Faith In The Father

It was the summer of 1998. It would be my third trip up Mount Rainier. As a junior in high school, It would by my son Ryan’s second climb. We would be accompanied by my great friend and biking, xc-skiing and climbing partner Lawrence, and a new friend and experienced mountaineer Marty. 

With it’s peak at 14,411, Mount Rainier is not just another 14er. Though similar in elevation to many of the Colorado 14ers it stands heads and shoulders above as a challenge. Technical skills, adequate equipment, and physical fitness are mandatory. It is a serious climb requiring a significant amount of climbing equipment and bulky cold weather gear. This necessitates that you carry a very large pack to hold everything. 

Backpacks are like suitcases in the sense that short trips require a small suitcase, and long extended trips require a larger one. You never want to carry a larger pack than you need, and I have packs of many sizes, but this climb would require we take our largest packs. Our largest packs are capable in volume and sturdiness in holding an average second grade, or small third grade child. I know this because during an elementary school classroom demonstration, I asked a small third grade child to climb into my backpack, and curl up. I gently closed the lid and hoisted the pack up onto my back and hiked around a classroom, much to the delight to the rest of the children. Everyone wanted a turn as the child in the backpack instantly achieved celebrity status!

Can you imagine carrying a second grade child up a flight of steep stairs that reach over a mile high and 6 miles long? It’s very hard work. Combine that work with the reality that for each step you take, you not only get tired from the effort, but the air contains less oxygen so you have less power. You get weaker from the effort, on top of getting weaker from the altitude. It’s a double whammy, but it’s also what attracts some endurance athletes to the challenge. The rewards are an extreme sense of accomplishment, an appreciation and enhanced understanding of what your limits really are, and some of the worlds most beautiful and captivating views. It has a way of putting things in perspective. In fact, In the midst of the climb, I remember asking myself, 

“Who am I that I am here?” ‘Here’ as in, here climbing, but also ‘here’ as in, having been born, why do I exist? Why did God choose to create me?  It’s certainly something to ponder, and I did as I toiled up the slopes.

Thankfully, all the heavy gear would only need to be hauled as far as Camp Schurman, at 9,440 feet. This would be our high camp. Our first day would take us from the White River campground at about 4,000ft to tree line at Glacier Basin at nearly 6,000ft. It was only a 2-3 hour hike, but it gave us a chance to get used to the load, and slowly acclimate. Day two would take us from Glacier Basin up the steep Inter Glacier, bearing left on the way up its steep snowy slopes, over the top at Camp Curtiss on Curtis Ridge at 8,850 feet, back down the other side to the Emmons Glacier, where we would rope up due to crevasse hazards. From there it’s a relatively short 40 minute uphill trudge, paying attention to the crevasses, to Camp Schurman at 9,440 ft. Once at Schurman, we would spend an entire day acclimating, then we’d head to the summit and back.

The climb from Glacier Basin, on the second day, up the Inter Glacier and over Curtiss Ridge was exhausting. When we got to Camp Schurman everyone was tired. Ryan and I began to unpack and set up the mountaineering tent. This meant shoveling a considerable amount of snow with small avalanche shovels, which are about the size of a small winter car shovel. After all, we were camped on a steep mountain. We needed a flat spot for our tent, digging it down into the snow some would also allow us to pile up a small wind break in case of a storm. As I started digging I became nauseous and started puking. 

“Dad are you OK? What’s up?” Ryan noticed.

“I’m having a little trouble adjusting to the altitude. It’s altitude sickness.” I replied.

“I can handle digging the tent platform, Dad,” Ryan offered. “Why don’t you just boil some water and get some hot drinks and food brewing.” He didn’t have to say it twice. 

The lower level of activity helped the nausea to abate some, as did the increased fluid intake from the hot drinks I was making for myself and the others. Time, hopefully, would take care of the rest of it. Altitude sickness (AMS), or at least mild altitude sickness is quite similar to a hangover - it causes headache, nausea, and fatigue. ... However, if you have AMS, you should take this as a warning sign that you are at risk of the serious forms of altitude sickness. Things could get worse. AMS is unpredictable. Sometimes you have no problems, other times you do. Your level of fitness, nor any other identifiable indicator is a predictor. It’s caused by being in thin air. Drinking fluids and eating carbohydrates helps but the ultimate fix is to descend to a lower altitude, and we would have to do that if I didn’t improve. The next day was a beautiful day, and I felt better, but on this trip, I was still not quite myself. As the day passed and the sun began to set I made the decision to not make a summit attempt, which would typically begin around midnight. I didn’t feel confident about my condition and I didn’t want to jeopardize the others. I told Ryan, Lawrence and Marty I wouldn’t be going up the next morning. Ryan would stay behind with me.

As we prepared to settle in for the night, we checked the tent anchors to make sure everything was solid. Typically in the evening climbers use their ice axes, trekking poles collapsed down to about 2.5 feet, and snow pickets as tent stakes. Snow pickets are I-beam shaped aluminum struts between 2 and 3 feet long and 2” wide. The picket has holes evenly spaced down the i-beam area in which you can place a carabiner to hold a rope. Snow pickets are used as anchors in a crevasse rescue situation. You pound them into the snow, attach ropes and pulleys to them, and haul a fallen climber out of a crevasse. We double-checked all the ‘stakes’, tightened all the guy-outs, secured our gear in the front vestibule of the tent and crawled in for the evening. Before I zipped up my bag, I checked the thermometer on my mountaineering watch.  The temps were dropping into the single digits. This was not unexpected. We were prepared. A thick warm down sleeping bag combined with a down jacket, fleece pants, warm socks, and a stocking cap would keep us warm enough. A Nalgene water bottle filled with really hot water, placed inside your sleeping bag 30 minutes before you climb in, ensures the bag is toasty warm from the get-go. I made one last check of the barometer on my watch before zipping up completely. It showed a sudden and steep drop in the last hour or so. The large drop in barometric pressure meant a storm was on the way. I mentioned this to Ryan, 

“Ok Dad.” He replied, then rolled over and drifted off to sleep.

A couple of hours later I awoke. You could hear the wind rising up the NW side of the mountain, pushing down over Liberty ridge, and as it was compressed through the saddle we were camped in, gaining a tremendous amount of speed and force as it thundered through. It attacked us in waves.

“Ryan!” I shouted as I shook him awake. “Get your back against the tent wall.” He did, next to me, just as a huge blast flattened the tent. The tent poles bent over our heads under the force, then sprung back up. We could hear the next wave coming. Again the force of the wind caved in the tent, and once again, it sprung back up. Wave after wave assaulted our shelter. I was happy we had checked the tent anchors before we crawled in.

“Dad!!” Ryan yelled. Even though he was right beside me, the wind was so loud you couldn’t hear.

“What Ryan”, I yelled back. A gust tried to rip the tent apart.

“How strong is this tent?” He yelled inquisitively and perhaps worriedly. 

“Well, this is a mountaineering tent. It’s pretty strong.” I yelled back, hoping to give him some confidence in spite of the fact that I didn’t actually know the tent’s limits, nor exactly how much wind was pounding us as another gust nuked the tent. I made a quick memory scan to remember where our snow shovels were in case our tent shredded and we needed to dig a snow cave. They were in the vestibule.

“So how strong is it”, Ryan asked unsatisfied by my generic answer. I wondered myself as once again a heavy blast of forceful air steamrolled the tent. Yet as before, it sprung back up.

“Well, if the winds get to 90mph, we will be in trouble.” I offered. This was actually quite an understatement. I would suspect that winds lower than 90 mph would put us into trouble, but it seemed like a reasonable response given the notion that I wanted to reassure Ryan we would be OK. Ryan was not done with his inquisition however.

“So, how fast are these winds?” He continued, still shouting.

“I’m guessing some of these gusts are maybe 60-70 mph.” I shouted back. (conversations with many other climbers the next morning confirmed my estimate) Midway though the sentence the gust ended and the wind died enough for a moment to hear almost normal conversation. 

Ryan processed the information. We sat waiting for the next gust. The wind was still heavy, but not enough to totally flatten the tent.  “OK”, he said evidently convinced that we did indeed have a margin of safety. 

“Can I go back to sleep now?” he asked. It was stressful, we were tired and getting cold out of our sleeping bags

“Yes,” I responded, “but I might have to wake you up again.”

“All right” he acknowledged, turned over and went to sleep. I didn’t sleep a wink the rest of the night, waking him on occasion as I heard the wind marshal its forces for another attack.

Ryan’s faith in what i told him, faith in his father’s words, my reassuring manner, and his trust in me enough to roll over, zip his bag shut in single degree temps in the midst of a storm, and have enough peace in his mind to fall asleep, was a reality check for me.  I was humbled.

“That’s the kind of faith I want to have in my Heavenly Father,” I thought at the time.

——————-

Hebrews 11:1   Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.

2 Corinthians 5:7   For we live by faith, not by sight.

As people have read my posts, some have commented that they think I have strong faith. I suppose I could have, sometimes, but other times I know I fail miserably. This last trip to Mayo was one of those times. Let me say from the start that God will heal me if He wants to. He’s already decided what will happen. My faith is in the fact that He loves me, wants the best for me, and ultimately provided for my eternal life by Christ’s death on the cross for my own personal sins.  I’ll try to set the stage by sharing a series of short conversations I had during and just after the Mayo trip. This trip to Mayo was very similar to the others, and yet it was very different. It had it’s own flavor. Here are a few snippets of conversation;

Conversation Snippet #1 

Nurse:  (Going through a checklist of questions with me prior to the CT scan with contrast. She is at my side, facing a computer, looking away from me at the screen, and entering my responses to the questions listed there.)

• “Have you had a CT scan with contrast before?”  (Yes, a month ago.)

• “Did you have any reaction to the contranst?”  (No)

• “Do you have any problem with your kidneys? ( No, but I only have 1 & 2/3rds kidneys)

• “Have you had, or do you have cancer of the kidneys, liver …etc, etc.” ( I have kidney cancer on my pancreas)

The nurse stops what she’s doing, takes her hands off the keyboard and mouse, turns to look at me and says rather profoundly, “….What?”

Me: I have kidney cancer on my pancreas.

Nurse: Boy, that’s unusual!

Me: Well, that’s why I’m here. (said with a smile, not sarcastically)

The context for her perspective and response is this. There are five CT machines in this department at Mayo. The day before they scanned over 250 patients. This is not unusual here. I asked. Therefore, a nurse like this nurse, would be with about 50 patients during the day. While some days are busier than others, let’s just say that if she saw 40 patients every week day for a year, that would be 9,600 patients. This nurse has been at Mayo several years. (nursing staff ask about me, I ask in return)  She hadn’t heard of kidney cancer on the pancreas before and Mayo handles many strange illnesses.

Conversation Snippet #2

Dr Levy: After pre-op, before procedure.

“Well, Mr. Fogarty, I do see some change in your scans, but it’s not nearly the kind of change we’d like to see at this point. We talked about this kind of situation last time. So, what would you like to do today? Would you like to go home, or we could do an alcohol injection.”

Me:  My mind thought, “…. What? There are no good options?” 

Me: My mouth said, “ Well, let’s do the alcohol injections. Tell me some more about that again. What are the risks?” 

Dr. Levy: “Well it’s alcohol. It’s a liquid, so when we inject it, we can’t control where it goes after it’s in. It may not all stay inside the tumor. It will kill some cells, but it may go elsewhere and harm surrounding tissue (that being the pancreas, duodenum, pancreatic duct, bile duct, whatever else is nearby).

Me: “Well, lets give it a try. What do you think Deb?”

Deb: “Dr. Levy, what if you did another RF ablation with the heat turned up more yet?”

Dr. Levy: “Well, it’s easy for us to make suggestions, but Mike is on the receiving end. However, I’d be willing to try that if that’s what we decided. Last time the heat was turned to 20, we could go up to 30 ( the machine has a 10 point scale from 0 to 100. There is risk in burning the pancreas.). “ We ultimately decided to turn the heat up.

Conversation Snippet #3

Post OP, with Dr. Levy.

Dr Levy: “ Well, we started with the RF probe at 30, but it just wasn’t doing anything. I didn’t want to turn the heat up higher, so we quit the RF, and I switched to the alcohol. I put in a lot of alcohol. One CC in the large tumor, and .7 CCs in the small tumor. This will kill some cells, but there could be some harm to surrounding tissue. Let’s schedule another appointment in a month, starting with a scan one day, and a possible procedure the next. Call me and let me know as soon as the scan is done. Here’s my number..…”

Conversation Snippet #4

Back at the hotel room after the procedure

Deb: “ Well, you rest. I’ll go downstairs, have coffee, visit with the other hotel guests, and come back in a little while.” (This was our normal routine)

Me: “Deb, please don't leave me.” (I felt horrible, and I was feeling like I was getting worse. I don’t know how to describe what I felt like, but it wasn’t like the previous times, and I didn’t want to be left alone.)

Deb: “ OK. Are you OK?”

Me: “ I don’t know.”

——

Usually after these procedures my stomach is a little messed up, I feel a bit beat up, but a day or two later, emotionally at least, I’m a happy camper. This time I was not. We couldn’t get a flight out on Saturday, but I didn’t feel like flying anyway. There were seats available on Sunday. We got home at about 12:30pm. I went immediately to bed. Deb woke me at 6:00 for supper. I was awake for a few more hours, laid down on the couch and went to sleep. Sometime later I woke up and went to bed. Monday morning I was mad at the world, including God. I don’t know how to explain it. Was it a psychological thing because, it’s now been almost 8 months since the cancer was found and I’m no better off than I was on day one? Was it because, while each of these procedures is certainly less invasive than all-out surgery, they do still carry a recovery period and the cumulative effect was mounting up? After all, the procedure involves punching holes in my stomach. Was it because the amount of alcohol that was injected was doing some harm where it shouldn’t, and my body knew that? The fact that I didn’t feel very good only added to the downward mood.

Conversation Snippet #5

Back home having lunch with my friend Alex on Monday. Alex is a doctor. I’m sharing with him the details of my last procedure, some frustrations with the lack of progress, and catching up with him and his life. Alex has a degenerative neuromuscular disease. To date, he’s outlived his estimated life span by several years. He’s a lot younger than me. We ride bike together. 

Me: “Alex. I think I’m a dead man.”

Alex: “Mike, we all are, You’re stressed. We need to do some bike rides.”

Me: “Good point. Well said. I’m not looking forward to risky surgery.”

Alex: “Can they do the surgery laparoscopically?”

Me: “My surgeon says no.”

Alex: “I think there might be a Dr at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore who maybe could. You should at least check it out. I’ll get his name for you. And, we’re going riding this weekend. No excuses!”

Me: “Sounds good. Yes, I should go for an opinion. I’ll make an appointment as soon as I get the name. And yes, no excuses.!”

Alex: “ Except if it’s raining or muddy. I don’t like cleaning my bike

Me: Laugh…

———

So, how am I today more eight days after the procedure as I write this? I’m still not feeling great, but I’m up, working on the house, helping out at church, going for hour long bike rides, taking naps when needed, and spending time with friends and family. Matthew 11: 28 says,  Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.  And, I’m resting just fine once again!

Thanks for Your Prayers!

God Bless