Tag Archives: Cancer

Reflections from Camp

Posted on by
1

Yesterday turned out to be quite the day full of surprises. The family got up early and readied ourselves to drive up to Camp Yamhill and crash the camp that happens every labor day weekend called Faith Quest. It’s a gathering of 500 teens and chaperons up in the beautiful forest centered around the simple message of Jesus. It’s not one of those freaky camps they make documentaries about but a genuine and valuable expression of community gathered around a common hope. But to be honest our family was headed up there for the day ’cause there were about thirty or forty people I wanted to hug and we knew we could pawn off my kids on grandma and grandpa who were up there already.

Driving up to the camp was surreal because it was one year ago at this exact moment that I was a keynote speaker engaging in dialog with these kids about Jesus–but what was surreal was to realize how much has changed between now and then–to realize how little was known at this exact moment one year prior. It was a strange feeling.

Within moments of arrival we were overwhelmed with hugs, with love from a community that we only seem to see on Facebook, and it was overwhelmingly glorious. Thank you!

Within the first forty-five minutes I was asked if I would share with the camp some of my story from the last four months. It caught me off guard a bit, but at the same time I realized that it would be the first time in this whole process (at least post surgery) that I’d actually spoken publicly in any format. It felt right and there was no doubt in my mind that I needed to share.

Sitting on stage with my wife three hours later it was cathartic to be able to tell the teens that life sucks sometimes (or rather to claim with the teens the reality that life is effed up. Teenagers know this already don’t they? What person in their right mind wants to go back to being in high school or jr. high?) Like I’ve blogged about I went ahead and asked the question “where’s the hope?” Is there only hope in healing? Can there be hope in death? And we talked candidly for twenty minutes about my God’s promise to transform ashes into beauty, sorrow into joy, crap into something beautiful. The hope is in the story that God is able to tell if we let him in the midst of the good, the bad, and the ugly of life.

I don’t know if any kids heard me or if there was anything to hear, but it was good for me…and I think that’s enough.

Then those stupid kids passed around stupid buckets collected up a couple of thousand of dollars in about ten minutes time to help cover our medical costs. Seriously? What kind of teens have that cash? And why do people keep giving so generously to us? And why do I still hate it? (this is me trying to say thank you…I’m still learning)

Our kids had so much fun and played so well that eventually we just put ’em to be and Jess and I stuck around ’till midnight (long 1.5 hour drive home though!). While the kiddos slept we sang lyrics that made me cry like a baby ’cause I was still thinking a lot about death.

“Blessed be your name when the road is marked with suffering, when there’s pain in the offering blessed be your name.”

“There’s a stirring deep within me, could it be my time has come? When I’ll see my gracious savior face to face when all is done.”

“Wake up O sleeper, rise up from the dead and the light of Christ will shine.”

What an unexpected day filled with surprises. Thank you.

 

Top 15 Things I've Learned About Fighting Cancer

Posted on by
3

(I could have typed a list of twenty…but here are fifteen in no specific order)

  1. Having a good medical clinic with not only doctors that you trust but a supporting staff that serves as your advocate is huge (thank you Northwest Cancer Specialists!)
  2. Physically and emotionally things can swing from amazingly wonderful to hell and back in a matter of hours. Finding that tension between living in the moment and realizing that it truly is just a moment is both important and difficult.
  3. Learning to be honest with yourself and with others about how you feel (both good and bad…though for me being honest with self and others about the bad was much more difficult) is hugely important not only for support but also for your health.
  4. Prayer works. I don’t mean to say that it works like some amulet or charm, that it’s a hocus pocus trick that if you get enough people praying you’re going to make it. But God does speak, he does act, and he does value our voices. In all of my healing (both emotional and physical) prayer has been central…and it makes a difference.
  5. I’d rather be sick than be the caretaker. This is harder for my wife than it is for me and she deserves all the grace, pampering, and vacations I can muster to show her how grateful I am.
  6. A loving and capable wife/caretaker covers a multitude of sins. If it weren’t for Jess I would not be doing as well as I’m doing now. I wouldn’t have always remembered or had the strength to take my meds and do the things I need to do to bring healing. From shots in the belly to chicken noodle soup, from acupuncture in my feet to being my private chauffeur she has covered every base and done it without complaining or faltering even once. Simply amazing.
  7. Being positive is generally easy when you’re constantly showered with support from a loving community.
  8. Being prayed over by your doctors is kind of surreal. Both my oncologist and my naturopath have held my hands and prayed over me in their office. It was a trip and it was pretty damn cool. Not only have both of these two docs prayed over me but they are actively working in partnership together (a very rare thing). What a blessing!
  9. Setbacks are a part of the mix but they don’t define it. Blood clots, pulmonary embolisms, side affects, headaches, vomiting, constipation, weight loss and weight gain, swelling, rashes, etc. came and went (though some seem to linger at times) but they are not the focus. It gets easy to be caught up in these ‘little’ things and forget the real task at hand: killing cancer.
  10. I’d rather be in pain (to an extent) than be constantly overwhelmed with exhaustion. When you’re so tired that you cannot physically function in any way and your brain is in a constant cloud its quite debilitating. At the same time, however, it doesn’t ‘feel’ like anythings wrong. I like that when I’m in physical pain I feel like I’ve got something to fight against, an enemy to beat. The exhaustion stuff was hard on the emotions and soul.
  11. Waiting is what you do. It’s just a part of it whether you like it or not. You wait for results, you wait for recovery, you wait in doctors offices, you wait…wait…wait. Get used to waiting.
  12. There are three ways that we have been blessed by people’s help: Routine, random, and offered. The routine help has been a lifesaver (no joke, i don’t say that lightly); knowing that someone will help us pick up our house on a few specific days a week allows us to focus on things like expending the little energy we have with our children instead of the dishes. Routine help has been wonderful. The spontaneous/random stuff has been great too: when people showed up with cups of coffee early in the morning or pints of ice cream in the evening, when people randomly watered our failing garden outside because they noticed it needed to be done…this kind of stuff brought tears to my eyes often. Finally (and I don’t say this in a jaded way) anytime people offered to help (even if they were unable to follow through) it was a blessing to be genuinely cared about. Even when it did not come to fruition the offers mean something to me and I am grateful.
  13. Supportive parents (on both sides) is such a gift. We couldn’t have gotten this far without our family (siblings included!!). Enough said.
  14. You don’t know what works…and you probably never will. If (when) the cancer is gone I won’t know if it’s because of your prayer, the natural supplements I take, the hydro-therapy I do, the positive energy in our life, the radiation, the chemo, the things I’m doing to make my body more alkaline, the food I eat, the acupuncture treatments, or something else! Most likely the answer is “all of the above” but all I can do is to keep doing the next most right thing.
  15. A story is always being told. In death, in life, in sickness, and in health our lives are telling a story. I hope my story is defined by its inclusion in one larger than itself (larger than myself!) that includes love winning, death being overrun, and peace reinging free. And I hope that regardless of my life situation the story I live is consistent with its inclusion in the larger narrative.

The Bad, the Good, and What's Next

Posted on by
2

Well I keep typing and erasing and typing and erasing and just don’t have much to say right now (aside from everything that’s been typed and then erased…which would eventually add up to quite a bit of mishmash I’m sure!)

Let me just give you a brief update with regard to where things are at in our lives today.

I’m writing this on Friday, and after today I will have ONE more radiation treatment (on Monday) and three more chemo treatments (Saturday, Sunday, and Monday). While both the chemo and radiation take a progressive toll on my body this week has been a better one with regard to energy. The two primary negatives as this point with regard to health are…

  1. Swelling in my spine (due to radiation) caused what is most likely temporary nerve damage across my belly and sides that hurt pretty intensely for a day or two. To compensate they put me back on steroids to reduce inflammation.
  2. Starting on Monday of this week the amount of radiation hitting my esophagus started to cause pain and swelling thus leading me to a soft/liquid diet for the next few days.

The good news far exceeds the bad! Here are some of the great things that we’re seeing or hearing these days…

  1. My vitals are through the roof (in a good way). Ranging from my yeastiness, to my iron level, to the amount of blood my body is producing my body is doing “better than it should in amazing ways” (according to my oncologist).
  2. We’ve been waiting over a month to receive a report back from a Cambridge research lab in order to get more info about my tumor. The exceedingly long wait was starting to make us question…but as it turns out the researcher in charge of my sample was gone on vacation for the last month. I’ll take that as good news!

Regarding what’s next in life for us here’s what we anticipate…

  1. Somewhere around one month from my last radiation treatment I will go in for a fun session of head to tailbone MRI’s. They wait approximately a month because they want to assure that your body has time to recover, to break down the (hopefully) dead tumor, and to accurately reflect your bodies new cancer free reality.
  2. On October 12th the monthly “tumor board” will gather around my scans. The tumor board is a neat gathering of oncologists, radiologists, neurologists, surgeons, etc who all meet monthly to talk about the coolest tumors in town. On October 12th they’ll look at my stuff and assess what’s next for me. Later that day I’ll meet with my oncologist who will let me know the results and future proceedings.
  3. Medically what is most likely is that the cancer in my spine will be gone and there will be no other cancerous spots in my body. I will then have MRI scans every two months because (medically) the assumption is that the cancer will come back. The difference between my original diagnosis and my current one is that previously there was little (medical) hope of getting rid of the cancer at all whereas now the hope is to get rid of it each time it returns.

Things have been rough for the month of August as I’ve spent it sleeping and my wife’s spent it being a single parent (all of you single parents deserve so many more hugs than you receive!!!). My hope (and anticipation) is to view September as a time where we can slowly reenter into life, work, and continuing our downtown Vancouver work. While things may have been rough this month it would have been absolute hell without all of you. Over the last three months (surgery was on May 31st) we have had nearly fifty different people provide food in some capacity, we had nearly 100 of you visit us in the hospital, we were blessed by the amazing fund raiser at Pop Culture (that continues to linger around some downtown Vancouver restaurants/stores), we’ve had an amazing team of people help us with mowing the lawn, doing dishes, sweeping, and watering our struggling garden, and finally there have been literally thousands of people praying for us from all over the world. You all have been amazing. Thank you.*

 

*this isn’t a “thank you and you’re done”. Oh no! We’re not done with you yet! Please keep praying for us and please keep caring for my wife who has lots of recovery to do (my physical recovery is nothing compared with the depth of what she’s poured out of herself over the last three months). We are so incredibly still just in the middle of all this…and thanks to you we’ve made it thus far in such away that causes our doctors to use such words as “miraculous”. We love you all. Peace.

It Tastes Like Burning

Posted on by
1

I think I’ve figured out that I do better handling physical pain than I do the monotony of exhaustion, queasiness, and discomfort. Physical pain functions somewhat as an enemy that I can fight against while the other stuff seems to keep me more depressed and unplugged from life. It creeps up on you and doesn’t give you a direct enemy to stand up against. So I spend most of my week sleeping though Saturday, Sunday, and Monday I have a bit more energy. Saturday is reserved for my family, Sunday is my big social day as we have our community meal (though few realize that following the meal I literally sleep/rest from 4 ’till the next morning!), and Monday ends up being filled with prep for the week ahead(counting out pills, doing bills, etc.).

As far as an update, in the last week a new symptom has crept up where the skin on my sides and stomach feel like they’re on fire. The nerves are on edge and I spend most the day trying to keep a shirt, wife, or sheet from touching me. Today I talked to my doctor about it and guess what…I get to go back on steroids! The steroids are intended to reduce any swelling in my spine that could be causing the symptoms. Additionally today I’ll be going in for an MRI to make sure there’s no bleeding in my spine that could also be a cause.

All in all I’m a week and a half away from being done with my radiation and chemo treatments which means that I’m about five and a half weeks away from my first set of MRI’s that will show progress or digression in fighting against the cancer (the MRI I’m receiving today shouldn’t provide much valuable information at this point in time). Pray for that date at the end of September!

I miss being a part of y’alls life but I am still constantly amazed at how we’ve been  cared for. I could list off over 100 names of people who have brought us meals, helped pick up our house, or have sent gifts or cards. The good news is that now that I’m back on steroids I’ll be able to cry again as I think about how amazing you all have been (I’ve truly missed the gift of tears lately).

See you all soon (after August 24th hopefully)

peace.

Ups and Downs

Posted on by
2

Life is filled with ups and downs. Even if you look at the American economy you can see how things ebb and flow, how fifteen years ago everything was perfect and we could do no wrong to today where we don’t seem to have enough jobs or money to go around. Ups and downs.

One week I was in Disneyland and the next I was discovering that I had a tumor in my spinal cord. Another week I was taking joy in learning to walk only to then find out that walking was the least of my worries. The week that I finally waved goodbye to steroids was an exciting time, but it was followed by ten days of excruciating headaches from withdraws. The night of the amazing fundraiser planned for us was followed the next day by the emergence of blood clots in my lungs. Ups and downs.

Its been a challenge the last week to find energy (both physical and emotional) following my bout with blood clots because it starts to feel like there’s always going to be ‘one more thing’. Additionally its to the point now where its hard to think about a future different thats not filled with constant rest, doctors appointments, and nausea.

Lately it’s been feeling more down than up…but as we know life is filled with both. Neither define us but both shape us. Both invite us to become new creatures, transformed into something that we could not otherwise be. Some lives are filled with more ups than downs while others are filled with more downs than ups. Most of my favorite people have experienced lots of downs.

As a follower of Jesus my belief is that death’s ass has been kicked–that life will one day be filled with ups–that the downs that we experience this side of death are temporary and only wet our appetite for a future consumed with peace, love, and joy.

Until then I think we’re invited to live into a reality that does not yet fully exist, we attempt to join in with God’s movement in bringing that future into today’s world. But part of that is the freedom and even the necessity to grieve the brokenness (the down moments) of life for what they are: imperfections introduced into God’s perfect creation.

Life is filled with ups and downs. Lately I’ve been experiencing more downs than ups, tomorrow may be different…and that’s just life this side of eternity. We anticipate, we wet our appetite, and we seek to bring that reality to todays world while simultaneously grieving the fact that it has not yet fully come. Downs suck…but that won’t always be the case…at least that’s where my hope lies. Where’s yours?