God’s Gifts in the Valley of Trials and Tears

Watching my younger brother battle cancer has been one of the most heart-wrenching experiences of my life. As a protective older sister, witnessing his pain and fear while feeling powerless to help has been incredibly tough.

In this episode of the Mom on Purpose podcast, I delve into the immense strength and resilience my brother, his wife, and their three young children have shown throughout this ordeal.

The support from our extended family has been one of God's gifts, providing a beacon of hope during this grueling process.

So, whatever experience you're going through right now, I truly hope that you know that there is a very loving God that sees you and hears you and knows you by name and that he has placed extraordinary gifts along the way to help you.

Be on the lookout for those gifts and I promise you, you will see them.

What you'll learn in this episode:  

• Find inspiration in the story of overcoming adversity, highlighting the human capacity for resilience, love, and courage in the face of trials and tears
• Proof of God's love although out this journey from my brother's surgery to recovery
• The impact of kindness during my brother's treatment and recovery

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Transcript

Welcome to the Mom on Purpose Podcast. I'm Lara Johnson, and I'm here to teach you how to get out of your funk, be in a better mood, claim more with your kids. Manage your home better, get your to-do list done and live your life on purpose with my proven method. This is possible for you, and I'll show you how. You're not alone anymore.

We're in this together.

Hello, hello, it is wonderful to talk to you today. I am so glad that you're here. 

I just wanted to give you a little update on where things have been before we dive into this episode. 

I am currently in Houston, Texas. 

I live just north of Salt Lake City, Utah in Houston, Texas. 

I live just north of Salt Lake City, Utah, and I have traveled down here to help my brother, my younger brother, undergo well. 

I mean, he's already had these life-saving surgeries. But I'm here helping recovery, and I will take my shift, and more siblings will be coming in. My mom's still here, my dad's already gone home, his wife has already gone home, but I just have to tell you like my heart is in a very tender spot. 

Any of you that are close, you know, with your siblings you know exactly what I'm talking about. As a protective older sister, it is very, very hard watching your younger brother go through some of the hardest experiences of his life and not being able to do a damn thing about it. 

So back in December of this last year it's currently September they found tumors that were wrapped around my brother's spine. Now this is scary in and of itself and very, very painful, as you can imagine, because as the tumor grew, it started squeezing things and causing intense pain in his right arm and, of course, in his back. He is a dentist, he uses both of his hands regularly and is right-handed, so you can imagine how hard that was. 

But it was a short time later where they found out that it was cancerous Spindle cell sarcoma, I think is what it's called. And of course, my older sister and I made the horrible mistake of Googling things and that's just never a good idea. But I know you know what I'm talking about because you do it too and it just, you know, didn't look good. It too, and it just, you know, didn't look good. 

He had a couple rounds of chemo earlier this year that sent him into the hospital. One of those times he lives in a smaller town in Missouri. One of those times they almost lost him. He was taken from Missouri to Kansas City. He was taken from Missouri to Kansas City like a three-hour ambulance ride and that's where, you know, my mom hopped on a flight and thought she was, she was going to lose her son. 

And, of course, you know, my amazing sister-in-law, you know, through this whole process, not knowing if he's going to make it Somehow, he pulls through the tumor, didn't respond to the chemo, so they ended that and moved on to radiation in order to just slow the growth of this thing so they could get to a spot where they could remove. 

I cannot imagine the amount of stress that he and my sister-in-law have been under this entire time. They've got three little kids nine five and just turned three. So already. Life is very busy for them and then to add all of this on top of it is very hard. But in addition to all of this, by some miracle he was able to get in with the cancer group in Houston, Texas, MD Anderson, which is the number one ranked cancer hospital in the US, which was such a huge blessing. But it was also a nine-hour drive. 

So not only are they going through such intense stress, they have been regularly making this nine-hour drive to get him to his appointments. Some of that included, you know, his five weeks of radiation where he was having to live here away from his family. So, they came and were able to stay for a while. My mom, my both my parents they've been incredible. Her parents have been incredible. You know there's so much love and support from family friends. 

So, as they were going through that process, it slowed the growth of the tumor, which was good, which we were hoping for which then led to the next step of the process, which is his surgeries. So, when they finally got in to see this tumor, it had crushed his C7 vertebrae, completely, eroded it, like the tumor was basically holding his spine together, which is unreal to think about the amount of pain he's been through, but also the miracle that he was still able to move and walk through all of this despite the amount of pain. 

So then began the surgeries, which leads us to where we are. I mean, there's so many other details that is for another lifetime, I'm sure Maybe he'll write a book someday, but during this process, because of where the tumor was located on his spine it's right at the base of the neck, which is where all of the nerves are controlling so much of your body They've had to pull together teams of doctors to talk about how to remove this thing and save his life. 

My mom said you know, at the hospital he's basically a celebrity, because this is the most complicated surgeries that they've had to do at this hospital and will be the top surgery they do this year. 

And I say surgeries because the poor guy had to go through multiple of them to try and remove this tumor because of its location, location. 

So, the first was towards his back. 

On his back they had to go all the way from the top of, like, the base of his skull all the way down halfway his back. They're cutting muscles, they're literally filleting him apart. I excuse if that seems very gruesome, but you can imagine how painful that is to have all of your muscles pulled open like that and then to have this tumor from the back side removed and then to have metal, three metal rods, placed in from his c2 to t4 vertebrae because they needed three stable vertebrae on each side to fuse these rods to. 

So, he now has these rods placed in his back and then they go through the whole surgery of literally stitching his muscles back up together. And then comes the front side, where they had to remove three inches of his clavicle, open him up like a book, cutting muscle, moving things, clipping a little bit of his voice box, being able to sever nerves in order to get to this horrible thing. 

But then in the process, having to take a very large chunk from his quad in order to rebuild his entire neck. 

He went into he and his wife went into this surgery knowing that he would lose function to his right arm and that he would lose the majority of function to his left. I can't imagine going into surgeries like that knowing that would be the outcome. 

So, the first surgery was 14 hours, 15 hours, and then the next one was 14 hours. They did one surgery. It took an entire day, then he had a break and then they did the next day. 

The amount of love not only that my family has felt from the doctors, from my clients that know what's going on, from our communities, the amount of prayers. It's unreal to think about how good people are. I think about coming together as a family, and not just my immediate family, you know. I think about my incredible mother-in-law who's there helping with my kids so I can be down there, down here with my brother. I think about, you know, I mean, just the ripple effect of it is unreal. 

So, we're about 10 days, 11 days, post-surgeries and by some miracle he has all function to his left arm and some function to his right, with the potential that more could come back, and the doctors don't understand how that happened, because they severed those nerves. 

When I think about all of these miracles that have happened, I am so grateful for the faith that I have, for the faith that I have in loving God. I have a strong personal belief. I struggle and I've told you this before with the thought that everything happens for a reason, because there are some things that I don't think there should be a reason for children going hungry or abused or people being assaulted. I have a very hard time with that thought. 

But the thought that really gets me through is God loves us and I have the belief that in every mortal experience that we have there are gifts along the way, almost like a special treasure hunt where you get to walk through these, or scavenger hunt. You get to walk through these experiences you have in life and see all of the things that God has hidden in these for you. 

That's the thought that I can get behind. So, when I think about all that we've experienced, I can see these gifts that are hidden. Oh, my brother, my brother, he is one of those kinds, those very special people that have been put on the earth to change people. It is amazing how every person that walks into his room, despite the pain that he's in, he asks them their name and where they're from. But not only does he ask them, he remembers them. 

So, while he's standing up and walking, trying to walk in such excruciating pain, trying to learn how to use his body in a completely new way and the way that it's been reconstructed, he's walking down the hall and looking at the beautiful woman that came in to clean his bathroom and calling her by name, saying hi, anna. And she looks up at him and lights up because he saw and heard her and was grateful for her. 

And I can't help but think that's how it feels with our Father in Heaven, where he sees us, he knows our name and he hears us. We are special to Him. So, whatever experience you're going through right now, I truly hope that that's something that you can remember is that there is a very loving God that sees you and hears you and knows you by name and that has placed regardless of the circumstances of mortality, he has placed extraordinary gifts along the way to help you. 

Be on the lookout for those gifts and I promise you, you will see them. Have a wonderful rest of your week. Thank you for letting me come and share a very tender experience with you.

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