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But instead of the normal parties, birthdays and sports and school events most parents' lives are smashed between, Nancy's calendar is filled with dates of hospital stays and doctor's appointments. And dates of remembrances: CANCER it says in bold letters under July 31. At night, Nancy, 41, plans her husband's funeral -- with his help. Many of the couple's days are spent worrying about their son's health. Both her husband and son have cancer. "They say God can never give you more than you can handle," Nancy said. "We're living proof of that." Her husband, Brion, 45, has a 15 percent chance of surviving five years. Diagnosed in September 1999 with cancer of the esophagus, doctors were forced to remove a section of his esophagus as well as his stomach. Complications since have meant a life in and out of hospital rooms. It's an unusual likeness for father and son: Greg, 23, came home Sept. 11 after having his stomach removed. For both of them, doctors attached their esophaguses to their small intestines and formed a little pouch in place of their stomachs. Greg however, is lucky compared to his father, because his disease was diagnosed as stomach cancer, much less deadly than his father's form of cancer. Greg's chances of survival are much greater, though he still gets most of his nourishment through a tube while his body adjusts to its new digestive system. While Greg's story of cancer might be especially tragic at such a young age, it's not a new one to him or his family. At 17, in the middle of his junior year of high school basketball, Greg was diagnosed with colon cancer. "We thought nothing could be worse," said Nancy, ruefully looking back at what now is considered a "good time." And it doesn't seem to end for this family from Marquette: Sept. 9 was to be a day of celebration, of welcoming Greg home from the hospital. But it didn't turn out that way. Thirty minutes after getting Greg home, Brion started having intense pain and was unable to talk. "Only sounds came out," Nancy said. "You couldn't understand him." Nancy rushed Brion to the hospital in Lindsborg until neurological tests could determine what was wrong. After having more of the episodes that left him unable to speak and his fingers numb, doctors advised him to stay in the hospital until test results are returned so that they can define what's wrong. When Nancy got home from taking Brion to the hospital, she found Greg vomiting, unable to stop his body from rejecting the food fed to his new stomach through his tube. Just hours after his release, Greg was back at the hospital in Salina. Hope in Houston Nancy, who's been married to Brion for 24 years, has come to accept that not much can be done for her husband's odds of surviving cancer. But she and Brion are just beginning the fight for Greg. The chances of surviving his second go-round with cancer are good, but his parents don't want to gamble on a third time. Greg's convinced he'll survive this bout, but he isn't sure what would happen to him if his body again were ravaged. Recovery has been much more difficult this time. When he was 17, he spent just 11 days in the hospital following surgery. This time, he was there for a month. That's why relatives have set up an account at Marquette Farmers State Bank for Greg. The money will go to fly Greg to Houston, where he can meet with a specialist recommended by the Larsons' doctor. At 23, Greg's dependent on Medicaid to pay for his hospital bills, which Nancy thinks might reach more than $250,000. They don't know how much Medicaid will pay, and that worries them. But they are fiercely determined to get their son to Houston. "(The specialist there) is the best; Greg deserves the best," Brion said. "I don't know how we're going to do it, but it's got to get done." 'Chopped so much out of me' The problem with additional cancer isn't just the emotional and physical havoc it would wreak on Greg's already fragile psyche and body, but the lack of options doctors would have. He's already undergone the lifetime limit for radiation therapy. And while the surgery team was supposed to just take the part of his colon infested with cancerous cells when he was 17, they ended up taking much more. The cancer, spreading from the tumor and unseen on X-rays, meant the removal of his spleen, and parts of his colon, pancreas and stomach. "If it comes back, I don't know if I could survive it," Greg said. "They've chopped so much out of me now -- they're running out of things they can take." When the two doctors came to the waiting room to see the family after performing the surgery when Greg was 17, they cried. They told Nancy that they didn't expect their oldest son -- who last had been to the doctor for an ingrown toenail -- to make it.
A diagnosis too painful His cancer was gone. A bad memory, with lessons of life learned. He's young enough to still want to be a rock star when he grows up but old enough to smile when he says it, knowing most would ridicule his dream. Before his studies were interrupted by stomach cancer, he was a student at Hutchinson Community College, studying perhaps to be a radiologist. He was moving on. But it was just two months after that smiling endorsement from the doctor that Greg was completely recovered from his colon cancer that he again got sick. Scared because of the similarity to his own symptoms from less than a year before, Brion insisted his oldest go to the hospital for an exam. Doctors were sure Greg just had an ulcer. But then came a phone call one night from the family doctor. "He was having a hard time bringing himself to tell us," Nancy said. He finally told Nancy: Greg has stomach cancer. She didn't want to hear it. She handed the phone to Brion. "Greg's checkups all had been OK," she said. "Everything had been fine." Hope for best, prepare for death Her desires are simple, and ones most take for granted. "I just want Greg to live a long happy life and get married and have a career," she said. "I just want Brion around a few more years. "We pray a lot. We ask God to help us through. And he has. But there's still a doubt -- what is to come?" Her hope for her husband is there, but it's realistic. "We hope for the best, prepare for the worst," he said. Late-night talks when the kids have gone to bed for him and Nancy have ended with planning of his funeral and detailed explanations of the family finances. "I want to have everything ready so Nancy won't have to go through all that," he said. There hasn't been an easy day since Brion's surgery a year ago. Just two days after, complications had reached a point where doctors weren't sure if he would live through the night. Machines breathed for him for the next week. Strange neurological problems, like the most recent bout of not being able to speak, have brought him in and out of emergency rooms and hospitals. And radiation has destroyed his nerve endings in his lower spinal cord, causing a constant, intense pain there. Because of his new digestive system, his blood sugar levels need constant monitoring, and when he's not careful he quickly passes out. For the past 15 years, Larson Organ Co., their family-owned business, has made pipe organs for churches. It already was foundering after a car wreck almost three years ago ruined Brion's right wrist and left him unable to do the manual labor required for the job. Now, Larson Organ Co. is being shut down. "It's sad," Nancy said. "We worked so hard to get it going, and then to see it all go away..." That means she and Brion also are dependent on Medicaid for Brion's sizable medical bills. But for Nancy, thinking about going back to work is more than she can handle now. The chief caretaker for both Greg and Brion, she also is the head cheerleader for her eighth-grade football star Robbie, 13, and an adviser to her daughters, Jolene, 21, and Anna, 15. There's little time for herself. God's with us through this She turns to God when the days are at their hardest. Both she and Brion, instead of turning away from their faith, have strengthened their beliefs. "We know God's with us through this," Brion said. "I feel nearer to God now than I have in my whole life." When healthy enough, Brion teaches Sunday school at their Lutheran church in Marquette and occasionally fills in for the minister when he's away. They believe there are lessons God is trying to teach them, though they admit they are struggling to determine what those are. "We've learned dependence on Him -- we've definitely learned who's in control," Brion said. 'Maybe, it's just to survive' Greg, while he doesn't attend church with his parents, also believes in God. "It's just another obstacle to overcome," he said of his second cancer in five years. "It's another challenge -- another question -- to try and answer." So what does he think the answer is?
"Maybe it's just to survive," he said, quietly. "That could be it." But he and his dad might be closer to finding what the purpose is in their suffering: Brion recently signed the duo up for a cancer genetics research study for colon, stomach and esophageal cancer being done at Ohio State University. "It won't help us, but maybe it'll help generations to come," he said. Cancer has a tragic run in the family: besides Greg and Brion, Brion's grandfather died from stomach cancer, his father suffered from bladder cancer, and his brother had colon cancer. Doctors have advised that the girls, and especially Robbie, begin extensive annual checkups to make sure their bodies remain clear of the family curse. For Nancy, the only purpose she can find in the suffering from life that revolves around cancer, stems from her faith and her family. "We never know if the next morning the cancer is going to return or if there's going to be a complication," she said. "Every day is special."  |
