Angel and Miracles

It been a busy few days starting with Shirley meeting an angel, and then a couple of days of miraculous answers to prayer! Pretty exciting eh?

The Angel

We are still in awe of the goodness and faithfulness of God to send our very own angel to encourage Shirley on Monday morning. She was struggling with seeing me in overwhelming and seemingly never ending pain. To have Kylee reassure us that God hears us, that He sees us, that He is with us, and that He is our Healer was such an encouragement to both of us. She specifically prayed for hope and strength for Shirley and healing for me.

This was not some coincidence, as some might think, but was our loving, Heavenly Father reassuring us that we can lean on and depend on Him.

The miraculous answers to prayer

We know there are many who are praying for Shirley & I as we progress along this journey and we are so very grateful for each and every one of you. After a very long wait for diagnosis and treatment, we get connected with Dr Shaffer a Crohn’s disease specialist, and in just a few days a treatment plan is in place, one that has been coordinated with my radiologist and oncologist.

Late Tuesday afternoon we get a phone call from Linda who is a former ICU nurse of 20+ years at the Health Sciences Centre (HSC) hospital. She is now a representative for a drug company.

She explains to us that Dr. Shaffer has decided that my condition is Crohn’s and has prescribed a biologic drug called Stelara . I can potentially start treatments late this week or early next week. They require some specialized blood work and a test for TB before proceeding.

The treatment consists of an initial IV infusion of Stelara that is conducted in a clinic setting and takes about one hour. Eight weeks later I’m back in the clinic to learn how to inject Stelara. From there on out the medication is delivered to our home every 8 weeks and I inject myself.

The cost of Stelara s not covered by Pharmacare and is fairly expensive. The initial IV treatment is $6,500 and each subsequent injection is $5,300. However, LInda, our drug company representative, informs us that the drug company will cover all the costs and we miraculously won’t see any bills, We don’t ask any questions on how this works 😊

The next morning we experience another miraculous answer to prayer. We get a call from the Pain Clinic at St. Boniface Hospital wanting to know if we can meet with the doctor tomorrow (June 1st). Why yes we can! The PITA situation is quite painful and the medications prescribed to date have not been very effective at controlling the pain. We’ve been pushing to see a pain specialist for several months and referrals from my GP and several from my surgeon had not yielded an appointment. We also asked our Oncology team to push to get me in to see a pain specialist and I had also engaged the St. Boniface Hospital Patient Advocate.

On June 1st we meet Dr. Gingrich and his nurse assistant Danette. Danette takes my history and gathers other information and then we see Dr Gingrich. He is very kind and compassionate as he reviews the details of my case and then explains his plan for helping me to get better pain management starting right away, perhaps even tonight! Prescriptions will be migrated away from Hydromorphone pills multiple times a day to a Fentanyl patch every 3 days. The strength of the Fentanyl patch will be dialled in over the next couple of weeks. Adjustments can made every 3 days to match my requirements.

As we discuss our interests and hobbies we learn that Dr G is a believer and a cyclist so he’s my kind of guy.

Lymphoma

Not to let the PITA take over the blog totally there is that pesky Lymphoma to take care of. For those of you who are counting, today is radiation treatment #6 of 20, just a few more to go.

Other Stuff 😊

It’s also race weekend coming up., Formula One, the Spanish GP