2020 is a year of telling stories. In this space we share good news in response to Jesus’s word to his followers in Matthew 11, “Tell them what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.”
Olive Wiskow of Goodridge and member at Faith Lutheran Church was busy working at the Goodridge Store in 1989 when she began to experience stomach pains. After a diagnosis of an ulcer, Olive went in for surgery. The surgery was never completed because her doctors could see immediately that she had cancer. Her ulcer was actually a cancer of the stomach and liver. She was told to “live for the time you have left” and to “focus on the quality of life, not the quantity”. The doctors in Fargo told her that surgery was not an option.
Not willing to give up, Olive sought a second opinion at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester. There too the doctors explained that there was nothing that could be done. Olive went home with the word that she was not expected to live more than three months.
However, a glimmer of hope was found in a chemotherapy treatment administered in Grand Forks. The chemo made her very sick and after a few treatments, the doctor said, “Go home and get your life in order, you won’t see the end of the month.” She says she did. Olive when to the funeral home and planned her funeral but stopped short of picking out her own casket. Hospice was arranged and Olive says that she slept a great deal.
This was a challenging time for Olive. She was unable to eat because everything made her sick. A friend suggested she try drinking ensure along with some baby food. A half a jar of baby food and a half a can of ensure sustained her. She laughs that she couldn’t eat the string beans! This diet gave her some strength and her treatments continued.
Scheduled for chemo every two weeks, sometimes they would stretch to three if she wasn’t strong enough or if her blood report was poor. At other times there would be a gap of a month between visits. Over the next two years, a cycle seemed to be established: Olive would get better, have a treatment, get sick, and repeat. Olive was very weak and lost 50 pounds.
In October of 1991, Olive’s treatments stopped. Her ulcer was gone, the cancer in her stomach was gone. She had three spots that remained on her liver. Further CT scans confirmed that she was healed. “My liver doesn’t look normal but it works!” she laughs. Olive spent five years at home before returning to work at Digi-Key.
Olive was asked about her treatments by many people who faced similar circumstances. They wanted to know what medicine worked and why it worked. She explained it was very hard knowing that she was better when there were so many others who were not.
When asked if she felt God working, Olive said that she didn’t know. She knew that people were praying. She was surprised by how far prayers for her had gone when she heard that there was a congregation in Canada that lifted her up. She explained that one neighbor in Goodridge who was not much for church going and prayer even told her that he was praying for her. Olive said that it was a blessing to be surrounded and that she knew God was doing something.
At the time of her diagnosis the doctors agreed that they had had never seen anyone survive cancer of the stomach and liver. She says that whatever you are going through, never give up hope. “Don’t ever give up hope that God will take care of you!”
It was 30 years ago that Olive was sent home to prepare to for her death. She is still here. Thanks be to God!
