Tag: Cancer

How to Rest in God

Posted in Blog, Caregiver, Caregiving, Jim Kepler, Jimmie A. Kepler, Jimmie Aaron Kepler, Jimmie KeplerLeave a comment

How to Rest in God

4.1 My Story

You may be like my late wife when she was battling Stage Four Melanoma cancer. She found herself very tired. She needed rest. 

My daily caregiving of my wife also left me weary. Like my wife, I needed rest.

The managing of my wife’s schedule required a skillset that even an air traffic controller would envy. First, she had the never ending visits to her primary medical team. The army of medical doctors included the primary care physician, surgical oncologist, managing oncologist, dermatologist, gastro endocrinologist, thyroid doctor, cardiologist (the heart must be healthy enough for the treatments) and radiologist. These physicians did the routine checks, prescribed the medications and treatments, performed biopsies and surgery as well as ordered the tests.

A group of medical technicians did the grunt work of tests and treatment procedures. In this category was blood work, PET scans, CAT scans, MRIs, days and weeks of radiation treatments and the lymphedema therapy.

At home, my wife did months of daily chemotherapy prescription medications, spent hours waiting for UPS or FedEx to deliver the refrigerated prescriptions from the exotic, super expensive pharmacy, did 24/7/365 lymphedema therapy at home with the machine that sounded like Darth Vader with a sleeve that looked like the nose of Snuffleupagus on Sesame Street.

Added to these challenges was managing her work schedule to maintain health insurance. These alone were enough to have her constantly exhausted. Unfortunately, more daily challenges were adding to her fatigue.

My wife’s eating schedule controlled her life. She had to take the prescription medications and then wait two hours to eat or eat and wait several hours before she could take the medications. The routine dictated the time of day when she woke and went to bed.

You get the picture and can relate. Like my wife, you get tired. Yes, the patient gets tired. The caregiver also gets worn down. The caregiver makes sure the loved one stays on schedule and task. 

As the caregiver, you need to rest. You need God.

4.2 Resting in the Lord

Part of caring for a person with a chronic illness understands the need for resting in the Lord.

Caregiving for a loved one with a chronic illness can leave you tired and weary. I am talking about becoming bone tired. I am talking about the type of fatigue that vacations or even a sabbatical cannot cure.

4.3 Bible Verse

Exodus 33:14 (KJV), “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.”

4.4 What the Verse Means

The Lord is telling Moses that God will personally go with him. The Lord will give him rest. He is informing Moses that everything will ultimately be fine for him.

For the caregiver, this doesn’t mean that your loved one will be healed in this life. Final healing may not happen until heaven.

The application for the Believer in Christ is the Lord also personally goes with us, gives us rest, and promises to sustain us during our caregiving journey.

4.5 Pray Using Scripture

  • Heavenly Father thank you for Your presence going with us.
  • Lord Jesus, thank you for the rest You give us.
  • God, we ask to experience Your rest again this day.
  • Let us use Sundays as the day of rest and worship.

4.6 Responding to God’s Hope

  1. Remember a recent time you felt God’s presence. What were you doing? Recall how you felt his presence.
  2. Ask God to go with you and be with you today as you work and go about your caregiving responsibilities.
  3. Are you getting enough rest? Are you reading your Bible regularly? Are you getting enough sleep? Are you taking time to be still?

4.7 Takeaway

God personally goes with us both sustaining and provide the rest we need.

If you are not a Christian, accepting Jesus Christ as your Savior is a prerequisite to obtaining God’s peace.
Click HERE to find out how to become a Christian. You can trust Jesus Christ and become a Christian now.

Photo Source: Pixabay

This blog is from the forthcoming book, “Caregiving: Biblical Insights from a Caregiver’s Journey by Jimmie Aaron Kepler, Ed.D.

To receive a notification when “Caregiving: Biblical Insights from a Caregiver’s Journey by Jimmie Aaron Kepler, Ed.D. is available and to get occasional updates on the writing of Jimmie Aaron Kepler please complete the “Email Sign-up” found in the far left column of the blog.

What’s With The Bloody Spot?

Posted in Blog, Caregiver, Caregiving, Jim Kepler, Jimmie A. Kepler, Jimmie Aaron Kepler, Jimmie Kepler1 Comment

What’s With The Bloody Spot?

1.1 My Story

“What’s going on? What’s with the bloody spot?” I asked, pointing to the half-dollar sized stain on the lower left front of my wife Benita’s blouse.

My heart was aching. It looked terrible, scary. I knew this couldn’t be good.

Miss Benita gazed down toward the damp crimson. Her eyes looked tired, sad. She said, “It’s my mole. It started bleeding.”

I recalled the small mole. I had first noticed the growth over forty years earlier on our wedding night. I had playfully kidded her about it that night calling it her beauty mark. I found out that was the wrong thing to do. She was sensitive about the mole.

“What’s going on?” I asked. I could hear the fear, concern, and the demand for an answer in my voice.

She lifted her eyes meeting mine. I could see the tears forming. She smiled weakly and then said, “I think I must have scratched or irritated it, maybe at work. It started bleeding a couple of weeks ago. It scabbed over a couple of times, but when I thought it was healing, I would do something to cause the scab to bleed. I thought it would get better. Instead, I think it may be getting infected. It may be getting worse, and it’s not healing,” she said.

Melanoma Cancer, I thought.

“Has Dr. Z looked at it?”

She knows this is bad, I thought.

She shook her head, “No, not yet. I didn’t want to mess up our vacation to Colorado and your writer’s conference,” she answered with a forced smile and then lowered her eyes.

I took her hand, lovingly squeezed it, and hugged her holding her close. We were out for an afternoon of shopping in a local furniture store and enjoying each other’s company.

I nodded and then said, “Let’s go home where I can look at it.”

She stared at me, our eyes locking for a few seconds. It was as if she was saying I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to let it get this bad. She looked sad. Then she nodded.

She knows this is very bad, I thought.

We held hands, walked unhurriedly through the store, and to the car. I drove us home. There was a chilling silence in the car.

Once home, I led her to the bedroom and closed the door. She unbuttoned the blouse and removed a blood-soaked gauze bandage. The mole was oozing blood through a cracked dreadful-looking scab.

The mole had grown from the size of an eraser on a number 2 pencil to about the size of a quarter. It had changed from a light brown to a horrible black since I last remembered seeing it.

Melanoma Cancer, I again thought.

“Let’s call the dermatologist. I think that’s Melanoma Cancer,” I said with a seriousness that scared even me.

Miss Benita’s lips tightened, and eyes narrowed at hearing the words. She shook slightly and exhaled.

I asked, “Do you want me to call and get you an appointment, or do you prefer to call?”

She glanced at herself in the mirror, looking at the mole. “I’ll call the dermatologist. Dr. Z will refer me there,” she said.

The same day Miss Benita saw the dermatologist an in-office out-patient surgery was performed removing the mole and adjacent tissue. The physician had the test expedited. She called late that night with the biopsy’s results.

“I wrote down what the doctor told me. She said, ‘It’s malignant. It is a type of cancer called Melanoma, and it’s advanced stage 3. The depth of cancer determines the stage. It’s within one centimeter of being stage four.’ I know it’s terrible. I could hear the doctor’s quivering voice and her choking back tears. She told me this is serious and could kill me,” said a shaken Miss Benita.

The dermatologist acquired an appointment with a surgical oncologist. She said I needed to go to the office with my wife. Her finding us an appointment the next morning at 8 AM showed the urgency of the situation. My wife had surgery within a couple of days.

The surgery’s findings were terrible. It was Melanoma Cancer. The cancer had spread to the lymph nodes.

The oncological surgeon removed thirty-four lymph nodes. The physician told me the five-year survival rate for these findings was less than ten percent.

While my wife was still in recovery at the hospital, the surgeon told us some of the treatment options and that when not if, cancer recurred it would be restaged to Melanoma stage 4 and would be terminal. There was no cure. She said death was the ultimate destination of this journey barring God’s intervention or a new medical and pharmaceutical breakthrough.

I knew Melanoma stage 3 was too big for me to handle. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I had already moved into a new role as a caregiver. I also realized the future my wife and I had planned together had suddenly changed. We would have no retirement years to share. Death would call on Miss Benita before then.

Our hopes and dreams vanished. Despair and hopelessness replaced them. I was overwhelmed, just thinking about the day to day struggles of caregiving. I faced the fear of the unknown.

So many questions flooded my mind. Would my wife survive? How long would she live? What would be the quality of her life and mine? How would we pay the medical bills? How much help was she going to need from me daily? How could I be brave and help her? How was this going to affect our day jobs?

I also was concerned for our three grown children and granddaughter. What I needed was hope.

The purpose of this book is to share the hope Christians have and the hope that my wife and I exercised through our faith in Jesus Christ. It shares my journey as a caregiver.

“Caregiving: Biblical Insights from a Caregiver’s Journey” offers Biblical guidance and support helping you in your role as caregiver. It will help you connect with the perfect love, which casts out all fear, the love of Jesus Christ.

The day I noticed the bloody spot on Miss Benita’s blouse, my wife and I prayed together. We shared I love you and claimed, Psalm 56:3 (KJV), “What time I am afraid I will trust in thee” and 1 Peter 5:7 “Cast all your cares on the Lord for He careth for you.”

This story does not have an Earthly happily ever after ending. My wife lived 1001 days from the date of her first surgery. Then she died.

The faith we both had in Jesus Christ allowed us to face each day with hope.

Yes, even with our hope we had because of our Christian faith, we still were afraid. However, our trust in Jesus Christ carried us through the process, moving us from fear to a calmness that could only come from God. The fact that my wife was a Christian gave us a real-world spiritual happily ever after ending. She is in heaven today, and one day, since I am also a Christian, I will join her there.

1.2 It’s Okay to be Afraid

Part of caring for a person with a chronic illness understands that fear of the unknown and fear of the journey you are beginning is normal. It’s a scary assignment. When you’re a caregiver, it’s okay to be afraid.

You also need to learn to accept the hope for the caregiver that’s available through Jesus Christ. The hope available through the love of Jesus Christ will help you face and handle the fears you will encounter in your journey of caregiving.

1.3 Bible Verse

1 John 4:18 King James Version of the Holy Bible (KJV), “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.”

1.4 What the Verse Means

John says that perfect love produces courage in the day of judgment. It casts out fear.

How does the perfect love of Jesus Christ accomplish casting out fear? Perfect love casts out fear because it produces a likeness to Christ.

There is another way in which love produces boldness. It does this by casting out fear. The entrance of perfect love through Jesus Christ is for fear a “cease and desist” letter. It is an order to quit.

When love arrives, it brings hand in hand with itself courage.

Boldness is the companion of love, only when love is perfect. Only professing Christians can experience this perfect love of God, a love that casts out fear.

As Believer’s in Jesus Christ, we can face the future, including being the caregiver of a loved one with a chronic illness, and even confront their death with the peace that only comes from Christ’s perfect love.

If you are not a Christian, accepting Jesus Christ as your Savior is a prerequisite to obtaining God’s peace.

Appendix A explains how to become a Christian. You can trust Jesus Christ today.

See Appendix A at the back of this book for information on How to Become a Christian.

1.5 Pray Using Scripture

• Lord Jesus, thank You that there is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear.
• Heavenly Father help me to keep my mind focused on You and Your love for me.
• God, help me remove any concerns I may have as I look to the future by turning them over to You.
• Provide Your grace to meet the challenges I encounter daily. I cannot travel this journey alone but can with You.
• Help me to know without any doubt that as a Believer in Jesus Christ, my ultimate future is in Heaven.
• Help my loved one to trust in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior if they are not a Christian.
• If my loved one is not a Christian, prepare their heart to hear the Gospel and to accept Christ as Savior.

1.6 Responding to God’s Hope

1. List two examples of times you have been afraid (Psalm 56:3 and 1 Peter 5:7).

2. Remember two times you have trusted in God since the diagnosis of your loved one’s chronic illness (Psalm 56:3 and 1 Peter 5:7).

3. List two cares or concerns you are facing. Cast (or give) those cares to the Lord, remembering that “He careth for you.” (1 Peter 5:7).

1.7 Takeaway

Part of caring for a person with a chronic illness understands that fear of the unknown and fear of the journey is normal.

If you are not a Christian, accepting Jesus Christ as your Savior is a prerequisite to obtaining God’s peace.
Click HERE to find out how to become a Christian. You can trust Jesus Christ and become a Christian now.

Photo Source: Pixabay

This blog is from the forthcoming book, “Caregiving: Biblical Insights from a Caregiver’s Journey” by Jimmie Aaron Kepler, Ed.D.

To receive a notification when “Caregiving: Biblical Insights from a Caregiver’s Journey” by Jimmie Aaron Kepler, Ed.D. is available and to get occasional updates on the writing of Jimmie Aaron Kepler please complete the “Email Sign-up” found in the far left column of the blog.

It is Malignant

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The sun will not rise for another hour. I am sitting in my favorite Starbucks in Plano, Texas.  My friend Jim is sitting at the table next to me. He is 72 years old and retired from IBM. He is a Oklahoma State University graduate. He was a pitcher on their baseball team in the late 1950s and early 1960s. He pitched a no-hitter in the college world series in 1960. After college, he signed with the Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale Los Angeles Dodgers playing a couple of years before putting his engineering degree to use. He actually made more money as an engineer than as a ball player. Times have changed.

Jen and Loren are the barista’s on duty this morning. They usually are the opening crew. They sweet smile and good morning greet me five mornings a week. This morning all three asked me about the pathology report on my wife’s tumor.

My bride of thirty-nine years had surgery for a malrotated intestine just before Christmas. During the surgery, they had a surprise. They found an unexpected tumor. The doctor was unable to remove the entire tumor due to its being in one of the lymph nodes. The doctor who performed the intestinal surgery is also the director of surgical oncology.

After we got to the car, we prayed and shed a few tears as we digested the news. She is so brave. I am scared for her. We both have a strong Christian faith, which certainly helps. The reality of the news still stings.

After getting home, I call our daughter making sure she had the news. We emailed family. I also posted on Facebook the bullet points of the exam. We had over 30 replies.

I’ll write more on this adventure in life in the days ahead.