And I Prayed...

By Cathy Jo Schroeder-Soden

And I Prayed is a memoir spanning the years of 2013-2019, during which the author's spouse battled terminal kidney cancer. During the same time period, the author suffers a seizure from a brain tumor and has brain surgery, followed one month later by her spouse also needing brain surgery due to his cancer. It details their respective medical journey's leading up to her husband's death, the year of "firsts" for her and her children, and one year after his death, her own diagnosis of cancer. It details her walk-in faith with God and how her husband's cancer battle brought him to accept Jesus for himself. It was her husband's desire that she share his testimony to encourage others faced with a similar fate, but it showcases more than that. It highlights a husband and wife's dedication to each other, perseverance through difficult life trials, and a strengthening of faith that allowed her to survive, fulfill goals, and find love again.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fulton Books, Inc.
• Release date: Mar 14, 2022
• ISBN: 9781638603245

Book preview

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Prologue

Early to mid-January 2013, Paul called me into the bathroom because he was urinating blood. He insisted he must have a kidney stone, since it was common after having gastric sleeve surgery (which he underwent, against my objections, in September 2012). I examined him and told him he did not have a kidney stone and that he needed to call his provider in the morning to get a urinalysis done. He shrugged me off saying, Nah, it will get better. And it did, until it happened again, and then a third time.

When this occurred, I was an RN with a master’s in science in nursing and was a family nurse practitioner. I had been an RN for twenty-two years, working as a family nurse practitioner for thirteen of those years, with emergency room experience. As an experienced nurse, I can spot a patient with a kidney stone from across the room. He did not have a kidney stone. At all. Not even a small one. But he felt he knew more, even though he was a blue-collar, jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none guy. His words to describe himself, not mine. He asked for nursing advice all the time, just would not follow it, or relished in telling me that I was wrong. It was not the first time he denied my clinical experience, and unfortunately for him, he was always the one who was wrong.

For example, he woke me up one night with abdominal pain and diarrhea. I quickly palpated his abdomen and thought he probably had appendicitis. He told me I was wrong. So I told him to wake me if it got worse and proceeded to go back to sleep, since it was around 2:00 a.m. He called out from work but did not admit that he was feeling worse until he sheepishly called me at work at 11:00 a.m. from the emergency room asking me, What surgeon should I ask for? I have appendicitis.

The bloody urine, or hematuria, slowly cleared over the next two to three days, and he never called his health care provider for an evaluation. Then the hematuria started again around April, lasted a few days, and cleared. Again, he declined to go to his provider for a urine test to detect any microscopic hematuria (blood in the urine only seen under microscopic examination). The third time really got his attention as the bleeding was worse, and he was passing clots of blood. Now he was scared and willing to listen. He agreed to see a urologist, and he was able to quickly get an appointment. I, of course, went with him. The urologist, who shall not be named, ordered the diagnostic tests appropriate for the problem but never examined him. The appointment occurred from across a desk with no physical exam performed. I was puzzled and not impressed with this doctor, but the tests that I knew needed to be done had been ordered.

I had discussed with Paul the differential diagnoses, or list of possible problems, that could cause the hematuria. This included the possibility of cancer. I told him of my experience in having several patients diagnosed with bladder cancer due to microscopic blood found on routine urinalysis. I was heavily leaning toward this diagnosis, as was the urologist. We would both be wrong.

Paul went for a CAT scan of his abdomen, July 22, 2013, and had instructed the radiology office to copy the results to my office. The office staff placed the report off to the side of the desk. They saw the result summary and were hoping to delay me seeing the report. I remember grabbing the report and even saying, Wow, that was quick.

I started to read it as I walked back down the office hallway, and then I gasped and starting to hyperventilate. I slid down the wall onto the floor. I am not one for being overly dramatic, but the report shocked me. The office staff started crying, knowing what the report stated, and I remember one of them crying, Oh,CJ.

One of them called for Dr. B who fortunately was present in the office with me that day. I was up and walking but shaking. I shared the report with him. It showed a cancerous mass but not the bladder cancer that I was expecting. It was a 12.3-cm mass in his right kidney consistent with cancer and was pressing upward against the liver and a second smaller mass in the lower part of the kidney. I worked in an ENT office, and three-centimeter masses in the neck or throat area are considered large, so a twelve-centimeter mass was huge (2.54 centimeter equals one inch so this was close to five inches). The tumor was almost as large as the kidney itself.

Dr. B wanted to send me home as I was clearly not in a good frame of mind to continue to treat patients, but I really did not want to go home. I do not have a poker face, and Paul would immediately know something was wrong. I did not want to be the one to tell him the results. My boss looked at the name of the ordering physician of the scan and told me that I had to tell him because that doctor has the bedside manner of a flea!

I remained at work to keep myself distracted and delay the inevitable. I used my lunch break to call the urology department at the Hospital of University of Pennsylvania (HUP), not expecting to get an appointment for a few weeks. I was very pleasantly surprised to find they had an opening for the end of the week. Today was a Monday, and they offered me an appointment for Friday. I finished my workday early and headed home. And I prayed for strength as I drove home. I also prayed and thanked God for the fast appointment.

As soon as I walked in the door, Paul asked if I had gotten the results. I told him that yes, I did get the results. He followed me into the kitchen. I was leaning against the counter for support as I started to tell him the results. He kept talking over me. I do not think he even heard that it was not bladder cancer but rather a kidney tumor. I told him I made him an appointment at HUP for Friday and that he most likely would need to have surgery to remove his entire kidney. He kept talking over me and around me and was not really paying attention until the words You need to have the kidney removed, finally registered. Then he took a breath and really looked at me, pulled out a chair, and told me to start over and tell me again.

This was the beginning of the cancer journey for him but also the beginning of a few years of multiple health issues. Paul was forty-three years old. Kidney cancer tends to affect men more than women but usually later in life. The fact he was much younger than the normal age generally tends to mean a more aggressive version of the disease.

The years ensuing from 2013 through 2018 would entail his progression of disease despite multiple experimental and non-experimental therapies; additional surgeries (2014, 2015); finding me unconscious from a seizure due to a noncancerous brain tumor and subsequent brain surgery (February 2015); then one month later, his own brain surgery due to his cancer; entering hospice October 2016; his death in February 2017; and then my own cancer diagnosis one year later. This story is one of hope, resilience, perseverance, and faith. We demonstrated to our children how to support each other in the marriage vows of sickness and in health literally, and they witnessed the changes in their dad, as he found stability, received the gift of faith, and came to know Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior. He became more present with us and became a better husband and father, and we formed a stronger family unit through these challenges. We were the recipients of so much emotional and spiritual support and could see the many blessings that came to us despite the trials. I have dedicated a chapter at the end of the book to discussing these blessings that were bestowed on us. It was easier to discuss them altogether instead of weaving them into the story individually as they happened. I pray this chronicle of our journey encourages you in your own trials and your personal walk in faith.

For I am the Lord your God who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, do not fear, I will help you (Is. 41:13 NIV). This is just one of many verses I looked up on fear in the Bible during these years. Fear is mentioned in some form over 300 times in the Bible. Our suffering may seem meaningless to us at times, but in His providence it is not. He gets the glory when a person is miraculously healed, and He gets the glory when someone develops faithfulness and character through suffering. This is our story of our journey in and to Christ and how He provided for us through this journey. I prayed before, during, and after writing this that He would give me the words and strength to share Paul’s testimony in a way that honored Paul’s memory and was delivered in a way that he would be proud of. Most importantly, I prayed that this story gives glory to God. In the words of one of my favorite Christian artists, Toby Mac, Use this testimony for Your glory, here I am Lord, steal my show.

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Chapter 1

Paul and I met in high school, junior year, and disliked each other immediately. I thought he was a grease shop monkey, and he thought I was a curly-haired, permed prissy girl (this was the late ’80s!). But through some mutual friends, our paths kept crossing, and we started dating midway through our senior year, attending senior prom together and graduating together in 1989. We grew up in the suburbs outside of Trenton, New Jersey, in solid middle-class families. My dad was a blue-collar worker; his dad was a policeman and the notorious Officer Friendly in our town. Both our moms worked for the State of New Jersey. He has two brothers, and I have two sisters and a brother.

He proposed in 1992 when I finished nursing school, and we married October 8, 1994. During the next eight years, we lived in an apartment and had dogs and boats and came and went as we pleased.

I returned to school and completed my bachelor of science in nursing in 1997. By then, I was employed at Hahnemann University in Philadelphia and started my graduate program through their school (which is now Drexel). I completed the family nurse practitioner program/master of science in nursing in 2000.

Paul started working as a municipal worker for our township. He moved around a bit in various positions and went back to vocational school. He got a certificate in maintenance repair and electric, but he never wanted to complete the apprenticeship for the electrician certification. While not glamorous, the pay was decent, the hours were good, and the benefits were fabulous. While I worked my way up in nursing degrees and held various nursing titles, he also worked his way up the ladder at work. He became involved in the union and was president of the union for the township. This led to him being offered a job as a union representative, and he then represented blue-collar employees in other municipalities. He became well-versed in civil service law and contract negotiations. He became very respected in the job because he was passionate about it.

In 2003, we purchased our first house, a modest three-bedroom ranch. At the time, we had no children and had no real plans for children. We had our dogs and our boat and were very content. Paul became very immersed in all aspects of boating, and our weekends were spent at the marina, regardless of the weather. We made several boating trips down the Jersey coast, across the Delaware Bay into the Chesapeake Bay to explore on summer vacations. Each trip was fantastic. We made so many memories with our boating excursions on both Barnegat Bay and Chesapeake Bay.

Then the biological clock started ticking, as Paul joked. In December 2004, we welcomed our first child Kiersten, and in January 2009, Kaylee. They grew up on the weekends at the marina, boating and swimming in Barnegat Bay. But Paul did not really embrace being a father. Sure, he loved his girls, but he resented me for the changes it made in our life. We still did all the things with the kids that we did before they came into our lives; it just took more time, planning, and effort. Later, he realized and admitted that he resented that my time and attention were focused on the kids and taken off him. He felt like he no longer had his best friend.

This was the start of a downward spiral in our marriage. Paul had a non-treated mood disorder that caused cyclical bouts of depression. He had depression and cutting issues as a teen that were not addressed fully. He did receive treatment as a young adult due to a driving under the influence charge at the age of twenty-two. This was a big turning point for him. He continued antidepressants for many years but still had mood swings. Over the years, because of not being properly treated, the mood swings became worse. It caused him to have a skewed view of life and an inability to appreciate the many good things we had. I felt content with what I had in life, he was not and could not understand why I did not want more. That more to him was more materialistic things, more tools, more boats and four-wheelers and newer cars. Nothing was ever enough, and he was only satisfied for a short period.

Having children and wanting them baptized got me back into the church. I had taken myself to church during my childhood and teen years with a family that lived at the end of my street and whose daughter I went to school with. By the time Paul and I met, I was not attending church, and while he knew I had been religious, it was not a part of my life during the first ten years of our marriage. I continued to pray, but not regularly and did not belong to a church. Paul was not a Christian and was adamant that he believed in evolution and the Big Bang theory. He thought there had to be a God but that was the extent of his belief. He was okay with me taking the kids to church as it got him out of dad duty, but as he saw changes in