Saturday, January 28, 2012

Death, Hospitals, and Disneyland


Another interesting week filled with all kinds of experiences.
  • Sunday: We started off the week off with an encouraging gathering at Church.
  • Monday: Worked at PLBC, really felt privileged to be praying for my "MY5", and had a good council meeting in the evening.
  • Tuesday: Went to a naturopath doctor with Angela, heard my grandfather graduated to Heaven, and worked in the evening.
  • Wednesday: met with the one and only Geoff Stewart, taught some great students at the College, and worked in the evening.
  • Thursday: went with Angela for tests, completed a cancer counselling session, and then worked again.
  • Friday: sat in the hospital all day with Angela for her procedure.
  • Saturday: worked, had a nice family visit with Christina Williams, and then had dinner at the Parson's.

Grandpa Nelson
On Tuesday, I received word that my grandfather graduated to Heaven.  He has joined his wife in receiving his reward in Christ.  I'm really happy for him.  I took the above photo about ten years ago of his old shop and even though he hadn't lived on the farm for some time at that point, one of his old sweater jackets was still hanging up.

Grandpa Nelson was man's man.  He grew up in the prairies, was a farmer, served in the tank corps, became a welder, and raised six kids.  He could build and fix anything (although it never looked pretty). I wish I had a picture of his homemade cider press to demonstrate this.

I grew up on his farm, spending many Saturdays hanging out with him as he puttered around the barns and shop.  When I was younger, I'd sit on his lap or wheel well of the tractor and watch him go about his work. In my teen years, I was the one operating the tractor and he was the one yelling, "whoah, whoah, hey, hey, hey!!"  He would do various hand signals and assume that others knew what they meant.  For the odd job, he'd actually pay me to do tasks. I called them nickel jobs because that's about how much he'd pay me.

He knew how to hunt (usually from his back porch) and skin a deer. He knew how make some pretty tasty and spicy deer sausage too.  Although sometimes a batch of it would get lot in one his freezers and then turn up 15 years later.

One of his fingers was a knob (I think it was from a chainsaw accident).  It always scared me as a little kid and I would steal glances at it. Later in life, I came to respect it... especially when it worked to his advantage in crokinole.

The house I grew up in was about 1km through the woods from his and we always joked that even though he was on the phone, we could hear him with out it. He was an exceptionally loud talker on the phone. His calls were often accompanied by panicked pacing and head scratching.

I observed that he lived life in one of three modes: 1) chuckling; 2) panicking; or 3) crying.  Grandpa's chuckle was usually due to the cute and light side of life (telling a funny story, observing his dog, or watching his grand kids goof around). His panicking was due a lack of patience and a great desire to fix a problem as fast as possible (I wouldn't want him in charge of the 'red button' during a war).  His crying was due to moments of clarity where he saw his failures and weaknesses in light of Jesus and the many blessings bestowed upon him by God.

Some of my favorite memories include drinking water with him from an ice cream bucket, watching hockey games on Saturday nights, getting candy from his lazy boy compartment, watching him shower his food with "No-Salt", and hearing him start up his brake-less motorbike, hear it backfire along the road, then pull up unannounced to our house (he would use a stick to help stop the bike).

My least favorite memories include the time he volunteered to cut my hair with his rusty electric razor. I was hesitant, but my mom reassured me it would be okay.  It started out painful and then I knew it was bad when, through my tears, I saw a clump of hair attached to skin along with some blood.  I was young, but I seem to remember my mom stepping in and offering to finish it at home.  I still laugh and cringe thinking about that.  Then there was the time he caught me starting a "controlled" fire in his garage.  He wasn't very happy about that.  I can't blame him either.  He helped stop a number of our childhood fires.

I could probably write a book about my memories of him.  However, the most significant impact he and my grandma had on me and my family was their sincere love for Jesus and their service to the Kingdom.  He will be missed, but His legacy lives on!

Naturopath Visit
On Tuesday we went to see a naturopath doctor that specializes in cancer.  It was worth going to ease the mind of all options, but didn't offer too much different news.  His recommendation was to eat very healthy (i.e. whole grains and vegetables) and to go to Germany for chemo.  In Germany the have a clinic that dispenses chemo simultaneously with heating up the body.  In short, the heating process helps the chemo be more effective towards cancer.  He offered a few other options as well, but nothing that significantly increased her timeline or comfort.

Other Hospital Visits
Thursday, we saw the oncologist again and she didn't offer any different news.  Friday, we were at the hospital again as Angela had portacath installed.  The device is installed under her skin and connects to a vein much closer to the heart. It will help future chemo rounds have less side effects on the blood vessels in her arms.  The side effects of chemo on her vessels were already realized before the procedure as it took the nurses five tries to get an IV connected.  Angela was a good sport in spite of a hard day.  I think we need to buy shares in impark to get something back from the hours we've spent on hospital parking lots.

Disneyland
On a more fun note, we've also been planning a trip in February to Disneyland.  We had some friends of Angela's family give us our flights and hotel.  We feel so blessed and loved.  We are very grateful.  Ruby is excited.  Charlie doesn't know what is going to hit him.  Angela can't wait to share this experience with them.

That's been our week in a nutshell.  Thank you for your prayers and love.

5 comments:

  1. Your recollections of grandpa had me laughing. My memories of him are a mixture of him being irritating and charming simultaneously. He is the only person I know who is able to annoy me and also make me want to give him a kiss on the cheek at the same time. Oh grandpa. Thanks for writing that. I think I’ll save this post (if it’s okay with you) on my computer for posterities sake. Melissa

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  2. Clint, you knew Grandpa far better than I did! I laughed along with you and sat in awe for some of it. What a great synopsis of his life and the impact it had on you. Thanks for revealing more of him to me!
    Tanya
    PS Wish you were driving to disneyland so we could see you all!! But flying will be MUCH more comfortable!

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  3. I wish I had spent more time getting to know my grandpa, he farmed in Saskatchewan where I am originally from but my folks moved here to B.C. when I was just a wee lad. You are blessed to have had an excellent relationship with your grandpa. My grandpa died at Christmas a number of years ago and because of work I was unable to attend. Disneyland will be a blast enjoy yourselves.

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  4. I love that picture of Grandpa Nelson's sweater Clint - thanks so much for sharing! Thinking of you guys all of the time ~Kirstin

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  5. Clint, You can park at my son's church for free. It's Abby Free on the corner of Marshall and Ware.A lot of the hospital staff park there. You can park there as long as you need to. That is something they do to help people as those parking fees at the hospital can get pretty expensive.You could drop Angela off and go park there, and then walk back. It is just a short distance. God Bless, Betty

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