My Fight to Live
TWENTY years ago my wife, Ingrid, and I were raising two young boys in Lima, Peru, and enjoying a full, busy life. Although my secular work involved traveling to other countries of South America, we nevertheless scheduled time each week for the congregation meetings of Jehovah’s Witnesses and for sharing Bible truths with others in the public ministry.
Then, in 1973, while I was still in my late 20’s, I began suffering headaches and rounds of depression. Both the headaches and the depression worsened during the next two years and became more frequent. It required constant effort to keep up with daily activities.
Well do I remember a business trip to Quito, Ecuador, high up in the Andes Mountains. As I stepped from the plane onto the landing strip, my head was pierced through with a headache so unbearable that all I could think to do was board the next plane back to Lima.
I immediately went to my doctor. He had been treating me for tension, believing that this was the cause of my headaches. But when he examined the back of my eyes, he noticed ruptured blood vessels. So I was put in the hospital.
Tests confirmed a tumor on the brain. But even more devastating was the news that the tumor was so large and apparently so entangled with the brain that it was inoperable. Within a month, the doctor said, I would be blind. Then I would become paralyzed and die in about three months.
The news was an incredible shock to Ingrid, who was first to receive the prognosis. She immediately contacted my sister, Heidi, in Los Angeles, California, U.S.A., and asked her to look for a surgeon who would consent to operate on me without administering blood transfusions—a prime requisite for us because of our firm determination to obey the Scriptural injunction to refrain from blood.—Acts 15:28, 29.
Just three frenetic days later, we were on our way to Los Angeles. When we were flying over the Caribbean, Ingrid said to me: “Look, how beautiful the islands are, with their white, sandy beaches!” I looked out but could see nothing. My vision was already going!
The First Battle
Arriving in Los Angeles, I was immediately put in the UCLA (University of California at Los Angeles) Medical Center. On October 6, 1975, Dr. Walter Stern operated on me. Upon my awakening, not even Ingrid’s radiant face could prepare me for the good news—they had removed the entire tumor! It was the size of a baseball, situated on the right frontal lobe of the brain. But it was enclosed in its own membrane and came out complete.
Swift treatment evidently saved my life. “Just a few more days, and you would no longer have been with us,” the doctor said. But I was alive and with my mental faculties intact! We were euphoric!
However, the period of recuperation brought its own worries. First, blood clots formed in one leg, presenting a dilemma. For although I needed anticoagulants to dissolve the clots before they broke loose and reached a vital organ, I also needed coagulants to keep the bleeding in the brain to a minimum. What a relief when the doctors successfully worked out a balance between the two contrasting medicaments!
The trauma of 12 hours of surgery on the right frontal lobe—associated with emotions—was apparently responsible for a period of euphoria, an accelerating of emotions, that medication would not control. For six months after returning to Lima, I was irrational in my evaluation of what I could do, as if I were on a continual high. In a few months, this passed, and a terrible depression set in, so severe that I almost continually thought of suicide. Happily, after a year I was back to normal and able to renew all my activities.
I was appointed an elder in the Christian congregation, and the challenge now became to balance congregation, family, and business responsibilities. Whenever I wasn’t traveling for business, I arranged for time to be with the boys. Our favorite pastime was riding our motorbikes over the sandy, rocky hills on the outskirts of Lima. The next nine years seemed to fly by with our scarcely sensing their passing. I began to take my renewed health for granted.
Then, in May 1985, Ingrid began to notice that I was somewhat pale and had an uncharacteristic lack of bounce. We didn’t suspect that there was another brain tumor until one night when I wanted to turn in bed and couldn’t. The left side of my body had become paralyzed. This time the doctors submitted me to an advanced form of X ray, the CAT scan, and the results again had us on our way to Los Angeles.
The Fight Resumes
On June 24, 1985, Dr. Stern and his team operated on me once more. The tumor had grown again, this time extending back toward the parietal lobe—the zone that controls movements of the extremities. As a result, my left arm and leg were paralyzed. The operation was terminated after eight hours, leaving 25 percent of the tumor deep inside.
My arm and leg remained partially paralyzed after the operation. Cobalt radiation treatments were given me for a few weeks in an effort to stop the growing of the tumor. But then two months after the operation, I began to have convulsions. Although these were somewhat controlled with medication, in time they became more frequent and uncontrollable. My public life was reduced to a minimum. I was able to care for some secular work from home, but the threat of convulsions always hovered like a dark cloud. Being dominated by something insidious inside me was a constant source of frustration.
Not knowing when the attacks would come, I no longer dared preside over meetings at the Kingdom Hall. But with Jehovah’s help, I was able to share Bible knowledge with people who wished to study in their homes. Doing this regularly kept my mind on our Source of strength, Jehovah God, and seemed to lessen distress over my unstable physical condition.
Finally, in May 1988, I had a strong convulsion that left me paralyzed along my entire left side. Yet, CAT scans each time indicated that everything was normal, that the tumor had not grown. The conclusion was that the convulsions were somehow a part of the healing process. However, we decided to return to Los Angeles for more extensive tests.
Dr. Stern, who had performed the first two operations without the use of blood, had now retired. But he kindly referred us to Dr. Donald Becker, head of the UCLA Department of Neurosurgery. Dr. Becker agreed to operate if this was deemed necessary and, at the same time, honor our Bible-based respect for blood by not giving me blood transfusions.
The now familiar tests began. But this time besides CAT-scan pictures and an angiogram of the brain, a new, unfamiliar technique called MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) was included. It was established that, yes, there were tumors—three of them!
Before the day scheduled for the operation, something frightening was discovered—my blood would not coagulate! The medication that I had been taking to control the convulsions was destroying the platelets in the blood. So for the next two and a half weeks, this medication was little by little replaced with another that did not have this adverse side effect. The changeover was traumatic because by the time it was completed, I had suffered a series of strong convulsions.
The Third Operation
Finally the day for the operation arrived, August 1, 1988. At 6:00 a.m., Ingrid and I said emotional good-byes. Minutes later I found myself in the operating room. It was a long 12 hours later when Dr. Becker came out to share the news with Ingrid that they had removed all the tumors—even the part that had remained from the second operation three years before—and that I had lost only a little more than a cup [240 cc] of blood!
“But something was still worrying me,” explains Ingrid. “What would Hans’ mental condition be when he woke up? Would he recognize me as his wife?” Early the next morning, the doctors let Ingrid in to see me. As I opened my eyes, I said, “Schatzi,” a term of endearment I always used. And, as she said, “It was the beginning of a new day!”
The Fight Continues
Yet, my period of rehabilitation seemed never to end. Two years later, new tumors were found to be interfering with my recovery. So on November 26, 1990, I had a fourth brain operation. Two more tumors were removed. Again I was back in a wheelchair, and once more my days were filled with painful leg exercises to stimulate the brain into remembering how to get me walking again.
However, the tumors were soon back, and this time there was the diagnosis of malignancy. My most recent operation took place July 16, 1991; yet several tumors were inoperable. I was subjected to a special radiation treatment in an effort to shrink and dissolve them. We hope that this can be achieved, but my rehabilitation therapy has become ever more difficult.
Considering future prospects on the basis of what I am physically can only lead to frustration. The only wise course is to focus on spiritual values. As if written to me personally, the Bible says: “Bodily training is beneficial for a little; but godly devotion is beneficial for all things, as it holds promise of the life now and that which is to come.”—1 Timothy 4:8.
The life that is to come is eternal life in God’s new world. Evidence shows that it is near, yes, that soon I will be running and jumping like a deer. (Isaiah 35:6) And if I die before that new world arrives, then the resurrection is assured for those faithful to Jehovah. Not by any mightiness on our part will everlasting life be attained, but by our faithfully serving our God, Jehovah.—As told by Hans Augustin.
[Picture on page 23]
With my wife, Ingrid