In the words spoken to me by the UCSF Cancer Surgeon, "Your wife's stomach cancer has spread. We are cancelling the chemo and surgery. How long she has to live ... depends on her." I understand that to mean "ME." Laura had been battling Lupus for 15 years. My guess it was the drugs plaquenil and Prednisone they gave her for Lupus that destroyed her stomach enough to get and feed cancer. Summer 201
4, she was throwing up blood, off for more hospitalization and drugs. X-rays, Cat Scans, etc, etc, until an endoscopy revealed stomach cancer. You might think with all the tests in previous years they would have found the cancer a long time ago. Rather than put her at the mercy of the general surgeon at Santa Clara, we brought her up to a Cancer Surgeon specialist at UCSF. His plan was to get another endoscopy and then surgically insert cameras into her abdomen to check on the cancer from outside the stomach wall. It was expected he would find nothing more than already revealed. Then, Laura would go through 3 bouts of chemotherapy, surgery to remove the tumor, and, another 3 bouts of chemo. Laura's main concern was losing her hair. The tests were delayed almost two months as Santa Clara Medical wouldn't release the file due to some insurance claim mix-up. Lupus was the yang of Laura's ying; her beauty. She hid it well with poise, charm, and endless grace. Now cancer? My religious background made me think God is taking her to reserve her spot in eternal life. Certainly a good call on God's part, and Laura deserves it. I certainly never deserved her. But she didn't deserve to get cancer, or be thrown out to the curb by the medical profession to die. I have always been the one called to strike out the last batter, fix anything and everything, or save the real estate deal. I was always the one to step up for friends and family in trouble, to be the hand reaching out to those fallen. I was named Michael after the Arch Angel, to slay the demons -- and I was proud of my charge. But I don't know how to ask for help, to show frailty, or weakness. I just don't know what to do. How do I fix cancer??
