On the morning of Kim’s surgery, we were taken downstairs at around 11am for her prep.  Her anesthetist was a Dutch guy, whom Kim right away connected with, poking fun and pleading with him not to go “cheap” with the drugs he would give her. They got an IV line started. We waited for another 30 minutes for everything to be finalized and prepped. When it was time to go, I left the pre-op room for the long wait ahead.
 
In looking back, I shake my head of how optimistic, or better put, how naïve we were at the time. I was the only person at the hospital with Kim, and waited alone (although family members offered to wait with me). We acted like this was just some simple day surgery. But maybe it was that we were just being protected from the anxiety, protected for a last couple of hours of innocence before our lives changed forever.
 
As Kim went in for surgery, I settled into some chair just outside the surgical waiting room, in the main cafeteria. The surgery would take three hours. I read a book for the first hour.  After that I went for a walk around the hospital block, stopping in at Bean Around the World for another coffee and baked treat, once again picking up my book to kill the time. With an hour to go in Kim’s surgery, I went back to the hospital and settled back down in the cafeteria with a clear line of sight to the waiting room, which is where Kim’s surgeon said she would meet me once surgery was complete.
 
I was surprised that as I waited that last hour my emotions began to percolate.  I began to imagine what the possibility of cancer would mean for Kim, or about what no cancer would mean, and what that would mean we were dealing with. I realized I was also feeling, already, before surgery was even over, a further loss of innocence in our marriage, that here we were again in a hospital, Vancouver General, the same place I had my transplant surgery, but now it was Kim under the knife. Not only did questions swirl about my future, but now also about hers. As Kim had been struggling with her health now the past many months, I was feeling that we were already losing something.
 
I checked my watch and noticed that three hours had now passed since Kim was taken in for surgery. I got up from my spot and sat at a four-chaired table a little closer to the waiting room, so I would be able to cross the floor and hallways by the time the surgeon reached the waiting room door.  When I checked my watch again, another 10 minutes had passed and there was still no one in surgical scrubs around. I got up, walked over to the waiting room to make sure I could see where I was sitting from there. I ducked my head inside the packed room, seeing if by some improbable chance someone would ask, “Are you George? A surgeon had just been in asking for you.”  But with no one raising a head, I loitered outside the door for a few moments, and paced the hallway between the waiting room and the locked operating ward’s doors. I looked at my watch. Another 15 minutes had passed. Kim was over thirty minutes overdue.
 
I moon-walked my way back to my four-chaired table, not taking my eyes off the waiting room doors.  There I sat, now counting how many times the big hand on my watch would go around, counting up three, four, five minutes. Now seven more minutes. 
 
Kim was now 45 minutes overdue and the tension was really starting to build inside of me. Now I knew enough about healthcare and surgery to know that things could have been delayed.  Maybe Kim was not taken in right away when they said she would be; maybe Kim was prepped for surgery but the surgeon was late; maybe there was a slight complication beforehand, pushing things back; maybe, and very likely I tried to convince myself, they had complications with her IV, Kim’s veins were notorious for collapsing and rolling. I tried thinking of any excuse possible to account for the delay. 
 
By now my phone had gone off a couple times with Kim’s parents concerned about an update, asking if I knew anything or if Kim was out of surgery.  I answered one of the calls and said in as optimistic a voice possible that Kim was not yet out of surgery, but I would call then as soon as I heard anything. But as the minutes ticked by my spirit began to fade.  Had I heard code blue called?  Had I missed the surgeon coming out, could she not find me?  Did something catastrophic happened?  Was Kim still alive? Did they find cancer in her ovaries, is that why it was taking so long?  There had been no contingent for waiting what was now over an hour past the time she should have been out.  As the hour turned into seventy, then seventy-five minutes, my anxiety only grew. 
 
Then I looked up and there she was.  The surgeon, looking into the waiting room door with a questioning look on her face.  I was up and striding across the room willing her to look up at me as she closed the door and looked around. We made eye contact and I was standing as a needy child in front of an authoritarian parent within two seconds, pleading for a smile and look of affirmation from her. 
 
The surge and utter drop of emotions I was about to feel over the next ten seconds was like nothing I had ever felt before, nor since that moment.
“The surgery went well and Kim is fine,” the surgeon began, “however, what we found is that Kim has colon cancer.”  It was in that moment that I felt as if I was standing at the gallows with the noose around my neck. The judge had come out and in some miraculous way pardoned me, “The surgery went well and Kim is doing fine…” A surge of relief, of thanksgiving. A surge of life shot through me as in the millisecond of a brainwave I thought all that stress I had felt over the last couple hours was for nothing. But then, there was no period at the end of “doing fine.” Instead there was only a comma, and before I could comprehend the “however,” the words “colon cancer” filled my ears and struck my heart. Colon Cancer.  It was as if the judge who had just pardoned me now in the same breath pulled the lever opening the trap door. The noose tightening, my breath taken.
The surgeon kept going with words and phrases I only just comprehend: “Pathology done during surgery showed primary colon cancer.”  All of a sudden, I realized she was still talking to me.  I quickly snapped back to present reality, but all I could think about was how surreal this moment was. Here I was standing ten feet away from a cash register that I has used many times to buy food, with people passing by as if nothing of significance was happening, and here this surgeon was telling me Kim had serious stage four cancer.
“It spread to both ovaries so we had to take them both, we also took a number of lymph nodes for testing.”  It was at this point that I finally got a hold of myself. I was being given life changing news and that I needed to hear and remember. “Listen up! Make sure you listen! This is not the time for emotions, take in what she is saying, ask questions. Listen!” From then on I was zeroed in. 
“It was a good thing the surgery was being done here as I was able to call for a gastro-oncologist surgeon in the OR to come and help with the surgery” she continued.
Now I snapped to and finally responded, “So there were two of you working on her? I just want to confirm you said colon cancer? How much of the colon did you need to take, does she have a bag? So, it was colon cancer in the ovaries too? When can I see her? So, to confirm, it is colon cancer? “Will she need chemo? Would you say you got all the cancer you could see? And just to confirm one last time, colon cancer?” 
 
One thing to know about me is I can be quite insecure, and it all of a sudden hit me that I was going to have to make some phone calls and in about 10 seconds this surgeon will be gone. I realized I would have to tell our family about this news, and I was the only person hearing it.  And so, I thought to myself, I had to be 100% sure that I got this news right: colon cancer. As I confirmed for the last time that it was colon cancer that Kim had and that it had spread to her ovaries.
​
The surgeon asked if I had any more questions.  I felt I had done a pretty good job thinking and listening; she had done a great job standing with me, sharing the news and taking the time to answer all my questions, but I also didn’t want her to go. I wanted to ask more, but the questions weren’t coming. For some reason, I wanted to have her presence, her expertise and its comfort linger, but I knew she had to get back to work. I thanked her for her time and for the information. I got final confirmation on when and how I could see Kim. The surgeon then turned to walked back towards the OR. And there I stood, feeling more alone then I had ever felt in my whole life. What do you do after receiving this kind of news?

​As I have mentioned before on this blog, there is very little I can remember from 2016, the year that Kim was first diagnosed and treated for cancer. I suppose this is due to the shock of it all and being overwhelmed with this whole new experience. Other than our wall calendar scribbled over with appointment times and some rough notes in a notebook, I have no recorded account of how Kim’s first cancer experience unfolded. But from the scribbled notes and studying old calendars that Kim kept in a cardboard box, a rough time frame has begun to take shape in my memory.
 
In the beginning, maybe like most cancer diagnoses, I remember the excuses we made for how Kim was feeling. She was in her early 30’s; who is thinking about cancer in their early thirties? It was more than a year out, maybe more like two or three, when Kim began talking about and quietly complaining about changes in her gastrointestinal system. She saw her doctor, and it was chalked up to irritable bowel syndrome. This made perfect sense as it was not unheard of, and Kim had always been a bit irregular. However, as the seasons passed into years, and the symptoms of slight pain and constipation slowly progressed over time, a mild concern began to grow. By the beginning of 2016, her pain and now almost constant constipation were joined by a much more alarming symptom of abdominal swelling. By late winter 2015/16, it looked like Kim was in the early months of pregnancy.
 
Throughout the previous year, Kim had been sent for imaging and bloodwork, all showing normal results. However, a CT scan in Feb 2016 clearly showed that her reproductive organs had now joined the cause for concern. This imaging actually shifted any focus we had on her bowels or colon and placed it squarely on her ovaries, as the imaging showed what might be a rather large cyst on one of them. Whether it was a cyst or her actual ovary that was swelling couldn’t be said for certain, but there was clearly a pocket of fluid growing there. Throughout the months of March and April her ovary began filling at an exceptional speed. By early March, Kim was having trouble going for long walks. By mid-month it was visible to most people that she had gained a lot of weight. We were put on a waitlist to see an oncologist specializing in ovarian cancer, as this was the working hypothesis of what was potentially going on.
 
By the third week of April we had already made three trips to the local Emergency Room in Surrey, as Kim’s pain was becoming unmanageable. It was at one of these visits we were referred to an oncologist as a precautionary measure, but the appointment would most likely not be for another month. This was unacceptable based on how large Kim’s abdomen was getting. Each time we arrived at the ER we spent hours waiting, only to be sent home with a prescription for pain meds but not much else. Kim was now suffering due to the pain, constipation and obvious weight she was carrying around in her belly, looking eight months pregnant by the end of April.
 
I graduated from Regent College on April 29, 2016, with my Masters of Divinity. I remember, distinctly, walking across the stage of the Chan Centre at UBC in my cap and gown, receiving my degree, and looking out over the audience. I knew that Kim was so proud of the five-years of work I had put in, but as I looked, I distinctly remember seeing her sitting beside my parents, doubled over in pain, barely able to look up to see me walk. When I met them after the ceremony in the reception area, my parents were standing beside a staircase with Kim seated on the stairs, not able to stand for more than a couple minutes. We quickly made our exit home.
 
As we had learned though my own health struggles, navigating the health-care system is not always as orderly as we’d expect or like. We had learned many years before that though it’s a public health care system, it is also “every man for themselves,” and the squeaky wheel gets the grease.
Kim had a coworker, who had a family member, who had a friend who was gyno-oncologist. His office was an hour away from where we lived. Within days of our last ER visit, and a few days after my graduation ceremony, he made time to see Kim. He hinted that yes, this could be some kind of cancer, probably ovarian, but that ovarian cancer is often treatable and had good survival rates.
The most important thing about this visit, however, was that this doctor had privilege’s in the main metro-Vancouver hospital that we wanted to get Kim into.  This meant the next time Kim needed the ER because of pain, we could skip the local hospital and go straight to VGH. We didn’t need to wait long to punch this ticket. The following Sunday morning, just three days after seeing him, Kim was unable to stand or sit due to her pain and her massively swollen abdomen. I had responsibilities in church that morning as an associate pastor, and so we called Kim’s parents who took her to the ER. I followed soon after.
 
I don’t remember much at all about that day, other than that it was made clear to us right away in the ER, before I even got the hospital, that Kim was not going home anytime soon, and that surgery was going to be a top and urgent priority. The VGH team did not like that they were seeing at all. They were able to quickly get Kim’s acute pain under control, but she was still very uncomfortable. 
 
They got her down for surgery two days later, on Tuesday May 10th. We liked her gyno-oncological surgeon, someone extremely competent who was admittedly rough around the edges and brash, but someone after Kim’s own heart. Bedside manner be damned, she knew what she was doing and that, in our opinion, was the hand we wanted at the scalpel.     

​Some people have asked, or hinted about, how my wife, Carrie, is doing with all this fundraising and blog stuff.
 
When Carrie and I first met, I would say I was in a “neutral” place in life. I had come through the shock of grief and the dark days of confusion in not knowing who I was or what I wanted in life. Throughout the second year after Kim passed, I was beginning to find some stable ground in life, but that was about it. I was stable, neutral.
 
I was also incredibly lonely. As much as I am an introvert and enjoy my own company, I also, like everyone, desire companionship. It was nearing the two-year mark of Kim’s passing when I told a good friend of mine, Anthony, that I was interested in meeting some people of the opposite sex, developing new friendships, and just seeing where things went. Anthony knew a lot of people, and he knew me well. He was someone I trusted. As soon as these words left my mouth, he smiled, tapped the table we were sitting at, and said, I know the exact person for you to meet. From there, the rest is history. I got Carrie’s number and gave her a text, and then a call, and we set up a time to meet a week later. I’ll admit, I was not a strong believer in a future with her after our first date, but by the second, I knew I wanted to get to know her a lot more.
 
Our courtship was quick. We met in April 2023, were engaged in September, and married the first weekend in November. This is not a timeframe I would recommend to many, but both of us had done a lot of awareness work on ourselves over the previous years. Being in our 40’s, we knew who we were, what we wanted (and more importantly, what we didn’t want), and we quickly shared that with each other. Early on, we shared our “essentials” and “non-negotiables” in life. As I said, it was fast, but it was also intentional. And it was amazing.
 
Carrie brought life and joy back into my life. I said above that I was in a neutral state. I was going through the motions of life. There were things in life that made me happy: working on the farm, an evening out with a friend, but it was all “take it or leave it.” Carrie brought me something that had been lost for a long time. It is hard to put into words what that was, but she brought something akin to substance, depth, and beauty back into my life. I had done the repair work needed to stabilize the broken shell of a building I had become with Kim’s death, but Carrie helped me to rebuild- to take the boarded-up plywood and turn it into something beautiful and growing, something I did not think possible. She brought back the essentials of what it means to be a flourishing human: love, hope, and joy.
 
Carrie and I have been partners, a team, a union ever since. It was early on in our relationships, when we began talking about finances, I suppose, that I shared this vision of one day wanting to do “something big in memory of Kim; something having to do with a new scanner.” Over the past two years, Carrie would check in on how I was feeling about this, and I would push it off. It was this past December, as we were thinking about the coming year (2026), that she pushed a little more firmly and said that this should be the year we do this. It was not about getting it off our agenda, but she believed it would coincide well with it being five years since Kim passed. And she was right. Over the five months that we have been planning this, I have checked in often, and each time Carrie has been an enthusiastic partner in this initiative. It is really only because of her encouragement, her hard work, and her creativity in the background that this is happening at all.
 
Carrie understood from the beginning that yes, Kim will always be part of my life. We all carry our past around with us, and when you share your love with someone, and that person is ripped away, whether they be a parent, child, or spouse, that tear never goes back to perfect healing; there is always a scar. Carrie understands and has spoken about how my marriage to Kim has made me into the person I am today, and it is why she loves me, for who I am, and how I have been shaped by my past experiences. It is also why I love her so much, for who she is and how she has been shaped by her own life experiences.
 
I understand and seek to be sensitive to Carrie’s place in all of this. She is my wife, and I love and cherish her so much. Though I write all the blog posts, Carrie helps in editing them and speaks up if there is something she might not be comfortable with.
 
Yes, there are difficult moments for me in writing, when I get emotional over certain memories, and so we talk about it. But we always work through this hand-in-hand. Yes, it is awkward, but those are the perils of living in a broken world and opening ourselves up to love.
 
A couple of people have commented on how amazing Carrie is for taking this on, and they are right! She is amazing. She is strong, courageous, generous, and has so much love to give. I am truly grateful and honored to call her my wife. We are partners in all things that life throws at us and in all things we engage in. We both appreciate all the love and support, as well as concern, that people have shared with us. We will continue to walk through these next many months of fundraising together, a team, a couple, a union.

It has been another exciting week on the fundraising front. Huge THANK YOU’S to everyone who has donated so far! The momentum from our week-one donors has carried into week two, and we have already surpassed our first $100,000 goal! Thanks to your giving in these first two weeks, over $60,000 in matching funds have been unlocked, bringing us that much closer to our $750,000 goal.
 
This past Wednesday afternoon, Carrie and I had a special opportunity to hear more about the new BC Cancer Centre coming to Surrey/Cloverdale, and the new technology being put into it. We got to hear from Dr. Anand Karvat, a Radiation Oncologist with BC Cancer, who spoke directly about the two new PET/CT Scanners they want to purchase.  He talked about how this new cancer centre will be the most state-of-the-art and advanced cancer centre in all of BC, and how they are hoping to implement the newest ways of treating cancer, especially using the technology of these PET/CT Scanners, and the new Cyclotron, which will support it with radioactive isotopes. This will be cutting-edge treatment in a specially designed space for it.
 
Dr. Karvat talked about cancer rates continuing to climb in British Columbia, estimated to affect 1 in 2 people in the coming years. He spoke of how the Fraser Health Region, being the fastest growing area in our province, badly needs this new cancer centre; it can't come fast enough. On the positive side, he also spoke of how BC has some of the best survival and cure rates in the country due to the investments in treatments, clinical trials, and technology.
 
We were excited leaving, understanding a bit deeper how, through this fundraiser, we are all investing in the future: our community’s future, the future of a potentially loved one who may one day be diagnosed, or maybe even in our own future.
 
Please continue to share this initiative with those you know and drop me a note with any questions.  Thank you again to everyone who has, is, or will be thinking of donating to this cause! We are seeking to honour Kim’s legacy through this initiative, and in doing that, to make a real and practical investment in the future of cancer treatment here in our own backyard.

“Someone, somewhere knows something.” This was the phrase that Kim and I said as we walked out of the Vancouver Cancer Centre in Sept. 2018 following her third scan (see previous post if you haven’t read it yet). Kim had undergone three months of chemo by this time, and the potential surgery we were placing our hope in was dependent on what this scan would show.  If the scan revealed that the chemo was doing its job in shrinking Kim’s cancer, then surgery would be a go.
When the results came a week later, we were overjoyed. Indeed, the chemo was being effective, and surgery was scheduled for Feb. 2019, after Kim had completed all six months of chemo and recovered her strength.

What followed the results of this scan, however, were some of the darkest days of Kim’s cancer journey. I only recently, for the first time, read some of the writings I made during that fall of 2018. At that time, I wrote about how difficult this second series of chemo treatments was on Kim, and also the difficulty and stress it put on each of us. 
 
We did get through it, though. In December 2018, Kim finished her final round of chemo. In 2016 and 2018 combined, Kim suffered through 12 months of chemo, a total of 24 treatments, each treatment lasting at least 3 hours in the chemo clinic, plus another 48 hours of long-infused chemo treatments at home. Kim was so strong throughout all her treatments, persevering when all she wanted to do was stop. A true testament to her character.
 
With the completion of her final chemo at the end of 2018, her fourth PET/CT Scan was booked for mid January 2019. This scan was not so much for us, but it would serve as the final map of Kim’s abdomen for the two surgeons who would be operating on Kim in February of that year. For Kim and me, the scan felt quite passive. The results didn’t matter so much to us; the surgery was booked, and this scan was for the benefit of the surgeons.
The surgery would be an all-day, very intense affair. The surgeons would begin by opening Kim’s abdomen and slowly, methodically, scrape and cut away all the cancer they could find. That fourth PET Scan that Kim had would show them where to look and how far into each organ they would need to cut, if not outright remove. Once the removal of all visible cancer was complete, they would do what we called a hot-chemo-bath. They would insert a tube in one part of her abdomen, and another tube in another part. They would then close her up. One tube would pump hot-chemo into her abdominal cavity, while the other tube would slowly suck it out. The chemo would cycle through her abdominal cavity, thus bathing all her organs and tissue, seeking to kill any remaining cancer cells in the area.
 
After surgery, Kim was once again declared to be in remission. Her bloodwork returned to normal, and no cancer could be detected in her body. Kim had fully recovered from her surgery by April 2019, and we had a wonderful year ahead. Kim returned to full-time work at Elim Village, and I as pastor of Bridge Community Church in Langley.
 
And then it all changed. In Spring 2020, Kim began complaining about sciatica pain. She had had two clear CT scans since her surgery, so we comforted ourselves by saying that maybe this was just her sciatica acting up. However, a third routine follow-up CT in early summer showed signs that all was not well in Kim’s body. By the time August 2020 hit, and Kim was sliding for the fifth time into a PET/CT Scanner, it had already been confirmed through x-rays, CT’s, and bloodwork, not to mention the increasing pain Kim was in, that the cancer was back. On the day of her fifth and final scan, we felt utterly defeated.     
 
Kim had made up her mind, already at the end of 2018,  that she was done with chemo. By the time of her scan in August 2020, we also knew that any further surgery was not an option. The surgeons had performed all the heroics they could for Kim.  This fifth scan was therefore not so much a first step in making treatment decisions as a final step in helping Kim make her final decision. The one time we did not want this most definitive scan to spit out its report, it did so nonetheless. This final PET/CT Scan showed that the cancer had spread throughout much of Kim’s body–abdomen, lungs, groin, and back. It showed it pushing up against the nerves in her back and also against her digestive tract. Our oncologist did her job, gave us trial treatment options, but we knew what the scan said.
With the help of that final PET/CT Scan, Kim decided that her time on this earth was now coming to an end. She opted out of any further treatment.
 
PET/CT Scanners are the best we have in imaging technology. These scanners provide answers in the midst of confusion, as we experienced early on with Kim’s cancer in 2016, when we had to make important decisions about her treatment regimen, and to get a baseline idea of where her cancer was. Her second scan, in 2018, told us that Kim had to get back on chemo to give her the best chance at surgery and a potentially healthy future. The scans provide comfort and assurance that treatment is working, as we experienced in Sept. 2018, and that next steps on the path to treating the cancer can be considered. These scans provide a roadmap for surgeons, pinpointing where and how to operate. And in the end, they can help make that most important final decision. We had gathered all the information possible, and though it hurt, it helped us make the right decision to cease further treatment.

Throughout Kim’s cancer journey, though we were usually reeling and heartbroken whenever Kim had a scan, we were also incredibly thankful for them. They spit out very difficult information to process, but truly valuable information we needed to go forward at each juncture of her journey. And even that last scan, as difficult and final as the results were, we were able to nod and accept them with a measure of peace. We had done everything we could, Kim had fought the good fight, and now the scan showed that the time had come to truly focus on what mattered most in life: Faith, Hope, and most important, Love.

Thank you for joining us on this fundraising journey.

In my last post, I said this would be a 2-part series on Kim's PET/CT Scan experience. I am going to revise that, and now say it will be a 3-part series, with the third post dropping next week. So this is Part 2 of 3. Thanks for reading.

Our 2018 experience with a PET/CT Scan was very different from our 2016 experience. Back in February 2018, Kim began feeling some mild abdominal pain.  We didn't think much of it as it resembled a slight muscle pull or strain.  In early March, the pain persisted, and she went to see her family doctor.  He offered to send her for an ultrasound, but when we got the date, we ended up cancelling it because it was so close to her six-month routine follow-up CT scan.
In early April, Kim got the CT scan for which we were quite nervous.  We got the result two weeks later, and the scan was clear.  When getting the all clear news about the CT scan, we told our oncologist about the pain Kim was feeling, and after doing a physical exam, the oncologist sent Kim for an ultrasound.  Kim had the ultrasound at the end of April, and we were back to see our oncologist in early May.  The results showed a "mass" in her lower abdomen.  This news obviously made us worried, as the "m" word is almost as bad as the "c" word. Our oncologist immediately scheduled Kim for a PET/CT scan, which we had to go down to Bellingham for, as the waitlist here in BC was too long.

This second PET/CT Scan was on May 29, 2018. I remember that we arrived early down in Bellingham and went to a local fast-food place for a second breakfast. We didn’t eat much, neither of us having much of an appetite. In all honesty, we were already heartbroken that we were having to go through this simply because of what the oncologist could feel in her examination. It meant that whatever was there in Kim's abdomen was big enough to feel with her hand. An oncologist doesn’t send a patient for a PET/CT scan on a whim, especially when they are costing thousands of taxpayer dollars to send us to another country for it. Even without definitive proof, we already knew in our gut that Kim’s cancer was back. It was a trip full of grief and frustration. It felt different this time in that Kim knew what the cancer experience was like. We were no longer innocent to that reality as we were with her first PET/CT scan back in 2016. She knew the experience, she knew the poisonous reality of the chemo treatments that awaited her once this scan proved what she felt–and she hated it, she didn’t want it. This scan was also different, because this time she knew the cancer was in her already then, it was not a baseline scan after surgery like in 2016–it was there, already growing. We knew now that her 2016 treatment hadn’t eradicated her cancer, but the cancer had just gone under cover. All that was needed now was the map that the PET scan would provide on where the cancer had returned and how aggressively.
Other than commenting about how nice the clinic was where Kim had her scan (private U.S. clinic), the drive home was a silent one, each of us trying to steel ourselves for the reality ahead.  
 
We made our way back to the BC Cancer Clinic to meet with our oncologist on June 6th for the PET results. We were told that the cancer was back. The dread and fear we felt heading down to Bellingham and back were rightly founded. We were both crestfallen.
 
Kim had another port put into her chest 2 weeks after we got the result.  The PET/CT scan had done what it was designed to do: to detect the smallest and largest cancers it could. Where the CT alone had failed (showing a clear scan just 6 weeks prior), and what the ultrasound had said was a blurry mass, the PET/CT scan had pinpointed the exact location, size, and severity of disease. We were now looking at another six months of chemo, with the potential of major surgery after that. But there was a big hitch when it came to the potential for surgery; it was dependent on what the next PET/CT Scan would show.
 
It would only be four months later that Kim would find herself back inside a PET machine, this time back again in Vancouver. This experience was not so much one of grief as of anxiety. Everything hung in the balance now. Kim’s potential surgical team had ordered the scan. Kim was three months into her chemo treatments, and if surgery at the end of her chemo was going to be an option, then this scan needed to show that her cancer was in retreat and the chemo was being effective. If the chemo had not yet been effective in shrinking Kim's cancer, surgery was off the table. Kim’s future depended on this scan. When the scan was over, we walked out of the Vancouver Cancer Clinic thinking, “someone somewhere knows something about the future of Kim’s life .”

Moving forward on this blog, I would like to begin sharing more about Kim’s cancer experience. Both in 2018 and 2020, I did some blogging, but now I would like to write about things I either didn’t directly mention or, with the benefit of time, write some overall reflection of those years. I share these blog posts about Kim’s journey as a way to continue her story and to reawaken her memory, and also to hopefully raise awareness that though cancer treatment has come a long way, it is still a horrible disease that takes far too many lives and leaves an immense wake of grief for those of us left behind.
 
Much of Kim’s 2016 battle with cancer is a blur to me now. Maybe this is due to our innocence at the time, not fully accepting the consequences of what we were up against; maybe it was due to the confusion and speed at which such a serious and potentially terminal diagnosis had stormed into our lives, or maybe it was just shock. But other than the wall calendar that was hanging beside our computer, scribbled over with appointment dates & times in Kim’s handwriting, plus some notes I took in a notebook given to us by the BC Cancer Center, I have no recorded account of how Kim’s first cancer leg unfolded. What I do have, however, are pockets of memory, periodical partings of the shock-fog that was Kim’s 2016 cancer experience.
 
I remember picking up our sister-in-law, Sonja, from the sky train, knowing that we were going to need an extra set of ears for this meeting. I remember the stuffiness of that first cancer clinic visit, the sun shining through the wall of windows in the waiting area. The anxiety of wondering if we were in the right place. I remember the ball in the back of my throat, of wondering who our oncologist would be; what information did the file behind the nurse’s desk contain about Kim?
 
I remember a whirlwind of activity, phone calls, and appointments that followed in the days after that first oncologist appointment. Within seven days of that first visit to the cancer clinic, Kim had experienced her first PET/CT scan in Vancouver, had a permanent port inserted into her chest through which she would receive her chemo treatments, and the plethora of phone calls and emails with booking clerks at the different imaging and clinic offices to book a follow up with our oncologist, a chemo orintation, and her first chemo treatment. I remember trying to guess if the swift pace of things was a good sign or not so good a sign. On the one hand, we were happy it was all moving so fast; on the other, we knew this only confirmed the seriousness of Kim’s diagnosis, which was shared with us at that first meeting.
 
I remember fish crackers. One of the only things Kim found enjoyable to eat during her 2016 chemo treatment, but which only weeks after her last chemo treatment that year made her stomach churn.
 
I remember the chemo chairs. Vinyl recliner chairs, very large. They seemed to swallow Kim up and made it difficult for me to even reach over and provide a comforting hand on hers.
 
I remember the smell of disinfectants and all the waste. So much waste as every piece of medical supplies came wrapped individually in sterilized wrapping.
 
I remember the weather turning cold that fall, making it difficult for Kim to breathe due to a cold sensitivity she developed, another chemo side effect. The neuropathy creeping into her fingers and feet with each passing chemo dose, tingling and numbness; the difficulty in buttoning her pants, zipping her jacket, or rummaging in her purse. I remember her frustration.
 
But maybe overall, with this passage of time, I remember the novelty of it all in 2016, and just shaking our heads that something like this could happen to someone like Kim. It wasn’t supposed to happen.
 
About a month ago, I was in Vancouver for some of my own routine medical appointments. I was at Vancouver General Hospital and had forty-five minutes to kill. Knowing that the Vancouver Cancer Clinic was only a couple of blocks away, which is where Kim underwent that first PET/CT Scan in June 2016, and three subsequent ones in 2018, 2019, and 2020, I decided to walk over to see if any part of my memory might still hold something undiscovered about those four journeys we took there. And what flashed in my brain surprised me.
 
Kim’s first PET/CT Scan happened just 48 hours after we had learned the detailed news of what she was facing. I remember now that the main emotion and experience during that first scan was confusion and shock. We were still processing the diagnoses of Stage 4 Colon Cancer and what that meant for Kim. We were processing what six months of chemotherapy meant, and the prediction that Kim would lose her hair (which she didn’t). We were comforted that somehow they were able to book Kim for such an important scan within forty-eight hours of her oncologist requesting the scan (the sooner the scan, the sooner we could make decisions, the sooner we could start chemo, the quicker the cancer cells could be killed). But we were also concerned about how serious Kim’s case must be that she got moved to the front of the line.
At the time, we hesitantly walked into the Vancouver Cancer Centre. Tentatively going to the reception desk as a Vancouver-pace-of-people rushed past us, and then being directed just down the hall to the first suite on the right. It was an intimidating room, with a large steel door on one side with a big “STOP” and “RADIATION” signs on it.
For me, it was not only confusing in that we were still trying to process Kim’s cancer diagnosis, but it was also confusing as I didn’t know what to do with myself. Up until now, I was only used to being the patient, and Kim the caregiver. How many times had I been slid into a machine while Kim waited outside for me? Now the roles were reversed. Kim was taken to a back room to be injected with radioactive tracer while I waited anxiously in the waiting area for the hour to pass. What does one do when waiting for their loved one to get a medical test?
 
Part 2 of this blog will be posted on Friday.

This weekend, we went live with our fundraising, seeking to raise $750,000 in Kim’s memory to help pay for two new PET/CT Scanners for the new BC Cancer Centre coming to Cloverdale. These machines will be the first of their kind in the Fraser Valley.
 
On Saturday night, Carrie and I held a small gathering in our home to help launch the event, but more importantly, to spend some time as a family and a couple of close friends remembering Kim. There was a lot of laughter and joy at the event, as many of us had not seen each other in a long time, but of course, there were also many tears.
 
One comment was made that I had not thought of, but which was very true. Kim, as I have blogged about before, loved to bring people together–she loved to have fun with people. The comment was made that if Kim could see all this that we as a community are doing, the way we are coming together in her memory to do something incredibly important and practical (raising funds for these machines) she would be so proud and happy that it was happening.
 
We sincerely hope that through this fundraiser, all of you who have donated or are considering donating will feel that you are part of something bigger than just yourself. Together, we are a community, brought together at this time in memory of Kim, doing something we would not have been able to do on our own, to make a meaningful, life-changing impact in the lives of thousands of people through these machines.
 
For those who have donated already, THANK YOU! In the coming days, if you check back on the fundraising website, you will see your gift triple in size as those matching funds get unlocked and released.
 
If you are considering giving but would like more information or have an idea you’d like to talk about, please go to the contact form on this website to get in touch with me. I would be happy to answer any questions you may have or to talk about any further impact you’d like to help organize.
 
Later this week, I hope to publish a couple of posts about Kim’s experience with PET/CT Scanners. Kim had five scans throughout her five-year journey with cancer, four of them in Vancouver, but for one, she was sent down to Bellingham because the wait times for these limited machines were too long to wait for. Check back in a day or two to read more about how important these machines are and the impact they made on Kim's treatment.

​PET stands for Positron Emission Tomography (PET)
One thing we learned early on when Kim was diagnosed with cancer is that cancer cells use sugar as an energy source; cancer cells come alive when there is sugar to be had. A PET/CT machine uses this against the cancer cells to get them to show themselves.

When someone goes for a PET/CT scan, a special type of sugar is combined with a safe radioactive component to create a tracer. When this combination of sugar and radioactive material is injected into a person, it is taken up by the cancer cells and emits a signal that these scanning machines recognize and map.  How strong the signal is, or the uptake in the cancer cells, can tell the doctor reading the scan how prevalent the cancer is in any area of the body.
 
During Kim’s cancer journey, she had five of these scans. My notes from the follow-up meetings with Kim's oncologist are peppered with phrases like, “strong uptake, little uptake, she lit up here, dim resolution in that spot, more brightness since last time.”
 
PET/CT Scans can also show how the tumor or lesions are changing in terms of size and shape, and most importantly, where exactly they are in the body.
 
When Kim went for her scans, she would have to take it easy in the hours leading up to the scan, so her body was relaxed. She would fill out a brief questionnaire. This is when she would leave me to go to the exam room, where she would get injected with the tracer. She would then wait for about an hour for it to work throughout her body, ensuring no cancer cell clusters were missed, and then go for the scan, taking about 20-30 minutes. These new scanners dramatically decrease the length of time it takes to do the scan.
 
The results would usually be ready after a day or two, and we would schedule a time to meet with her oncologist to understand the results and together make the next step treatment decisions.

Right now in BC, we only have four of these scanners, with none in the Fraser Valley Region. Together, we want to bring two new scanners to the new Surrey/Cloverdale BC Cancer Centre. 

Today is a difficult day; this is a difficult post to share.
 
For myself and the rest of Kim’s family, it is one of the most difficult days of the year, as it is the day that Kim died. I have never written about this day, and I rarely speak about this final chapter of Kim’s life, but I would like to share some of that season with you today. 
 
The day that Kim passed, Good Friday 2021, was a peaceful day. Kim had already been sedated for more than a week, and as a family, we had by this time talked about that instead of “waiting for Kim to die”, we needed to learn to “live alongside her” during these final days of her life.
 
In the first days after Kim lost consciousness and was kept sedated because of the immense pain she was suffering, we feared leaving the room or leaving the house, worried that Kim would pass when we were gone from her side. Being almost driven to the point of exhaustion in our tense waiting and angst, and knowing that Kim had already lived more than a month longer than anyone predicted, we knew that simply waiting was not the way to honor this final page of her life. And so, we changed our disposition from “waiting” to “living alongside.” We knew that Kim would pass when her body was ready, and not a moment earlier or later. And so, we learned to live alongside her. I came and went from our bedroom where Kim lay sleeping as I would most days. I would talk to her, sit with her, read in her presence, and when family would come to be with her, I would go for my walks, get some fresh air, go for groceries, and all the somewhat regular things someone does in a day. Her parents would come daily to be with Kim, and her siblings and in-laws every couple of days, to sit and be in her sacred presence, straddling the line between earth and heaven.
 
When April 2 came, we lived the day as we had the past week. It was an especially quiet day. Her sister-in-law came in the afternoon to be with Kim. At around 9 pm, I began to get ready for bed. I had been using the guest bathroom for the last few weeks so as to keep our bedroom quieter and not disturb people visiting with Kim. I brushed my teeth and changed into my pajamas. I walked slowly and softly through the quiet hallway towards our bedroom, reflecting on the peaceful day. As I walked into our room and around her bed, I noticed something different about her breathing. It was shallow and slower than usual. I sat down in the chair beside Kim. I held her right hand in my own and stroked her temple and forehead with my left hand. She breathed in and out peacefully, and then her breathing paused for ten seconds. Another slow breath in and out, and then a longer pause of thirty seconds. I knew now that she was leaving, stepping across the threshold. A final breath, in and out, and then, silence. I waited. I counted to sixty. I waited.
Kim was gone. I kissed her lips and forehead one last time.
 
It was 9:30 pm when I called family to tell them Kim was gone, and it was quickly decided to meet at our house to see Kim and be in her presence one last time. We carried Kim downstairs and laid her on the couch. We gathered around her in the living room to spend a short time sharing, praying, and reading Scripture, saying one last good-bye to someone we all knew was already gone, already rejoicing face-to-face with her Savior over her race well-lived.
 
At around midnight, women from the funeral home came to the house to receive Kim’s body. Myself, along with Kim’s brothers and their wives, watched in vigil as Kim was taken out of our house for the final time.
 
Kim’s final chapter of life, her final months, were filled with a lot of pain and suffering, but there were also incredible moments of peace and joy. Amazing times of blessing with family and friends, words spoken, impacts and legacies shared, and much love felt. As painful as it is, it is a blessing to be able to leave this world with time to say all of your goodbyes and to leave nothing left unsaid.
 
There was a lot of suffering in those months and weeks, but on the final night, and really that last week, there was only peace. People who came and went from our house during that time have spoken or written to me about an overwhelming sense of peace within our home. I can honestly say that had nothing to do with me, but it was all Kim. For nine weeks, from early February to that first week in April, Kim really straddled the line between earth and heaven, one foot in each, and it was she who brought that courage, peace, and even times of joy and levity into our home. There was truly a sacredness in those moments when we sat with her one-on-one, talked with her, rubbed her feet, and just sat in her presence while she slept. It was the hardest thing we all went through, witnessing what Kim was going through, and it has left its impact on all of our lives, but as time has gone by, we have all come to appreciate what a unique and special time that was, that Kim gave us. There was nothing warm and fuzzy about that time; it was not the “romantic ideal” that we may hope for at the end of life, often portrayed in movies or books, not at all, but it was incredibly sacred. Difficult, stressful, and dark, but always a light, always still a sense of peace. A deep abiding.
 
In the end, Kim slid away from this life at 9:30pm on April 2, 2021. Slowly, methodically, peacefully–just as she had lived her life.