When you least expect it life throws you a curve

Life was moving along at a busy pace as usual for this family, until August of 2008 when John noticed he had a lump on his neck.  Now to some of us we may not think of this as a major concern, since swollen lymph nodes are quite common if you have a cold, sore throat, or strep throat which can be a few of the reasons for swollen lymph nodes.   What concerned John was that only one lymph node was swollen, so he made an appointment to see his doctor.  After an examination his doctor decided that they should take a biopsy. 

A couple of weeks later he was called in for the results.  It was Sept 12th, funny how you remember specific dates or events especially when they are life changing.  John went to the doctor's office with his wife, not knowing what to expect and definitely not thinking it would be cancer.  He wasn't a smoker and no family history of throat cancer.  So they sat impatiently as the room started to empty, getting concerned with the time since they had kids to run around shortly. They didn't realize that the reason they were not being called into the office yet was the doctor did have bad news and didn't know how they would react so he made sure the waiting room was empty before he sat them down.  Now I don't know if you have ever experienced being told that you have cancer or that a loved one has cancer by a doctor, but as you can imagine it is not a great experience.  The words you have cancer are just blurted out, no warning. 

Well you can imagine the shock that John and his wife felt, they left the room, went to their car and just sat there not sure what to do next. To John's wife's surprise he was not reacting how she thought he would, he wasn't scared, and appeared quite calm.  When asked why he was so calm his reply was they knew others who survived cancer and he too would survive this.  So they decided not to tell the kids just yet and carry on with their Monday as if nothing happened.  They would keep their busy schedule of running the kids to their activities and wait until Thursday to tell the children.  By then they would have a better grip on how to break the news to them.  

John was scheduled for an MRI at the end of September which is a normal procedure to see how far the cancer has spread and he was also fitted for a mask which would be used for part of his treatment.  I learned that if the tumor that contains the cancer cells is small, either surgery or radiation therapy alone can be used to eliminate the tumor. If the tumor is not small, or has spread to lymph nodes in the neck, a more aggressive treatment of radiation and chemotherapy is often needed.  In John's case this more aggressive treatment was needed.  Within a week and half of radiation treatment John's throat burned, and he had 3 or 4 courses of chemotherapy.  He was in so much pain that he required major doses of morphine.  Surgery was also required and the lymph node was removed.

Unlike some of us John and his wife do not have family nearby, she is American and her family lives there.  With two active children they did not want to disrupt their lives, so they decided it best for John to stay at home with his family during the treatments.  His wife would make the drive down the highway from Barrie to Princess Margaret for the next 7 weeks to support him. She would be the one to change his dressings twice a day.  They received some help from CCAC, they would come to the home and get his feeding tube started.   This was a bit of a relief to his wife but certainly you can imagine the emotional strain this was for all of them.  Trying to keep the children's  life's as normal as possible and not burdening them with the day to day stresses of the disease, they sent the children away at Thanksgiving and Christmas to spend time with their relatives that lived in the U.S.  This, for John's spouse was extremely difficult, especially at Christmas.  

Not only emotionally would this be a tough time for this family but also financially. They had no critical illness insurance  and no benefits , luckily most of the treatment John required would be covered by OHIP, but there would be other out of pocket costs.  John would be off work for a year and his wife also stopped working to care for her family.  They had money saved, but that was soon depleted.  This money was for their future and if they did not have to use their savings for this unexpected illness, today they would have been in a very different financial situation.    

It has been two years now and the treatment appears to have been a success.  John does suffer some side effects, like the loss of his taste buds which in turn has affected his weight since he doesn't eat like he use too.  His wife was grateful that they lived in Canada especially since she knows that the costs for his treatment would have been an even greater financial burden on her family if they lived in the U.S.  She also realized the importance of having some kind of insurance in place should the unexpected happen again, and has taken out insurance on herself just for that reason.

I thank John's spouse for sharing her family's personal story with me, so that I can help educate others on the importance of planning ahead for the unexpected.  It just takes that one step to plan ahead that allows you more control over not just your future but your family's future as well.