Not a Reason to Celebrate

(This is to address the story of the women who is choosing to end her life before she begins to suffer from her terminal brain tumor. As well as those who are choosing to celebrate, condone, and are calling her decision courageous. If you haven’t seen the media piece on it here is a link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPfe3rCcUeQ )

I have seen a lot of activity on my news feed, from family, friends, and news-sources about a recently married women named Brittany Maynard.  She was given a terminal diagnosis from a brain tumor this past New Years Day. Originally she was given three to ten years to live, but after further scans it was found that it was a stage four and rapidly progressing tumor.  She was then told of all the things that she would have to go through. She didn't want to suffer those things. So her and her husband moved from California to Oregon so that she would be a citizen of a death-by-dignity state. She wanted to have the choice to end her life on her own terms.

Let me first off say this: Best wishes to her and her family above all else, it’s not an easy place to be in life and very few will truly be able to understand it. I don’t judge her; I don’t know her, she could be a great person, and I am sure that she is. What I do judge, is her act, and her act is suicide. It is the very definition of suicide, as Webster’s Dictionary puts it: To take one’s own life. Suicide is wrong, not matter what, no matter how, in every way, even in extreme suffering. I can attest to this first hand.

I have been told that I was terminal twice. I have been told by a highly successful surgeon that I was inoperable and that no other surgeon would touch me. The mortality rate of the surgery was 90%. I have gone through horrible things. I have itched so bad that I have torn chunks of flesh from my hands and feet. I have had one of my lungs nearly collapsed because the space around it was filling with fluid. I have had my body break itself down to the point of unending pain. And those are only a few things. However what I didn't do EVER, was give up.

Giving into fear and uncertainty is not the way of Christ. He taught us to have faith, so I did. I forced myself, even in the darkest of hours to smile, and to be patient. I learned to understand that everybody has a trial, no matter how big or small, and that I couldn't use mine as a crutch or an excuse. I pushed myself to limits that I didn't know I had and I was stretched beyond my comfort and learned more for it. I became a stronger person because of it. I endured. I still endure.

To celebrate what she plans to do cheapen my own, and many others sufferings and triumphs over certain death. What she is doing is not courageous, it is weak and it is below her. I hear many people stating: We end our pet’s life before they go through extreme suffering. Why shouldn't we be able to choose that? Are you equating yourself with a dog? It makes sense that people would think that, with so many intellectuals saying that we do things because it is our primal nature. I believe that we are higher functioning than dogs. I believe that unlike dogs that are suffering and can’t grasp why, we can find understanding in it. Not only can we find understanding in it, but others can find understanding in it.

I think that many are celebrating her because our media glorifies suicide. They report that the person is: finally free, that they won’t have to suffer anymore, they are in a better place. Maybe we should talk about suicide for what it is, murder, the deprivation of life, and the stolen memories from the loved ones family. Then, and only then we might understand how un-glorious it really is. We are all in her shoes, we all have a death sentence, but this doesn't mean we should all give up.

I don’t pretend to be an expert on what Brittany is going to have to go through, no one is, except for our Savior, but what I do know is that refusing to try at all is unacceptable. The hardest things in life are truly the most teachable moments. Through the pain and suffering we change people. Through our attitude during that suffering we change people. I know that through my trials many people were changed for the good. Even then, if I only changed one person, me, it was worth it.

I pray for you Brittany that you can find the strength to learn what you can truly handle, not what you think you can handle. Even if you pass away it will show all those around how far they can be bent as well. I pray that you find comfort in knowing that Christ has already suffered for what you have, and what you will go through. He understands to exactness what you will experience and because of that he can comfort you in exactly the way that you need it. You say that you want to live life to its fullest and seize the day; that is a great motto. But by seizing the day you risk losing forever. If you feel that this is the best and only way then so be it, but I cannot celebrate that. I will not celebrate that. I hope that we can all agree to pray for her comfort, but not for her choice.

Where Did I Go? Now You Know!

The last few years have been hard, but good. I have become a husband, a college graduate, a professional, a dad, and nearly dead. About eight months after the last post I was married to my best friend. Almost three years after that I became a dad. Shortly after she was born I found out my large intestine was becoming cancerous. My little girl is a year and a half old now and we are getting to know each other better. For most of her life I had been severally ill. About a year ago my transplanted liver failed, this time more harshly than the last.

In a span of a less than a month I went from hiking mountains and working full time to being hospitalized for five weeks. My abdominal cavity filled with fluid and what it couldn't hold flowed to my leg tissues swelling them to the point that fluid seeped out of my pores. When it could no longer inflate my legs, the fluid traveled up. It started to fill the tissue sacks that surrounded my lungs, my left lung especially.

In the months leading up to my second transplant I had multiple procedures where they would insert a giant needle into my abdomen and drain the fluid. During one of fluid draining appointments they emptied out nearly five and a half liters. The amount of fluid they drained from my body was astounding. In reality the fluid was the only thing giving me any weight while the rest of my body wasted away.

The sickness made me exhausted but I couldn't sleep. I stayed up all night watching re-runs of shows that I never understood as a child that now as an adult I could relate to immensely. Well maybe not 3rd Rock from the Sun, but honestly who can relate to that - it did make me laugh though.

I was also in extreme pain and was put on ridiculous amounts of narcotics, opiates, and over the counter pain-relievers. I could barley move from the pain, then after the meds I could barely move from the side-effects. The pills made me sleepier than before, but I still couldn't sleep. The pain-killers did make 3rd Rock a lot more interesting, and believable though, not that that is a good thing though.

On a side-note, kids, don't do drugs, they are horrible, horrible, addictive things, use pain-killers sparingly. You will thank me later when you need them and three ibuprofen will knock you out. I did myself a terrible disservice being on large doses of medicine for long periods of time causing my body to build a tolerance to it. You are better off dealing with small amounts of pain so when the big pain comes you have a solution.

I lost insane amounts of weight. If you subtracted the fluid weight at my lightest point I weighed around eighty-five to ninety pounds. Which when compared to my weight fluctuation since the last blog post in 2009 it is mind blowing. I went from 130 to 220 after being put on huge doses of steroids in 2010, then dropped most of the weight, 90 pounds, by Christmas of 2011. I thought gaining ninety pounds was rough on the body, losing forty pounds when you are already underweight is ten times more tolling on the body.

Eight months after my initial hospitalization I started having excruciating abdominal pain in the middle of the night. I started throwing up and couldn't stop. After nearly an hour I couldn't take it anymore and started yelling. Aleece came running downstairs to find me writhing in pain. She called 911, found a baby-sitter in minutes, and when the ambulance never showed she drove me across the Salt Lake valley to the hospital. The drive usually took nearly an hour, That night we drove across the valley and I was checked in to the ER in  twenty-eight minutes. We had the hazards on the whole way and even passed several police officers

It turned out that I had a perforated bowel and the doctors had to decide if they were going to take me right then and there. They decided to wait. They waited, and waited. I ended up not eating for over fifty-four hours. When I was finally able to eat again I was given a Saltine cracker. I have never cried over food before, but at that point I lost it. I had never been so hungry in all of my life.

The next few days I went down-hill rapidly. I could feel my body shutting down and my time growing short. A lot of the time I didn't want to go to sleep for fear that I wouldn't wake up. Several days after being put in the hospital I ended up on the top of the transplant list. I was on the top, but nothing came. The hours felt like days and the days felt like eternity.

Finally on March 26th, 2014 I had my second liver transplant. This time going into the surgery though I also signed a consent that if my large intestine needed to come out they could do that as well. I agreed. When I woke up I had a new liver, and no colon. It was really weird adjusting to it but it defiantly has improved my quality of life.

My recover was relatively quick, but there was no time to rest. A few months after my transplant we moved from Salt Lake City to Rossford, Ohio. It has been quite the change and has been pretty weird living with my in-laws. It won't be long before we get our on place. Until then, I will be working, parenting, husbanding, and now, more frequently, writing.

Sorry it's been awhile,

Damen