Enjoying a summer month in the high country of Colorado in 2004, Dieter had suddenly to visit an emergency room because his legs were swelling up enormously. He got some test performed on him, including a blood test. The doctors did not like a number in the bloodtest and suggested visiting a doctor at home. Since we wanted to spend the next winter in Arizona, we went to a doctor near our camping resort. He diagnosed Dieter with nephrotic syndrome, which could mean so many things, he was thinking of Multiple Myeloma. He sent us to an oncologist in Mesa, who had Dieter undergo every test there is, including biopsy of the kidneys, the spinal cord and the hipbone, MRI's and so on. The diagnosis was Primary Amyloidosis, a rare blood cancer. The outlook was bleak. Dieter's kidneys could shut down any moment and the sickness is potentially deadly.

He underwent 2 strong chemo therapies , got tired and weak and gained about 60 pounds on water weight. We both had the feeling we had to go out of Arizona and drive to Florida, to be "nearer" to our children and grandchildren, who all live in Germany. Dieter was able to drive the motorhome to the Tampa area, were we knew one of the best cancer centers of this country was located, the Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, which we visited also to get a second opinion. The diagnosis was confirmed there. Dieter felt fairly good and wanted to visit the east coast once more, to see the beach and the waves in St.Augustine. We drove there and Dieter just made it into the campground and then he got very sick, I mean sick-sick. We thought the chemo finally catched up with him, but when he was brought into the emergency room of the Flagler Hospital there, it turned out to be a bowel obstruction, which might have been also caused by the high doses of chemo. Dieter spent 3 weeks in the Intensive Unit there. Besides cleaning him out totally to try to operate on him, the doctors were confronted with Lung Embolies, Liver Infarkt, Heart failure. They could not do the surgery because the high dosis of heparin made his guts bleeding even more. So they implanted a Greenfield Filter (permanently) into his vena cava, to prevent blood clots from reaching the lungs. Then they could operate. The doctors in Flagler Hospital saved Dieter's life. Who pushed us to go to Florida? We never will know. At one point I was e-mailing our 3 children that Dieter is failing and they came, all three and our son-in-law. That gave him the final push for the better! Our second son had been jobwise in Australia and he met up with his siblings in Germany to fly over here. Even after living only on some ice chips for 3 weeks, he had enough strength to fight this thing. He was so positive that he was a "pet-case" of the doctors. He was released after 3 weeks into my care into the motorhome. He had to wear oxygen equipment and had to take lots of medication. But I had to be next to him, when he tried to walk a little, every day a bit more. He was falling asleep in the middle of a conversation! Then a hurricane came into the area. The campground had to be emptied out, and I was ready to drive our motorhome the first time, after having observed all the driving tricks for a long time a a "co-pilot". Dieter drove the 135 miles back to Bushnell all by himself, proudly, but when we arrived, he needed help with setting up. In camper circles, that is no problem. People practically stay in line to help.That was now in 2005. After being just a short time in Bushnell, another hurricane had to move us north to Silver Springs. That was the time, when we decided to drive back to Arizona, to live without the danger of hurricanes or flooding. We found out in the meantime, that the flights costs the same, no matter whether you land in New York or Phoenix.

Dieter gained his old strength back, slowly but surely, we even were able to make a long trip in summer 2006 from Arizona to Wisconsin and Pennsylvania and back to here, and in Nov./Dec. 2006 we both flew to Germany, to see our kids and grandkids and my dear sister and family. We wanted to show our sons and daughter how their father had changed from a sceleton to a "normal" man. We had fun in those 2 weeks, but it was hard on us both. The flight from Phoenix to Cinncinnati, to Frankfurt takes a long time against the clock. Since we came back, we decided to slow down overall from camping and enjoy living with all our friends here in AZ. We exchanged the motorhome against a big Fifth Wheel with three slide-outs to have more living space. We were even able to celebrate our 50th!!

 

Today we drove to Apache Junction to look for a one-ton pick-up truck to be able to travel again next spring. We were lucky and found a fitting one. We delayed that decision until now, until Dieter and I really had the gut feeling that everything will be good.

Yes, everything will be good, we never admitted to ourselves that it would not. Whatever our God has in mind with us - it will be fine!