Episode Transcript
It is all too often said that there are no miracles performed these days. Therefore I challenge this idea with my husband's story of dizziness. Welcome to miracles in the 21st century.
I'm Corinne Knopper. In 2019 Eddie was having dizzy type headaches on standing up from his sitting in the lounge chair in the evenings. This happened for about a week or so.
Then the dizzy spells began to be followed with a headache. The headaches degenerated to a great headache at the end of that dizziness and by the end of nearly three or four weeks there was notable headaches waking him at night knowing something was not quite right. An immediate visit to the local doctor brought about an MRI that was done on the Friday as the doctor said, this is urgent.
The MRI is a great point of interest as the staff doing the MRI decided to put a special type of dye in at that time not being requested. The doctor received the information and all the results. Then with a consultation that was scheduled for the following Wednesday, he said it's a brain tumour.
The next day was Thursday 1st August 2019. Another consultation was scheduled as all the information had now been forwarded on to the mater hospital in Newcastle for their evaluation. On that Thursday we asked all sorts of questions and we spent a long time with the doctor who appeared to have all the time in the world for us.
He had hoped to have had an answer from the mater hospital for that Thursday appointment that we were attending that had not happened well yet. We left the doctor's room and we went to the receptionist to pay the secretary and hadn't been there more than about a half a minute it seemed when the doctor called us straight back into his office. The mater hospital had just rung him go directly to the John Hunter Hospital, he told us.
So without a thought, Eddie drove himself to the John Hunter Hospital for a consultation there. A few hours later I received a phone call to come and pick up the car as Eddie had to stay there overnight and have a full body scan to cheque if that brain tumour had stemmed from somewhere else. Friday 2nd of August 2019 the full body scan was done.
Nothing sinister was found so Eddie was put in a transfer medical vehicle to go to the private hospital that was only just 900 metres away. Now let's stop here for a minute. The staff at John Hunter Hospital had found the Newcastle surgeon for brain cancer tumours was there in the hospital right at that time.
The surgeon said he might be able to operate in the John Hunter Hospital in the next 10 days or so. Or whenever. But there were no guarantees as other surgeries just take over and they take precedence and Eddie would have his surgery bumped further down the track.
The surgeon was very happy that we had private health insurance and that's why he would be able to schedule it. Emergency surgery next week. A miracle you think about it.
Correct. Surgeon in the right place at the right time. The surgery was completed on that Wednesday morning, the 7th of August in 2019.
There was a stay in the intensive care unit until the next morning. Then to his own personal room on the Thursday and on the Friday I picked him up and brought him home. I beg your pardon? Home after brain surgery.
And a cut that went from the top of the head right across from one ear to the other. And a chunk of bone that had been cut and then drilled back in right there on the front of the skull. Yes, it was the size of a tennis ball that cut and it was screwed back in place.
Now I can go and. And this and then. And.
And something else. Home. Yes, he was home on that Friday.
Well, that tumour pathology result came back as the highest grade of glioblastoma multiform grade four. Ah yes, a big name. What's the prognosis, doctor? Most people live about 10 months, maybe 14 months after their operation.
And then for having completed six weeks of radiation treatment on and, and then chemotherapy tablets and then rounds of more chemotherapy tablets for months scheduled with the regular MRI's just keeping tabs on things and all your blood tests. This was said by two medical specialists. Now remember that motorbike I sold back in 2018? Here is what that exact amount of dollars to the scent was required for the radiation costs were going to be out of pocket between 10 and $12,000.
But the accounting lady said she'd work on that for us. And later that after that first radiation treatment she came back to us and said the lowest she could go out of pocket would mean we would have to pay, wait for it, $2,500 or I would have to use six weeks of my part time pay to pay for that out of pocket expense. Eddie wasn't working and he would not get any pay.
Does the Lord provide or not, I ask you? Now we come to the end of six months of his chemotherapy and that tablet was, oh funny, funny name. Temozolomide or TMZ we called it for short. Eddie had follow up MRI at that six months and it showed just a small amount of the tumour left very close to the main blood vessel going up into the brain.
They had to leave it there because if they touched it it would have blown that vessel apart and he would have probably not made it through that operation. This little one had shrunk a bit, but there was a new tumour now growing in one of the ventricles. Oh, what was that and why? It was on chemotherapy and having completed all the radiation, another tumour was growing.
One more month of that TMZ and another MRI just to see what might happen. And to those tumours, the result, the new little one is still there, not altered, as was the original tumour that was left behind after that surgery. Ok, let's change tactics and a new type of chemotherapy with a different regime.
Take one tablet called Lamustine, then a week off, then do two weeks of this tablet called Procarbazine. You take it every night and then you have a couple of weeks off. That's a six week cycle, said the specialist.
After two of these cycles, the new tumour is stable. So let us keep going with this new chemotherapy, said the doctor. The follow up appointments in between all of these happenings had the radiation specialist.
He was with the Mark Hughes foundation for Brain Cancer. He was doing a lot of brain tumour researching and he was ecstatic that Eddie was continuing to go out on his mountain bike, riding his E bike, electric assist and sometimes doing up to 70 kilometres in a good week. And that's out in the bush.
Add to that a diet of plenty of vegetables, fruits, that's our usual vegetarian diet, and two litre jug that we made of vegetable juices in our kitchen and we were taking that over a couple of days so it was still nice and fresh. Then the 15th of October 2020, the Radiation Specialist said, keep doing what you are doing. He was very happy to see the amazing progress.
The week prior to that was past the 14 months of the average survival rate. Then on 16th December 2020, the chemotherapy doctor was excited to say that the MRI that had just been done showed that that second growth was now just a shadow. The original tumour that had been left from the surgery was nearly gone.
So October 2021, there are no tumours. The chemotherapy regime stopped. A little later, the haemoglobin in the blood was found to have dropped dramatically, which is why Eddie was now becoming tired, not riding his bike much.
And on the account of 62 of this haemoglobin, it was time for transfusions to happen. The haematologist was now involved to sort through this. The bone marrow operation was performed and it showed that the chemotherapy had killed off the ability to produce those proper shaped red blood cells.
After a few more tests, it was deemed best to have regular transfusions, as other ways, like a bone marrow transplant, were just not the best way forward for any situation. This happened monthly for quite a while, these transfusions, but the tiredness started creeping back in. So fortnightly transfusions, chronic transfusion programme they called it, these were put in place and it worked so well that the doctors were very happy.
Eddie was still able to go out on his E bike and ride the mountain trails. So what are the miracles God has blessed you with today or years before? If God could close those lions mouths for Daniel, he could part the Red Sea for Moses and he could make the sun stand still for Joshua, he could open the prison doors for Peter and put a baby in the arms of Sarah, then raise Lazarus from the dead, he can certainly take care of you. Nothing you are facing today is too hard for our God to handle.
Nothing. Shall we pray together? Please? Dear Father in heaven, you show us so abundantly the wonderful miracles that you bestow upon us. We are most grateful Lord, that you give us the courage to keep going.
Just like all the beautiful people in the Bible who kept going going. Lord, may we do so relying on you, holding our hands and guiding us through everything that happens to us every day for the rest of our lives. Please Lord, grant us your peace and your understanding because we ask it all in Jesus wonderful and precious name, Amen.
