On Wednesday Ashley and Nathan had school. I can’t honestly remember what we did with Emily. The news traveled fast. The phone rang off the hook all day Wednesday along with frequent visitors. We decided to wait to tell the kids until they got home from school. It was hard because we had a constant flow of visitors. We didn’t have much time to process what was going on because of the constant doorbell ringing and phone calls. Kristi’s sister visited for a while Wednesday afternoon. I remember her crying. Kristi just laid in bed very “at peace”. I remember her yelling at her sister not to cry. She affirmed us that she was at peace with the cancer. She was either in denial or a true angel. I think an angel – my angel. Because we had so many visitors, me and Kristi really didn’t have a lot of time to discuss “how” we were going to tell the kids. When the kids got home from school, there were some “crossed signals” at first on how we were sharing the news, but we eventually got around to telling the kids, “mommy has cancer in her belly”. Of course Ashley took it hard but recovered fast. We were afraid she would relate this to Kristin, who was in the final stages and dying of cervical cancer…but to a 9 year old, cancer is cancer. Nathan didn’t (and still doesn’t) seem to grasp what was gong on.
The response was quite overwhelming. Wednesday night Kristi and I sat down and sent out the first of a chain of e-mails:
bkrogalske@sbcglobal.net
01/24/2007 10:28 PM
To:
duister@chartermi.net, ra4folk@tm.net, ann.eldred@cqlcorp.net, bdantuma@yahoo.com, Brian.J.Rogalske@jci.com, kammeraadphoto@chartermi.net, FRMA5731@comcast.net, Dennis.E.Rietman@jci.com, ginger@aileslaw.com, specialtycadwork@chartermi.net, mjboysen@sbcglobal.net, jrrogal@hotmail.com, kstrikwerda@hollandchristian.org, bolparkes@hotmail.com, kevin@tomatocollection.com, khboeve@tds.net, kristi@resyuh.com, lorifox@sbcglobal.net, smileslek@yahoo.com, snterp@gmail.com, bbwassink@hotmail.com, jgehrke@chartermi.net, sherylboes@gmail.com, SMBRUINSMA@aol.com, stephanie@tomatocollection.com, lisavz@juno.com, sydneyve@charter.net, tdykstra@alaska.net, tstrikwerda@hollandchristian.org, walleye12@sbcglobal.net
Subject: Update # 1 on Kristi Rogalske 1-24-07
Hello friends and family,
Wow, we’re still in shock - it doesn’t seem real. Talk about coming out of nowhere. If I could, I would hit the rewind button and go back to Thursday night...but I can’t, so we must now face reality. We’re not used to being on this end of the prayer chain. The support has been overwhelming/humbling. Thank you all so much!!! We just can’t express how much all of your calls, visits, text messages, and e-mails mean to us. As we start this new chapter in our lives, we will try to give regular updates so everyone stays up to date with Kristi’s progress. Here’s what we know so far:
- For the past 6 months, Kristi has been experiencing a pain in her stomach. Initially, it only hurt when she pushed on it. She had a CT scan in October that didn’t show anything alarming to her doctor.
- The pain became more frequent to the point where it would buckle her over. She still wasn’t sure what was going on and neither was her doctor. Her doctor sent her to a specialist, who ordered another CT scan (about 2 weeks ago).
- The 2nd CT scan showed something ‘irregular’ to the specialist. He referred us to the surgeon, who wanted to do the exploratory surgery
- The exploratory surgery was this past Tuesday. We were hoping for some sort of muscle inflammation or a simple cyst. Unfortunately, that’s not what they found.
- What they did find were multiple tumors in her ovaries and her intestines and elsewhere. The doctor indicated stage 3 or 4 ovarian cancer. He won’t know the full extent until after the surgery Friday.
- Friday at 9:30 the doctors will give her a complete hysterectomy; remove her appendix, some other organs I never heard of, remove part of her intestines that the cancer has spread to, and basically scrub everything they can to completely remove all the tumors. Depending on what they find, the surgery will last 2 – 4 hours.
- She will be in the hospital 4 – 5 days.
- Recovery time for this surgery will be 6 – 8 weeks.
- Starting in 3 – 4 weeks, she will begin chemotherapy. She will go once every 3 weeks for 6 months.
- In preparation for chemotherapy, she will be getting her hair cut tomorrow…so she will look quite different the next time you see her. But, she wanted it cut short for her hospital stay (she didn’t want “bed hair”) and so it will be less drastic as it falls out.
- Tonight we told Ashley that “mommy has cancer in her belly”. She took it quite hard at first but seems ok now.
- We will be telling Nathan tomorrow.
Please pray that God’s hands will be at work on Friday and that the doctors find and remove all of the cancer. Pray for a quick and as pain-free as possible recovery for Kristi. Pray that the kids will handle the changes in their mommy ok (as her hair will fall out and she will be very tired during the chemo treatments). Please pray that the kids have patience as their daddy will be handling most of the chores…and he does them differently than mommy! Pray that Kristi’s attitude stays positive even in the most difficult times. It’s going to be a very long road ahead, but with God’s help and your prayers we are ready for this journey.
Thank you all and God bless each one of you!
Love,
Brian and Kristi
"God is our refuge and strength, an ever present help in trouble." Psalm 46:1
Kristi with her friend Heidi...
And her friend Merry getting her hair ready for the long hospital stay...
Thursday was more of the same…lots of calls, e-mails, text messages, and visitors. We had an uneventful pre-op visit at Zeeland Hospital. Today Pastor Frank came and visited and prayed for us. Later that day, Don Bronkema also visited us. Unfortunately, in preparation for tomorrow’s surgery, Kristi had to do another bowel prep. Because of this, she missed his visit. Don is also a cancer survivor. Me and Don had a nice visit. He actually comforted me more that I was expecting. One of the things he mentioned was that he was very at peace with his cancer. The people around him were more upset than he was. Hmmm, sound familiar?! I told Kristi what Don had said and she now calls him her guardian angel. Thanks Don! She was very peaceful Thursday night as we went to sleep. Oh, but wait, I thought “we” went to sleep. Kristi, being concerned for everyone else, sent out the following e-mail at 12:58AM!!!
bkrogalske@sbcglobal.net
01/26/2007 12:58 AM
Subject: hugs to everyone
Hello all, it’s me, Kristi. The house is quiet and dark and so peaceful. I can hear Brian snoring away upstairs which is music to my ears! I am so happy to say I saw peace in him tonight as he drifted into sleep. I wish I could individually e-mail all of you. This is hard for me to do as a group thing because so many of you have sent individual e-mails and calls and please know they are appreciated and I wish I could talk to you all. I’m understanding my limitations and have figured out when to say I can’t do anymore when which is not an easy thing. I have missed a few visits with people because of the joy of colon cleansing which takes it out of me (literally!). One of the people I missed was Don Bronkema but Brian shared his words with me and he is now one of my many guardian angels. I didn’t realize that Don has fought cancer and one it many times. He explained the peace to Brian that he felt that only the person dealing with this can understand. It is so amazing. The devil does come in and try to take that but you just claim God as your strength and you’re back in the peace again. That’s exactly where I am at. I have only had a few short moments of fear which as I uttered the words “God don’t leave me” I had a huge peace and even drifted off to sleep. Unexplainable. My hope is that some day I can share that with someone else going through what I am. I have already told one friend, but I’ll tell you all. Put on your sun glasses because God is going to shine brightly through me! Thank you for all the God stories you have shared. This is an incredible journey. I know I have a difficult journey ahead but with God by my side what can I fear? I have a lot of time on my hands lately and find myself praying for my friends and family that you will feel my peace. Please keep everyone in your prayers – all family and friends – we all need each other. Thank you so much, I can’t even begin to say thank you enough. The prayers, meals, offers for everything under the sun is so great. You know, I wasn’t really living until now. I was gliding through life. Look out world cuz here I come!!!
With much love,
Kristi
Amazing!! This e-mail was so comforting to so many people. We received nearly 40 replies to this e-mail.
