Interview on Suffering: Death and Cancer, but Where is God?
Our position in healthcare places us in the path of suffering. We are invited into people’s worst moments and in return we pour out ourselves to help alleviate that pain. Yet, even though we encounter suffering every day, there has been very little guidance for the Christian healthcare professional on how to guide people through suffering in a life-giving and Gospel-centered manner. This month I asked Kandy Shelton to share with us a particularly difficult season in her life. My hope is that, as healthcare professionals, we would:
1. Experience suffering from the other side (a personal side)
2. Identify helpful, encouraging and life-giving ways to support someone in the midst of a season of suffering
3. Conversely, identify ways we have been unhelpful or even hurtful to others in seasons of suffering
4. Equip you with tools that will enable us to better help others navigate through suffering.
KANDY SHELTON:
When Kandy thinks back to those years, she remembers it being an incredibly long season of suffering. Her story begins early in her marriage to her first husband. They were young and had chosen with several other families from a large church to help plant a new church in a neighboring town. Both she and her husband were in their early twenties and eagerly jumped into their roles. Looking back, she could see subtle and unhealthy rhythms in their lifestyle. One of which is that they did not have a good, deep community with accountability. Through the years, her husband, who had struggled with anxiety and sleeping problems his whole life, started using Tylenol PM to fall asleep. This habit spiraled into a sleeping pill addiction. Looking back the signs seemed so obvious: prescriptions from multiple doctors, multiple credit cards, paying for some meds with cash… Eventually, it all began to get out of control and Kandy confronted her husband. He decided he needed help and that he would quit cold-turkey. Only one problem. He couldn’t go to sleep without the aid of the medication. After being awake for 72 hours straight, he succumbed again to a Tylenol PM. Later that night Kandy found him. He had overdosed on Tylenol PM. The ambulance was called and he was rushed to the ER, where she watched her husband code and eventually get stabilized enough to make it to the ICU. Over the next three days he coded multiple times, his liver shut down, his kidneys shut down, she signed a DNR and then he passed. She was 29 years old and had two children under four. Her grief was overwhelming.
Nine months later they were trying to get into their new normal and her son began complaining of leg pain. She took him to the doctor, got an x-ray and was told there might be a break, so they would put his leg in a cast. He was in a cast for a few months. When they removed it, everything unraveled. Where his knee was, it looked like he now had two knees.
Initially they diagnosed him with bone cancer. They got scan after scan and then determined that a rare ossification was also in the differential work up. The doctors decided that they would wait before they did anything. For three months they waited and watched. During this time, the Holy Spirit told Kandy to fast and pray. She reflected that it was a confusing time for her and she wrestled with her own anger, often wondering if God was angry at her in return. However, she faithfully fasted and prayed for her son nonetheless. When Kandy and her son went back to the doctor, the Oncologist decided that the tumor had shrunk and so it was not bone cancer after all, but an ossification. Her son would still require surgery- a very long and dangerous one- but they would wait three more months to see how things went. During this time Kandy fasted and prayed, as did many friends and family. When they went back to the oncologist, it was clear a miracle had happened. The ossification had completely disappeared. There would be no surgery.
What things have been told to you that were meant to be encouraging or helpful that were not, or possibly even hurtful?
KANDY: Work on making your interactions personal. Don’t be detached. Question if you’re coming across cold. Are you willing to engage, even if it risks your own emotions and heart? Then there is the other end of the spectrum: don’t make assumptions about people. You don’t know their story. For example, don’t assume a single mom is single by divorce. She may have lost her husband. This was often something I experienced.
What was said to you that was encouraging or what would you recommend to be encouraging?
KANDY: Touch and body language are HUGE. Hold people’s hands, look them in the eyes, give them a hug. They need that personal and more intimate interaction now more than ever. Also, work hard to be a good communicator. This means that you need to know how to communicate things on various developmental levels.
Most importantly, if they Holy Spirit prompts you, listen and act.
What last advice or encouragement would you give someone who works in healthcare?
KANDY: We need to enter into the hard spaces. They are awkward and sticky, but they are sacred spaces. As you do so, be transparent about your beliefs. It is only the Gospel of Jesus Christ that gives anyone true and lasting hope. Share the best you have with those who are most desperate.