Take an amazing and inspiring journey with this young couple who refuse to accept the grim diagnoses when their world comes crashing down around them. Instead, they choose to live. And together, miraculously, they beat all odds—Kevin is walking again and they both have been cancer free for over 19 years. Discover the keys for your own health and well-being. By healing the body from the inside out, you can live a life brimming with physical, emotional, and spiritual health. Awaken to a world that few even know exists—and where anything is possible.
Take an amazing and inspiring journey with this young couple who refuse to accept the grim diagnoses when their world comes crashing down around them. Instead, they choose to live. And together, miraculously, they beat all odds—Kevin is walking again and they both have been cancer free for over 19 years. Discover the keys for your own health and well-being. By healing the body from the inside out, you can live a life brimming with physical, emotional, and spiritual health. Awaken to a world that few even know exists—and where anything is possible.
Choose to Live!: Our Journey from Late Stage Cancers to Vibrant Health
228
Choose to Live!: Our Journey from Late Stage Cancers to Vibrant Health
228Paperback
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Overview
Take an amazing and inspiring journey with this young couple who refuse to accept the grim diagnoses when their world comes crashing down around them. Instead, they choose to live. And together, miraculously, they beat all odds—Kevin is walking again and they both have been cancer free for over 19 years. Discover the keys for your own health and well-being. By healing the body from the inside out, you can live a life brimming with physical, emotional, and spiritual health. Awaken to a world that few even know exists—and where anything is possible.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781600378362 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Morgan James Publishing |
| Publication date: | 04/04/2011 |
| Pages: | 228 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.60(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
It's Getting Cloudy: Brain Hemorrhage
Where did it all begin? Oh, yeah, that's right: life was great.
Kevin was a boilermaker. Not the drink, but the guy who builds huge power plants. I was working my tush off and had just gotten promoted to senior vice president of an investment firm in Manhattan's financial district. No kids yet. We lived in Queens, in the home where I grew up. My parents lived in Florida, so we were living in their house while our dream home was going up on Long Island.
The avalanche began on March 1, 1996. It was a gorgeous spring morning, not a cloud in the sky, and I left for work around six, as usual. Your typical Wall Street workaholic, I wanted to get some work done in the calm before the craziness hit.
Then I got the call. It took me a moment to recognize the slurred voice. It was Kevin — thirty-one and healthy as a horse. Out with coworkers last night for a meeting and a few drinks, he got in a little late and slept on the couch so he wouldn't wake me. He sounded tired and hungover.
"I feel a little funny," he slurred. "Think I pinched a nerve or something — I'm a little numb down my arm and leg."
I would soon see how much Kevin downplayed things. Seems he'd gone up to the bedroom after I left, then woke up feeling funny.
"Okay," I said. "Let me call my parents and I'll call you back."
I mean, what else do you do when you don't know what else to do? Don't parents know everything? That's part of their job, right? (Unless, of course, you're between the ages of twelve and twenty — but after that, it's amazing how much they learn.) My parents said we should call the doctor — a logical suggestion, especially since they were 1,500 miles away. So I called Kevin back and set up a conference call with our doctor. He confirmed the likelihood of a pinched nerve but said call back if it wasn't better in fifteen minutes.
I went back to work, figuring it would unkink on its own. But fifteen minutes later, Kevin called again to say it wasn't better. Nothing could have prepared me for the magnitude of what was to come.
His doctor said, "He might have a pinched nerve or maybe a TIA." Wait — wasn't TIA when your jaw was out of whack and you had to wear one of those mouth thingies while you slept?
The doc said, "Since it hasn't gotten better and he's having trouble walking, you might want to call an ambulance."
What! An ambulance? It's a pinched nerve, I thought. No one was raising any alarms. Nothing was registering. I asked, "What's a TIA?"
"It's like a mini stroke."
This definitely wasn't registering. My mind raced. Kevin was way too young and fit for a stroke, mini or any other kind. In my bewilderment, childhood memories flooded over me. My grandmother had suffered a stroke. It paralyzed her, and she could never speak another word. She lived with us and just made these catlike sounds and grunts and groans and had to have a portable toilet next to her bed.
That didn't sound at all like what was going on with Kevin. Kevin could talk. It must just be a pinched nerve — the very idea of a "mini stroke" was absurd. He couldn't actually be talking to me and not be basically okay.
But I didn't yet realize how Kevin downplayed everything. "A little numb" meant he was paralyzed!
Since I didn't know he was paralyzed, my mind was on mundane thoughts of how to get back home, which was at least an hour away. I would have to order a car to get from Manhattan to Queens.
"I don't want you to call the ambulance until you're closer," Kevin said.
"Why?"
"I'd rather you were here. I don't want the ambulance to come and all the neighbors to see me leave the house like that. I want you to be here."
I thought I understood his embarrassment. After all, didn't you have to be bleeding or unconscious before doing anything as extreme as calling an ambulance? Still, this was my husband.
"I don't think we should wait," I said. "I should call them now."
Then he switched to his stern, I've-made-my-decision-and-don't-piss- me-off voice. "No. I don't want you to call the ambulance until you're almost here."
I was naive. Besides, when he used that voice, everything was final.
I had the car company send someone right away. I stayed calm because this was all still just "a little numb" and "feeling a little funny" and "a pinched nerve" — nothing more.
Once I got into the car, my head began swirling. I called for the ambulance when I was fifteen minutes away. I arrived just as the ambulance did. What a scary sight! The flashing lights reflected off the brick row houses. When I was a kid, one of the older neighbors had been taken away in an ambulance. He never came back.
Inside my head, a little voice said, Excuse me, but do we really need all this attention? It's a bit much for a pinched nerve, don't you think? Then that feeling of sickness came over me. It was just a pinched nerve, right?
I unlocked the door for the paramedics, and we all walked in together.
"Where is he, ma'am?" one of the paramedics asked.
Excuse me, aren't I a little young to be called "ma'am"? "He's upstairs," I said.
They asked me to wait downstairs so I wouldn't be in their way. In retrospect, I realize that since they didn't know what they were going to find, they didn't need to deal with me if I freaked out. But I'm not a freak- out kind of person — not until after the immediate emergency is over, anyway.
Those few minutes seemed an eternity. When they finally let me come upstairs, Kevin was already being strapped into a stretcher, which had been propped up so he could sit upright. Big orange straps pinned his arms so the EMTs could navigate the stairs more easily.
"What do you think is wrong?" I asked.
"We aren't sure," one said. "He might have had a TIA."
That word again. My face looked as if I'd just bitten down on a sour cherry. Kevin looked a little scared. It was awful to see my strong, healthy husband in that stretcher, but he managed to joke with the guys.
The paramedics carried all 190 pounds of him plus the stretcher down those narrow stairs. After that, they still had to manage the front stoop. My next-door neighbor was just coming home. The look of shock on her face really stood out. I must have looked just as shocked and terrified, like a deer in headlights.
"What's wrong?" she asked.
The word "mini-stroke" came out of my mouth. Then reality hit. I gagged as tears welled up and I began shaking. But I couldn't let my husband see how scared I was, so I blinked back the tears and acted calm and in control.
They took him to the hospital. I think I drove myself there — I actually don't remember, but since my car was in the lot, I must have. When I arrived, the nurses wouldn't let me in.
"They're getting him settled in," one explained. "You'll have to wait."
Wait? I didn't want to wait. I wanted to know what was going on! The agony began as I watched every minute on the clock crawl by. My best friend, Diane, worked at the hospital and met me there.
"It's probably nothing," she said, but she looked more scared than I did. Since she was very intuitive, that freaked me out.
I waited and waited, but they still wouldn't let me see him. Finally, the doctor came out.
"We need to run some scans," he said. "We need to see if he's bleeding in the brain."
What? Another sour-cherry look. Bleeding in the brain? But he was only thirty-one.
What seemed like hours later, they finally let me see him, but only for a minute. He was clearly scared. I tried to remain optimistic, but I was terrified. They shooed me out until they were ready to do the scans.
They let me go with him through the endless maze of corridors and down to the basement, where a different doctor asked the same questions I had already heard half a dozen times: "Did you have any headaches recently? Any dizziness or numbness?"
Nope, nope, and nope
Then he asked a new one. "Do you smoke?"
"Um, yes," Kevin said.
"No," I chimed indignantly, "he doesn't smoke."
"Do you smoke?" the doctor asked Kevin again.
"Yes.
"How much?" the doctor asked.
"About a pack a day," Kevin answered, trying not to look at me.
"No, he doesn't." I was very firm. I was, after all, the knowing, informed, caring wife. "He's just confused because of the brain bleeding."
Diane gently put her hand on my arm. "Joyce," she said, "I think you should let him answer."
I assumed Kevin didn't know what he was talking about. After all, smoking had been a big factor in our marriage. The night we first met, I had walked into a local bar and restaurant. Although the place was packed, I spotted him right away. He was a little way down the bar; wearing a bright blue button-down shirt that highlighted the brightest blue eyes I'd ever seen.
Wow! And he was staring at me! I had the urge to turn around and look behind me to see who he was looking at. I felt a little awkward, but he didn't take his eyes off me as I walked past. My friend Suzanne, whom I hadn't seen in a couple of years, had called me out of the blue and we decided to go out that night. It must be destiny when a friend suddenly reappears and, next thing you know, you're out on a Saturday night and spot a really cute guy!
As Suzanne and I talked and caught up, I glanced back at him a few times, remaining cool. Each time I looked back, he turned toward me and smiled. I had that feeling of butterflies. Then he took out a cigarette.
My father was a three-pack-a-day smoker. Smoke literally gave me a headache and made me feel nauseated. Aside from that, I just couldn't stand the smell.
As Kevin lit up, I dropped my sweet smile and shot him a look of disgust. He instantly broke the cigarette in half, dropped it, and stomped it out. When I laughed, he came over. The rest is history. Kevin quit smoking. We got engaged the next year and were married a year after that.
We'd been together eight years. He had always said he didn't smoke anymore, so I got the eight-year-old news flash there in the hospital.
The doctor, meanwhile, shook his head. He couldn't understand how a healthy thirty-one-year-old could be free of any aneurism symptoms yet bleeding in his brain. They ran endless hours of testing. The angiogram was very painful. A catheter holding a tiny camera was threaded into a vein in his groin and run way up inside his body.
Diane finally left to return to work. We waited. Then the awful news came: it wasn't a TIA. That would have been the better scenario. Instead, Kevin had an AVM: an arteriovenous malformation. An AVM is similar to a brain aneurism in that they both involve bleeding in the brain. Kevin had a brain hemorrhage. He also had suffered three strokes. He would need brain surgery. He would be admitted to intensive care immediately. If the bleeding didn't stop on its own, he might not survive the night.
Kevin remained extremely calm. He did have that Oh, shit look, though. He reminded me of a scared little boy putting on a good front. He was as sweet as could be, trying to joke with everyone to make them more at ease — until a guy tried to put an A-line (a small plastic catheter) into the artery in his left arm ... and tried, and tried.
Kevin hated the guy and let him know it. Sticking a tube into a vein is not the easiest thing to do, and it's supposed to be done by highly trained personnel. This guy was new at it. So were we, for that matter. At one point, he climbed on top of the bed and straddled Kevin. Although my husband handles pain well and doesn't usually complain, he finally screamed, then told the guy to get someone who knew what they were doing.
It had been a really long day. The ordeal had started around seven in the morning, and it was now six p.m. I maintained my calm exterior, but inside, the anxiety was spinning out of control. My stomach and head felt it the most, while my heart pounded like a jackhammer. Maybe they should be running some tests on me while they were at it. My heart wasn't supposed to be doing this.
As we went to intensive care, family and friends had already started to arrive. Thank God for them. The support was a real godsend. Kevin's brothers, my brother and sister, our friends, and his mother came. His sister Patty was already on her way in from Michigan, and my mom was making arrangements to fly up from Florida. Even my assistant showed up, toting my Rolodex. At least twenty people milled around outside the ICU. Prayer chains were started as those who could handle it were granted a couple of minutes to see him, knowing that it might be the last time.
Seeing everyone was a nice distraction. It helped keep me from thinking of the horrible alternatives: Would he survive the night? Survive the surgery? Would he ever feed himself again? Ever walk again?
That was one of the longest days and nights of my life. The others were yet to come.
After a time, visiting hours were over, and the family left. I couldn't leave — didn't want to leave. How could I, knowing he might not make it through the night? The nurses were so kind, they didn't force me to go home. I fought sleep, and when I caught myself falling off, I quickly opened my eyes, tuning in to make sure all the machines were beeping along at their usual rhythm.
* * *
Thankfully, Kevin was still alive in the morning — the first thing to be grateful for. The next afternoon, my mom arrived. Everything felt better once she came. I always called her "Mom," not "Mommy," but that's how I felt: like a little girl who needed her mommy. There's no replacement for a mother's hug when you're terrified.
Once our family returned that afternoon, the nurses assured me I could make a quick trip to the house. Besides, Kevin wanted me to take a break. I wanted to pack some things to bring back for him. I also needed to get cleaned up and change my clothes — after two days in the hospital, I was pretty skanky. I hadn't even brushed my teeth.
I was also still maintaining control as best I could. I was afraid to cry, as if crying would confirm that it all was actually happening. But then I walked into the darkened house and went upstairs. In our room, I saw the mess that had been left behind. The comforter and sheets had been pulled off the bed; the phone was on the floor; the smell of urine from when Kevin couldn't make it to the bathroom hung in the air; the things from the night table had been knocked over.
That's when it hit me, when the enormity of what had happened became real: his struggle, his pain, his sheer panic. I broke down. Racking sobs shook me until I fell to my knees. Oh, dear God, the poor guy! He went through such hell. He must have been so terrified lying there on the floor. And even then he had made me wait to call the ambulance. He could have died right here!
He still could die.
"Oh, dear God," I prayed, "please let him be okay."
Feeling physically, mentally, and emotionally drained and fearful of what was to come, I dragged myself over to the tissue box and sat on the bed, pulling out tissue after tissue and sobbing uncontrollably.
Then something unimaginable happened. I'd never experienced anything like it before and never have since. Yet there was no doubt: someone sat on the bed next to me. Not a flesh-and-blood person, but a being. I actually felt the bed sag under its weight. Something touched my shoulders, as if I were being comforted.
For a split second there was another kind of fear — that "scary movie" feeling. I was alone in a big, dark house. Immediately behind that, a sense of peace came over me. It was Kevin's father, who had passed away a few years earlier. I was certain of it. He was telling me he was here and that Kevin was going to be fine.
I realized that there was a much more powerful force out there than anything we can comprehend. About the most uncanny thing that had ever happened to me before was having streetlights black out when I passed them in the car or walked under them. I never really paid much attention to that, though. This was far more powerful.
* * *
Back at the hospital, I quickly fell into what would be my routine for the next month. Since the bleeding in Kevin's brain had slowed, the doctors wanted to wait four weeks to do the surgery, hoping to improve the chances of regaining some movement. Since performing the surgery immediately could cause further permanent paralysis, waiting was actually safer.
For the next month, I went between work and the hospital every day. It was agonizing to watch Kevin. He began physical therapy in the hospital, but nothing was happening. When he was finally released, he started an intense physical therapy regimen. He should have gone into an inpatient treatment center, but he just wanted to go home. This was another one of those times when there was just no convincing him.
Eventually, he regained some movement in his right arm and was able to use it more. His right side, though, was completely paralyzed from the waist down. Dead. Nothing. Nada. Zippo. So the physical therapy tried to teach his brain how to tell his leg to move again. Neither was in the mood to cooperate. The determination he exerted would have moved a building, but nothing happened. It was torture to see this strong man grunting and groaning and turning purple, veins popping out on his forehead, yet unable to move one toe.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Choose to Live"
by .
Copyright © 2011 Joyce O'Brien.
Excerpted by permission of Morgan James Publishing.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Chapter One -It’s Getting Cloudy: Brain HemorrhageChapter Two - It’s Raining: Spina Bifida
Chapter Three -It’s Pouring: Stage 2
Chapter Four -The Craziologist
Chapter Five -Hit by a Truck—No, Make That Three Trucks
Chapter Six -The Old Man Is Snoring: Chemo
Chapter Seven -Hair, Hair . . . Anywhere?
Chapter Eight - It’s a Thunderstorm: Kevin’s Cancer
Chapter Nine - Malignant Melanoma
Chapter Ten - The Typhoon: Stage 4
Chapter Eleven - The Rain Is Letting Up: Defining Moments
Chapter Twelve - Yes and No
Chapter Thirteen - The Clouds Are Starting to Break Up: Switzerland
Chapter Fourteen -The Loch Ness Monster
Chapter Fifteen - My Mom: My Rock
Chapter Sixteen - A Ray of Sunshine Peeks through the Clouds: My Second Trip to Switzerland
Chapter Seventeen - Where the Fun Picks Up: The Amazing Voyage Out of Cancer
Chapter Eighteen - The Sun Is Shining: Miracles Big and Small
Epilogue: Whatever the Mind Can Conceive and Believe, It Can Achieve