Light in the Valley of the Shadow of Death (part eighteen)

Posted on July 8, 2014 by Claudia Dickson Greggs

The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. (2 Corinthians 10:4)

For the first three nights after my discharge from UNC Memorial Hospital on Friday, December 9, I slept upright on the sectional sofa in our family room in an attempt to keep the swelling down on the right side of my face from where the tumor had been removed.  I slept well, and even though I was still apart from Gil, who slept upstairs in our bedroom, it was comforting just to be back in my own home.  Gil rented movies for me to watch and waited on me constantly over the weekend.

On Monday morning Caleb returned to school in order to finish taking his final exams and Gil, who works at the school Caleb attends, returned also.  Gil had arranged to have friends stay with me during the work week, since I would be at home alone, but I was feeling so good that I emailed our friends and told them their service would not be needed.  By God’s grace, my recovery was proceeding at a rapid pace.

One thing that bothered me, though, was the position of my right ear.  In order to remove the tumor, long incisions were made both in front of my ear and behind it.  My ear lobe was also removed because the tumor had compromised the skin just below it.  Then, in order to close the wound, Dr. Weissler had to pull tight the surrounding skin and once the incisions were stapled together my ear ended up positioned at a slightly odd angle.  It stuck out from the side of my head in a way that made it look more like an ear that belonged to a hobbit than to a human being.

A selfie.

I have to admit it took me a long time to make my peace with my “new” ear.  My hearing was a bit compromised, too, and still is – I have to lean in when someone is speaking to me in a low voice.  And on really humid days or after a shower it feels like the inside of my right ear is expanding like a dry sponge when water touches it.  But thankfully, I no longer find that sensation distracting and I have since reached the conclusion that my “hobbit” ear gives me opportunities to talk to people about how the Lord intervened mightily in my life.  There is now a story that goes with that ear – and in it God is glorified.

My first post-op appointment with Dr. Weissler was on Wednesday, December 14, eight days after my surgery.  Gil and I were anxious about this visit because we would also be receiving the pathology report on the tumor which was removed.  This report would guide the doctors in determining what kind of follow-up treatment, if any, would be required.  I was hoping that I wouldn’t need to undergo radiation treatments, especially in light of the disastrous visit I had with the radiation oncologist the day before my surgery.  Radiation treatment to the neck area comes with a number of risks and very unpleasant side-effects, which I wanted to avoid.

We didn’t have to wait long before we were ushered into Dr. Weissler’s examining room. Continue reading →

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Light in the Valley of the Shadow of Death (part seventeen)

Posted on October 22, 2013 by Claudia Dickson Greggs

He who made the Pleiades and Orion, and turns deep darkness into the morning and darkens the day into night, who calls for the waters of the sea and pours them out on the surface of the earth, the Lord is his name. (Amos 5:8)

On the morning after my surgery to remove an aggressive cancerous tumor from my right parotid gland I awoke feeling little pain, by God’s grace.  I had spent the night in an intensive care step-down unit so I could be monitored closely by the nursing staff.  Nurses checked my vital signs frequently and emptied the drains which ran from the surgery site down my neck.

duskThe view out the window in my private room seemed magical to me.  Although the window faced a wall of buildings across a courtyard, the buildings were not tall and I was afforded the opportunity to gaze up at the sky.  During my brief stay in this room I delighted in watching the progression of light from dusk to blackness and then from blackness to dawn.  I sensed the power of the Lord in the natural world around me and his hand on my life.

I had no idea how I looked; I could only tell that my hair was matted against the right side of my head.  It wasn’t until several days later when I saw my face in a mirror that I could take stock of how drastic the surgery had been.  I had two angry-looking incisions – one which began in front of my ear, near the top, and ran under my chin, and the other which began behind my ear and ran down the side of my neck to my shoulder.  I was also missing the lobe from my right ear.  Although these wounds were not a pretty sight, I was told that when they healed they would not be noticeable.  I was not concerned because I was just so thankful to be alive and to be able to move the right side of my face.  I smiled a lot in the hospital, especially that first night.

As the sun was coming up, I was told that I would be moved to a unit for those who needed less nursing care.  I knew this was good news and it meant Continue reading →

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Light in the Valley of the Shadow of Death (part sixteen)

Posted on July 30, 2013 by Claudia Dickson Greggs

‘Do not be afraid and do not be dismayed…for the battle is not yours but God’s.’ (2 Chronicles 20:15)

Gil held my hand as we walked across the skywalk toward Memorial Hospital at the UNC Medical Center on Tuesday morning, December 6, 2011.  It was about 7:30 a.m. and the nurses, attendants and others who had worked all night at the hospitals were streaming toward the parking deck as we were leaving it, while morning shift workers joined us as we walked high across Manning Drive and then down the stairs toward the waiting hospital doors.

I was still shaking slightly, but not nearly as much as I had been the night before.  We stopped first at the information desk just inside the lobby of Memorial – the oldest of the hospitals in the Medical Center.  A man at the information counter directed us to the registration area for patients arriving for surgery.  I pulled a ticket with a number on it from the dispenser and Gil and I sat down to wait.  Soon my number was called and I walked to the check-in counter.  I handed over my insurance card, answered a few questions and then the clerk strapped a hospital bracelet around my wrist with my pertinent information on it.  These routine procedures had a calming effect on me and I was grateful for them.

Next, we took an elevator up to the pre-surgical waiting room on the second floor, where I registered again.  Remembering what the Lord had taught me about praying for others in a waiting room, I looked discretely at the people around me and asked the Lord to fill the room with his presence.  Soon after my name was called and we were escorted into the surgical preparation room.  There, my vital signs were taken and I changed into a surgical gown.  A representative from the surgical team arrived and reviewed the steps that would be taken in surgery to remove the tumor.  I was asked to sign waivers, giving my surgeon permission to do a skin graft and to transplant bone and pectoral muscle to the surgical area, if these procedures would be needed in order to close the wound.  It was estimated that the surgery would take 8 ½ hours.  I wrote Continue reading →

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