a few days later. I now know that our Heavenly Father sent her to me to prepare me for what was to come.

The week and a half of waiting for the biopsy was brutal as questions swirled and Steve's condition worsened.As I mentioned before, a friend connected us with a Pancreatic specialist at Mass General. What I didn't mention was how great and attentive this guy was. Working only with info he had from our friend Steve, he took my calls, answered my questions and called to check on Steve throughout the weekend. Steve wasn't even his patient yet. I believe that speaks volumes to the integrity of this man and to my friend Dr, Steve.

Once we had our final diagnosis -Stage 4 Small Cell Pancreatic Cancer-our oncologist in New Hampshire told us he wanted us to get a second opinion in Boston. Another dear friend to the rescue. Our friend Frank works for a company that is well acquainted with the Dana Farber Cancer Center in Boston. He recommended a few people we should talk to. By this point my feelings are pretty raw so I asked Matthew to make the calls. He told them the doctors said he needed to be seen urgently. They told him Steve could be seen in February. FEBRUARY?!!! I wonder when they schedule for when you AREN'T urgent? When Matthew mentioned it to our friend, he made a few phone calls and got us in just a few days later.
Some people might call that favoritism. I believe it is the good will that these dear friends have  built up that inspired people to help them-and in turn us-to get the care that we urgently needed. And it truly is all about 'who you know' when you know Who is in charge.

Oh, I feel to share one more thing. More than a year ago Steve had a kidney stone. In the process of diagnosing it, an overly cautious doctor ordered more than the standard x-ray. He also ordered a CT scan of Steve's abdomen. They did not have him drink the dye for contrast so Steve didn't realize this was not the standard test. He also had never had anything like that wrong with him before. We now understand that was the hand of the Lord. Because we had that scan from last year. It made it easier for the radiologist to recognize a problem this year. He noted in his report that there was a dramatic change from last year. Information that was key in getting us to the right doctors.

Our journey begins...

December 1st marks the beginning of a new chapter in our family. As I have wrestled with my feelings I decided I need to find an outlet to express them. I have never been a consistent journal keeper but with an smartphone, tablet or laptop typically nearby, blog posts seem like something I can keep up with. I don't know if anyone will ever read this but I need to get it out there none the less.

My teenage sweetheart and husband of 37 years started feeling ill shortly after a business trip in mid October of this year. He is a frequent business traveler and thought that he was experiencing travelers diarrhea. He didn't really say much except that perhaps he should touch base with the doctor before he went on his next trip. The doctor was not particularly concerned and prescribed medication for him to take to ease his symptoms. It did not really help but Steve kept pushing through life not saying much about it. On October 30th he traveled to India. Knowing that the water is not particularly clean in India, he checked a bag full of bottled water to consume while he was gone. He ate the local fare -avoiding the usual culprits for disease and weathered the trip without getting worse. He came home on Friday night and within 6 or 8 hours of returning he became very ill. In hind sight, we realize that the Lord kept him safe while he was there so he would not end up in a hospital in India. We took him to urgent care as soon as they opened the next morning.

Now begins the series of doctor appointments and tests. More appointments with more doctors and more tests, All the while Steve is getting sicker and all anyone can do is treat the symptoms. Finally on the Friday before Thanksgiving, a doctor sees something troubling on a CT scan and suggests we need to go to Boston for a biopsy of Steve's Pancreas. There is just one problem, no one wants to take on a new case the week of Thanksgiving. Fortunately, a good friend of ours is a Pediatric Gastroenterologist at Massachusetts General Hospital and as such, has a friend who is a Pancreatic specialist there. We have a few phone chats but he can't get us in for the test until Tuesday after Thanksgiving. By this time Steve has been sick for 6 weeks and can't really eat much beyond canned fruit and dry toast. Couple that with an uncertain diagnosis looming - it was a very long wait until Tuesday,

Tuesday December 1st, we finally met the doctor for the biopsy and Steve went in to have the test. Matthew flew in because he was worried about his dad. Brian, Britta and Michael all took off work and the 5 of us waited for the dreaded results. The doctors was very kind but there was no doubt. Steve has pancreatic cancer and it has spread to his liver as well. They sent tissue off to lab to verify what type of cancer cells we were dealing with so the oncologists would know how to treat it. It took until Friday to get the results.When the oncologist called he told us to immediately go for a second opinion on treatment as there wasn't time to waste.

I will continue to share the story tomorrow...