A Journey We Never Saw Coming

It has been such an overwhelming, emotional, and confusing past 36 hours. Never could we have imagined something like this, but here we are. God has allowed something in our life that He sees as more God-glorifying and so we now have the opportunity to see it through that lens. But it’s not without hurt, pain, frustration, and tears. The God who led us to this will lead us through this! I have so much to say and hope to keep everyone updated right here too.

Here’s an excerpt of what my husband wrote for social media:

I have pushed Kristin around the hospital in a wheelchair countless times. Usually it’s after she has a procedure and I am wheeling her out to the parking garage, ready to take her home. Last night was a little different though… I wheeled her from her room in the cardio-vascular center, to her new room on the cancer patient floor. It all felt so foreign. Kristin is a heart failure patient, not a cancer patient.

On Tuesday, Kristin was admitted on Tuesday for monitoring in preparation for her ablation on Thursday. The doctors had her sedated, the catheter in place, all of her extra beats mapped out and was just about ready to begin. Before he started, he checked her blood platelet levels and hemoglobin quick and noticed that both of them were low. So, in his wisdom, the doctor decided not to go through with the ablation because of the increased risk factors. Instead he sent her blood tests to Hematology where they discovered that she might have cancer. They didn’t know at the time, but about an hour later, we found out she has acute myeloid leukemia. I’m not going to lie, I can usually stick with a doctor as he talks about heart failure, but Leukemia? You might as well be speaking Greek to me. I haven’t a clue what any of the terminology means. I do know this though; heart failure potentially just saved Kristin’s life. Typically, when a patient comes in with Leukemia the “blasts” (cancer cells from what I understand so far) in their white blood cells are in the 90-100% range. Kristin’s however were somewhere in the 20ish % range. So, we caught this extremely early. The great news is that this is not a death sentence. I need to keep telling myself that over and over again. Leukemia is curable…

So last night I transferred Kristin to the cancer floor where she will stay for the next 3-4 weeks and begin treatments as soon as possible. What I thought was a couple night stay for a routine procedure, at least routine for us, has now turned into a month-long stay. Currently my plan is to stay home during the week with Mazy and try to keep things as normal as possible on the home front, and then after her soccer games on Saturday mornings, Mazy and I will head to Ann Arbor to be with Kristin for the weekend.

Kristin and I have always clung to the promises found 2 Corinthians 12:9-10. 9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 10 That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. I hate being weak, but yet at the same time when we are weak, God’s power is made evident. People often say that God won’t give us more than we can handle, and lately I have been questioning why God would allow Leukemia. In the words of Joe Biden, “Come on man”, isn’t heart failure enough? I believe God will give us more than we can handle though, because we are not meant to handle it. We don’t have to handle it. In fact, to be honest I can’t handle it right now. God allows us to experience more than we can handle because in doing so it drives us to the foot of His throne. And right now, there is no other place we would rather be. (End)

We are still trying to piece all of this together, to try and battle severe heart failure and leukemia all at once. I get overwhelmed when I think about both, but right now my focus and the doctor’s focus is the leukemia. Being at Michigan, I have all 3 of my teams here, in one place, and they are in constant communication. Is that not God? He knew this was where I was meant to find out. Dealing with a failed ablation and having to restart meds I was hoping to not be on again I’d mind boggling, but so is leukemia. The unknown and unfamiliar can feel so scary, unsure, and overwhelming. But like Dan said, this is all driving us to the foot of the cross. Broken and desperate for Him.

After these 3-4 weeks, I will be able to go home, we are PRAYING, in remission, but will have to continue a maintenance chemo. Doctors are still working to find the best regiment for me with my heart failure and when they do, I will start ASAP. I already have a PICC line and have started the chemo prep meds (no clue what they even are).

We are humbled that we have an army not just behind us, but around us! Even more so, a God who is so much bigger than heart failure AND leukemia. We also know we can’t do this alone and we will need our village to help us. We aren’t sure our exact needs, but we are starting to envision some. I will try and put something together soon so that if you mentioned to Dan or I that you would like to help, we want to thank you and offer some tangible ways.

Our family is beyond grateful for the love and support we’ve already been given! Thank you for crying with us and for loving us so deeply. Some have asked about sending things and I found out I have an address! If you’d like it, text me or email me at kristin.sterk@gmail.com.

To God be all the glory.