hope – CHASE AWAY CANCER

Of Insurance, Hard Things, and TEN YEARS MORE…

It’s been a while and it’s been hard to put into words…
This almost done Fall has been a strange, stretching time filled with both wonderfully normal things, and hard, intense growing things – or, at least I hope we’re growing from them.

Some weeks ago now, we began a struggle to have Chase’s insurance continue covering a couple of his medications.
I will forever be thankful that we weren’t fighting for an anticonvulsant (a seizure med – without which, we’d all be in really big trouble), but one of the things we were fighting for was the medication that helps him with his executive function. And without it…? Everything is just MORE. There’s more energy and laughter, yes, but there’s also more anger, frustration and sadness too. And it’s all coming quicker – shot from a damaged and dis-regulated brain – faster than Chase or any of us can handle.

We have been given so much grace and peace to do this thing. And yet, all the other things that don’t get done during this season – that’s where it hurts. That’s where and when the caring for our sweet boy pulls at whatever is left of our patience. It’s a weird in-between place where we know everything will be okay some day, but today is not that day. So we breathe, beg for extra grace, and walk… moment by moment, knowing as hard as it is for us, it’s equally, if not exponentially harder for Chase himself.

…and yet, dear ones, even as intensely weary as this season is, even as we liaison with his doctors and watch him carefully for signs of liver and heart issues until the January MRI, dear ones… tomorrow, Monday, December 12th, Chase Stratton Elliot Ewoldt will be thirteen years old. An actual teenager.

In some ways, it’s a very strange thing because his chronological age will be 13, but his intellectual age is a sliding scale… and the age of his heart and bones after all that he’s seen and done…? It’s got to be near 90, if it’s a day.

But I remember so clearly the moments at that first hospital conference table when we talked about the miracle it would take to get him to his third birthday. That third birthday was the goal…and while all the words were positive and hopeful, I felt it in my heart like I could see it in their eyes…nobody expected him to see the day.

So, to see the day…plus TEN YEARS MORE…?

That feels like an incredible moment in the hard journey. And we are treating it as such.

So watch this space all Monday… “$13 for 13 years” celebration kicks off here and I’m so excited to see how our celebration of Chase can impact life for so many others like him. *watch for the donation link in the morning!*

Looking forward with great hope…
MbM.

*Photo: “Chase Running”, by Margaret Henry*

When Easy Is A Lie

Two years and a lifetime ago…

It was in the middle of a vortex of cold air sweeping through the January winter, the days dark and frigid, when we got the news. The results of the biopsy were in.

It was cancer.

Again.

In those first minutes, we reeled even though in a strange way, we had been expecting it. And in those first weeks, we heard one sentence stated a dozen ways and we believed it:

“This is the easy cancer”.

In a way, this is a clinically supportable thought. The sheer number of days spent in the hospital, the number of moments we walked to the edge of life and back when Chase was two and fighting brain cancer – it doesn’t even compare. And yet…

Today is the second anniversary of Chase’s second cancer – a cancer that still sits in his body, making it outlast the actual time his brain cancer sat throughout his body by a good eight months. And these two years have been heartbreaking and complicated in so many unexpected ways.

You see, the problem with the word “easy” is that it is an immeasurable concept. There is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to the complicated complexities put before each of us. And the use of those types of words always end up pushing me down and hollowing me out.

If it was supposed to be easy and it doesn’t feel that way, then there must be something wrong with me, right?

And then I take those wrong, hard thoughts into the day with me and I walk into the processing, the tears and the pain not only unprepared, but feeling inadequate in all ways – because it wasn’t supposed to be this way. It was supposed to be “easy”.

And perhaps that’s the true cruelty of that word – “easy” – when life isn’t (and it almost never is), then my focus invariably turns to that second phrase:

“it wasn’t supposed to be this way”.

But very few things from the start of the world were ever supposed to be this way .

“Easy” makes us sit with our doubts.

“Easy” is ripe ground for seeds of discontentment.

“Easy” is sorrow incarnate when it comes to the table of suffering.

There is no easy.

Dear ones, I believe with my whole heart there is only ordained.

And it’s in relinquishing the “easy” word that I find peace. …not in this life, to be sure, but in hope.

With hope, the hard melts and reshapes. It never disappears. Life is hard and broken and will be until I see Jesus with my own eyes. But hope is the banquet at the table of suffering.

Hope is rich and beautiful even when the tears are rolling down my face and my heart is crying out “two years of this that was supposed to be easy…?!”

Hope holds me up when I weaken.

Hope comforts me when I weep.

Hope means purpose even in cancer … and second cancers.

So throw out the thoughts of “easy” with all its frustration and futility and “What’s wrong with me?” questions.

And hold on to hope with all of it’s “God is good even here” truths. It won’t be easy, but then again, “easy” was never a part of the story. And what a story it is…

Moment by moment.

“Why am I discouraged? Why is my heart so sad? I will put my hope in God…”
“…each day the Lord pours his unfailing love upon me.”
Psalm 43:5a, 42:8a

Story Lines

Dear ones, this month is a busy writing month for me, and as I decided I wanted to share a few lines with you. I don’t want to tell you too much about the plot yet, but suffice to say that one character is having a hard season in her life and went back to her childhood church hoping for answers, but so far, she doesn’t like what she hears. At all.

Enjoy the crazy ideas flowing out of my brain these days.

MbM ~

Ellie

His voice was softer, more introspective as he considered each word like a chess piece in a half-gone game. “If God’s light isn’t strong enough for your darkness – for the darkness of any man or woman who walks the earth – then he would not be a very good or strong God, yes?”
“Yes” She answered his expectant silence. “I mean no, he wouldn’t.”
“Exactly.” Triumph laced his tone. “That is what I am saying to you right now.”
“That God is not very powerful after all?” Her shoulders were numb from sitting so still against the gleaming wood of the pew.
“Ah, no, dear one. I am trying to tell you that God’s light is enough for your darkness.”
She jumped to her feet, and he slowly rose with her, as if he had expected just this reaction.
“No!” Suddenly, she was angry at this man; another in the long line of men who seemed to promise all good things to her. “You don’t get to tell me things like that – charlatan promises to help me sleep better at night. They are just words to you, Father, and yet you use them to offer me peace. I want no part in your placebo drugs of religion and peace and a light that is enough.”
“Placebo drugs?” The thin skin on his forehead wrinkled.
“An experiment – “He cut her off.
“I know what a placebo drug is, Vera. It is the untruth that becomes truth to the body that believes hard enough – that wants it enough.”
She shook her head. “It is the failure – the opposite of the help.”
“Who are you to say what fails and what does not? You see only a moment in time – one moment at a time. What if there are pieces of the story that are unfolding and you just don’t know the rest yet?” His tone was deliberate and challenging, yet somehow still loving. “What if what you see as a failure is actually going to turn out for good?”
“I see too much sickness to believe such a fairy tale, Father.”
“First it is a fake drug, and now a bedtime story.” He shook his head. “I cannot make you believe what you do not wish to acknowledge, Vera. But I can tell you that at some point, in some way, you will need something bigger than yourself to hold on to – to find hope in. It cannot be your husband, and it cannot be your baby. And it cannot even be your friends or your work, fulfilling though they might be. And until you let go of this that burdens you, and until you realize there is more to be had and given outside of you – you will sicken like one of your patients, Vera.”
“That’s a little dramatic, don’t you think, Father?”
“I have seen it happen, ch – ” He caught himself on the endearment and nodded once to her. “I have seen it happen. A heavy heart can eat away at your flesh and bones just as well as a cancer can.”
She hated his words, wanting only to be gone from this place she had mistakenly thought might have offered her sanctuary. “It’s too dramatic, Father. And there is no proof of such things. People survive bad things all the time – work at surviving for their whole lives even – without wasting away.”
His look was loving. “Ah, yes, it is sad and true, both. But Vera – and this is the last because I can feel your need to escape – ” She stilled at his knowing words. “What if they were not living at all? What is there’s more to be had than simply surviving?”
Untitled Work, Ellie Poole Ewoldt, 2020

Please note that this is a small part of a largely un-edited work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is coincidental (not to mention disturbing).

Of Happy Holidays

We did not ask for this year, but we do not resent it being given to us either. Sometimes, life is a struggle, but then it settles to pleasant places and we realize that these journeys we take have been destined for our good – to give us a future and a hope – all along.

The last twelve months have held all that you would expect them to hold in a family of six – church, jobs, writing, speaking, school, orchestra, band, plays, student council, sports, and more. But in perhaps one of the most surprising and yet unsurprising turn of events this 2019 (something you all already know if you follow CAC), Chase was diagnosed with a second cancer. It started in his thyroid, but has moved into his lymph nodes, and as of November, they are monitoring his lungs and kidneys as well. There have been surgeries, procedures, treatment, and seemingly endless days in the hospital. There have been tears and anger mingling with the joy and laughter, and over it all, the whispered prayer continues on: “Lord, please use this to strengthen and not to break.”

We are overwhelmed, yet God is faithful.

We are tired, yet God never sleeps.

We grieve, yet God takes the pain and gives hope in its place.

And isn’t this why we mark this Christmas-time, life-long celebration? The moment that tiny babe drew breath in a barn cave with the animals all those thousands of years ago, the war was won. Hope will always win because God’s love is greater still.

Choosing hope.

With all our love – moment by moment…

The Ewoldt Family

[Bob, Ellie, Darcy 13, Aidan 11, Chase 10, Karsten 8]

Find us all year:

www.chaseawaycancer.com [don’t forget to subscribe when you visit!]
Facebook: “Chase Away Cancer” or “Ellie Poole Ewoldt”
Instagram: Ellie Poole Ewoldt

[Photo credit: Margaret Henry Photography]

Of Second Times And Separations

It’s been two months to plan the course.

It’s been two weeks to prepare his body.

And now, this morning, there are zero days left to wait.

Today, for the second time in his fast, yet long nine years, my precious boy will start treatment for a cancer.

The second cancer.

The second time this second cancer has showed up in his body in these last ten months.

The first time Chase fought cancer, passage was was measured in months and marked with the times we nearly lost him.

This second time Chase will fight is measured in mere days, but it is marked already with a profound separation.

There have been so many tears – of grief, anger, frustration, fear, pain, and sometimes even joy. But the thing with the tears is that after they rain down, they dry up.

And then hope comes again.

BECAUSE CANCER IS NEVER THE END OF THE STORY.

This is not what we would choose, but we move into it, knowing that even in our separation, we are never alone.

We are heartbroken, yet peaceful.

It is time.

We are ready.

Moment by moment.

Weeping may last through the night, but joy comes with the morning.
Psalm 30:5b

He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain.
Revelation 21:4b

**After ten months of diagnosis and fifteen days of preparation, while the rest of the 4th graders round out their last few hours in their corner classroom, Chase will lay in a corner hospital room and swallow radioactive iodine, thereby rendering him a radioactive danger to those he loves – for the sake of cancer eradication. For the next 5-7 days, Chase and anything he touches will be living in a prolonged state of separation (both in the hospital and at another location) in which he must remain at least six feet from all other people – until such time as he is officially “cleared”. Please pray for Chase and our family as we walk into the unknown.**

Tag: hope