Lucas Stories
Beautiful morning from Philadelphia.
Some Lucas stories that inspired me this week and made me pee my pants in laughter. The great irony of this situation is the closeness that you feel with each other and to God, but also the trial that is being experienced being so hard, so threatening. It makes laughter richer, it makes dancing more fun, it makes the words of music have more power, and it has increased our faith in God.
Story 1: The Election
Lucas has become incredibly focused on the election. He thinks the guys that are analyzing the maps are updating a football game score. Seriously, he looks at it like its a game. He is pulling for 1 team and when that team pulls ahead he jumps around just like when Sam Ehlinger threw that touchdown pass to Jake Smith on Saturday. The other day when they went off the maps and the analytics and they switched to a couple of people talking about other things (no analytics on screen) he asked me “Dad, is it halftime ?”
Story 2: The Big Screen
They say this over and over, but having something to rally around during times like this, “events” really lets you have things to look forward to. There is a big screen in this place we are staying that you can reserve, and we watched the TX / OSU game last Saturday and have a TX / W. VA slot reserved for this Saturday. Watching Lucas dance and drink Dr. Pepper when we score or get a pick or run the ball back 100 yards is so sweet and epic. Last night we reserved the big screen to watch Iron Man 2 which Lucas loved. I let him drink a Dr. Pepper, it was so cute watching him have a cold one.
Story 3: Parcheesi Master
Lucas is amazing at Parcheesi. For those of you that haven’t played it its like the original version of Sorry but a lot more complicated / complex. When we go to have his chemo every day at CHOP , the first thing he asks for is to break out the Parcheesi board. I try really hard when I play him because he beats my a$$ pretty much every time. He beat me 5 games to 2 on Tuesday. Yesterday was a dead heat. We have to take breaks to watch the “score” of the election on the Ipad.
Story 4: Peanut Butter Crackers with Mustard
Lucas learned about peanut butter crackers with mustard from my Dad. I don’t know where it started, but I am pretty sure my grandfather made it as a snack when he was flying B-24s during WWII, who knows. Anyway, the nurses all walk by and look very mysteriously at our tale. We bring peanutbutter and saltines and French’s mustard every day. He won’t eat the hospital "free” lunch, he would rather have his crackers, play Parcheesi and check on the game.
Story 5: “Get up Dad”
Every day we go throw the football. He can’t wait. When we get out of the clinic he is always super wiggly and can’t wait to go throw the ball. It’s kind of cold here sometimes and I usually am concerned about him being in the cold, but he insists and is like a puppy, if you don’t let him get out he goes bonkers. Anyway, yesterday I had to take a break and sat down on the bench, this is after he did chemo for 5 hours. “Get up Dad ! “ , who was I to say no?
Lucas sleeps with one of us, its normally Erin but since she went to go see this kids this week, this week its me. I love checking his head at night, its fuzzy and no temperature. We talk about prayer every day. Lucas asked us the other day “if Jesus can heal people, why hasn’t he healed me?” How do you answer this question? That’s Lucas, he asks those kinds of questions. I asked him if he had asked Jesus to heal him, and he doesn’t like publicly being vulnerable, but we say quiet “inside prayers” every night before we go to sleep. When I feel his fuzzy head at night I pray for the healing power of Jesus.
CHOP has been great, its an amazing hospital. They are letting Lucas do this round of treatment outpatient, meaning we go to clinic every day. They also have a “home care” team that can come to your residence on the weekends 24/7 if you need it. Lucas wears his Red Sox stuff every day to the hospital, its hilarious, people look at him. But our doctor, Richard Aplenc secretly admitted to me that he is a Red Sox fan. We have an amazing Nurse Practitioner named Katie Oranges who is the most responsive person I have met in healthcare.
On faith
I am the last person that would ever want to seem preachy. But through this journey, and I think I can confidently say this about Erin as well, our faith has strengthened. When Lucas had his seizure, we were powerless, we both knew this one was in God’s hands. When he fell unconscious I fell to my knees and kissed his feet and prayed, oblivious to the 15 people in the room. Erin and I stood over his body and just prayed while he had tubes in his mouth, unconscious.
At the start of this journey I still felt some gaps in my faith. When you go to an early 6:45 mass, the people aren’t there early because they are bored, they are there because God, for many of them, is their only hope. When you go to a poor community and you see strong examples of faith, its because God, for many of them, is their only hope. Many times people that don’t have anything, actually have a richness due to their closeness with God that a financially rich person might not have. They actually are not poor because of their faith in God, they have a richness in their life. Without faith right now, without some sort of grounding we would be lost in the stratosphere. So when we pray, we really pray.
Lets pray for Lucas, for his sweet body to get rid of this cancer.
Sunset in Philadelphia on November 3rd from our apartment. View overlooking UPMC / University City
