Moving on Thursday

(Day 13 post transplant)

This will be a brief update, but wanted you all to know that we are scheduled, barring any unforeseen surprises of curve balls, we will leave the hospital and move to my mom's for what figures to be the next couple of weeks. This is a huge indicator of progress as the would not let me out if my numbers were not coming up like needed. No big crowds, and no flowers, but familiar territory and a place to get outside and enjoy some Spring before it becomes Summer.

Music That Ministers

(Day +7 after transplant)

Wednesday, I was feeling a bit low while checking email and such, and I realized I was sort of getting down. I decided to launch iTunes and listen to some Praise and Worship music. On laptop computer speakers there isn’t a lot a sound quality but the message came through clearly, and it was what I needed. I needed to be reminded that God was in control, because He is. I was reminded that while I might falter, He never will. I heard again that those who wait would renew their strength. I was reminded that God is big, never surprised and good.

Update
I have felt pretty yucky the last few days, which is normal. Maybe, though, today is a notch back in the right direction. While the counts are still low (white count so low they cannot measure it) the Doctor said that some monocytes are beginning to appear from the transplanted cells. Very good news. I do not know if that means I am progressing faster, but it does mean I am progressing. Now if the digestive system can get the message. Still taking Imodium and Anti-Nausea stuff as well. Another bit of news: Blue Powerade actually has some taste today. Yay!

Walked a mile today (by 11:00 AM) and want to do at least one more.


Please continue your prayers. They are the essential part of my attitude through the struggle, and the key to my healing.

Big God

(Day +3 after transplant)

Today has been pretty good. Walked a couple of miles (one mile each time) and hiccupped a whole lot. Counts were a bit more stable today than yesterday. However, they should drop over the next day or two. This is normal.

This morning I was reading a little about one of God’s names, “Jehovah-Sabaoth.” It is translated “The Lord of Hosts." This name of God meets failure and offers deliverance. The Lord of Hosts delivered Goliath into David’s hand. It is good to be reminded that God is huge. He can handle whatever we encounter, if we are right with Him and following Him. He isn’t my “cosmic bellhop” to do my bidding, but He IS in control.

Possibly when you saw the title of this post, you thought something amazing had occurred in my treatment. Well, not yet. But everyone says I am on schedule. Pray that I will continue to sense His presence in the daily routines here, my time alone with him, and other opportunities I may have. Pray that God will be glorified in it all.

I am anxious to get back in the saddle, but know that patiently waiting, praying, listening, and growing may be exactly what God desires to put me in the right saddle, on the right horse, and headed in the right direction. It will all come together in His time.

Thank you all for your continued prayers, notes, emails, and thoughts. You guys are great!

Another Quick Update 3/20

This is a short post just to bring you up to date. At least I think it is going to be short. I never know when I start these things.

I got my stem cells back yesterday. We celebrated. They put balloons on my door. They sang to me the Stem Cell Birthday Song. (I do not know the official name.) So now we wait. The doctor that came in this morning told me I would have about a week, starting in a day or two, that one of the other doctors calls the “miserable phase.” This is the period of time we will be waiting for my stem cells to kick in and start replacing the blood cells that just normally die. So, while perhaps not much to look forward to, it helps to know what to expect. During this period, the staff will keep a very close eye on me to make sure I stay okay. The staff, by the way, has been great here at Emory.




Just keep lifting April and I up. We are doing well and moving through each thing and each day as God opens it to us. Your prayers mean more than you know, and are the key to God being glorified and my being healed.

Bored on Rest Day

Today was my rest day between big chemo yesterday and getting stem cells tomorrow. However, to keep me from being bored in one sense, I got bored in another. Getting me in the program here at Emory was sort of rushed, and they had never done a bone marrow biopsy on me here. They need one as a base line for another a hundred days out (something to look forward to) to see if the cancer is truly in remission or not. Today’s test came with a little sedation, so that made it more tolerable. A visiting medical student from Bangalore did the procedure under several watchful eyes. He told me he had done ten already, and I will say his eleventh one was done very well. He is on my “A” list of bone marrow biopsy givers. Now, it still is not my favorite way to spend an hour or two, but the folks here made it quite tolerable.

The rest of “rest” day has been pretty normal. I went and walked a mile—just 21 laps around our triangularly shaped unit. I usually start questioning my lap count between ten and twenty, so I do an “extra” to be sure I get it all in. I hope I can keep that up.

Grateful! So far no major side effects from yesterday’s big chemo blast. It is sort of strange that it took less than an hour to get it inside me. To reduce the possibility of mouth sores, I ate ice for about four hours. I started thirty minutes before and kept it up at least two hours after. Keeping the mouth cold reduces the blood supply to those tissues, so less of the medicine floats by. Plausible to me! The only side effect I am having right now is hiccups. I have had that before with another chemo drug. They just come and go.

Tomorrow, I will get my stem cells. They treat it like a birthday, and in a way, it is. If I didn’t get them back, and they didn’t start working, I wouldn’t be here long. So I guess it will be my third birthday. First birthday was way back in 1950, the next in 1961 when I received Christ into my life, and tomorrow will be the third. (If they do come in and sing, I hope to have my little point & shoot camera set on go to record the video.)

Please keep the prayers coming. They tell me that day three has the best potential to be a lousy day. Now, day zero is tomorrow (Friday), when I get the stem cells. Today is day -1. That is just how they count it. Day three is a day when some of the effects of the chemo I got on day -2 can show up. Also, counts are dropping and such. So please keep praying.

God our Banner
I have been working through Lord I Want to Know You, by Kay Arthur. It is a study of the names of God used in Scripture. (It is an excellent study, by the way). Today I was reading about “God Our Banner,” or “Jehovah-nissi.” He is the One we follow. We are under his authority. As we obediently follow, we will see Him work, and He will be glorified. Praise the Lord.

The Night Before The Big Day

These three days getting a medication that is to alleviate some of the reactions that go with the treatment I am to receive on Wednesday have gone okay, but I certainly missed some of the side effects when I was reading about this. I am pink, as in flushed. Face is red, maybe a touch puffy. My hands and fingers (palm-side especially) are very sensitive to hot. You should have seen me taking hot clothes out of the dryer awhile ago. Mouth is dry, and feels “oily.” Strange stuff, this med. 

I just got off the phone with my daughter. We had a good conversation, and I was fine until I began to talk about what was going to happen tomorrow. As long as I was dealing with facts, I was fine, but as I began to talk about feelings, the emotions just spilled over. I so wish I didn’t have to do this. I hate cancer. I hate what it does to me and what it does to so many people that I know. Just today, a high school friend wrote me and told me he has been diagnosed with colon cancer, and is having surgery on Friday. 

I have a lot of feelings about all this. Fear? Yes. I know that “He has not given me a spirit of fear, but of power, love and a sound mind.” (2 Timothy 1:7) I want it to be over already, but I am reminded, “those who wait upon the Lord will renew their strength.” (See Isaiah 40:28-31). The problem is I am not very good at waiting. Yet, I know I have to. I know that part of my just-barely-under-the-surface emotions can be attributed to my fitful sleep the last few weeks. Maybe my fitful sleep is a result of my emotions. Don’t know. God does, and I certainly need His presence and grace to be almost tangible right now… or at least by tomorrow. I choose to trust Him, because “He will keep in perfect peace those who trust in Him” (Isaiah 26:3). He promises “peace that surpasses all understanding” if I choose to be thankful and pray rather than worry (Philippians 4:4-7). 

At times like this, when I am feeling overwhelmed, I am so glad that God is bigger than my understanding of Him, and that He has all of this under His control. I want to glorify Him. 

Please continue to pray. Do not think that “Tom is so strong, he’ll get through this.” It is God who is strong. Pray that I will do well. Pray for this treatment to get the cancer in remission. Pray for God’s strength to come through. Pray that God gets the glory.

The Next Big Thing

Being Bald has its positives and negatives…

• I have been told that I look younger (No hair, thus, no gray hair)
• I have been told I look taller (more forehead I suppose) 
• I am told I can get a job at six flags if the other guy in the commercial retires. (I do not think I am that agile). 
• I was talking to a grade school child in our church the other day, and he was confused. The voice he recognized was not coming out of the head it should have. 
• I am told I have a “good head” for baldness. Who knew? 
• Low maintenance is still the biggest plus to me!

The Next Big Thing

Well, I have finally, it appears, arrived at the front end of all that we have been doing has been moving toward. This is a very large hurdle in the treatment process. To pick up the analogy of several posts back (see: “As Long Climb Up A Big Hill,” — February 7), we are about to begin the final assault on this mountain to get to the top, the summit, where hope and a future reside. I look forward to getting the hard days behind me, and I look forward to recovering and being back doing what God has called me to do for however long He has that for me.

Ephesians 5:16 tells us to “redeem, or make the most of, our time, because the days are evil.” Not only that. They may be fewer than we think. Medically speaking, the doctor’s goal is to beat this Multiple Myeloma into remission and keep it there as long as possible. We hope that is at least five or ten (or more) years. I have already mentioned to God and the doctor that during my time of remission, it would be great if they developed the cure!

Only God knows how much longer any of us have. (Psalm 139:16) Suppose you knew you only had five more years. How would you use it for God’s glory? What would you do different? What would you keep the same? What relationships would you focus on? What sort of legacy would you like to leave? What would you stop doing? (Sometimes the “stop” list is more important than the “start” list, because there are many good things that suck time and resources from being able to do the best.)

It is too easy to get into a routine that gets us by but has far less meaning and impact than God intended or our lives. Taking time to re-focus, refine, and re-tune life is always a good thing, if we do it under God’s leadership. This applies first to our spiritual lives, but all other areas as well. Don’t wait until some circumstance forces you into reevaluation mode. Set aside time to do it now, starting with a prayer that goes something like, “Lord, I want to reflect you in every area of my life. I place everything on the table for you to deal with. What changes do you want me to make?” Have your pen and paper ready!

The Final Assault

Here is a bit about my schedule (tentative) during the stem cell transplant process.

• Sunday, Monday, & Tuesday, March 14-16 - Outpatient at Emory each day to get an IV med that is supposed to help with the mouth sores that could come with the big chemo I will get on Wednesday. 
• Wednesday, March 17 I am to be admitted to the hospital and receive the chemo that will wipe out my bone marrow. 
• Thursday, I rest. (I hope that is true. Pray.) 
• Friday, I will receive my stem cells back. I will get them like getting a blood transfusion. 
• I will be in the hospital another couple of weeks so they can watch me very carefully since my immune system will be compromised and some of my blood products will likely get low. When/if that happens, they will give me some.
• Once I am stable enough – Stem cells are working and important levels are stable or moving toward normal – I’ll get out of the hospital, but have to stay in Atlanta for another couple of weeks to go to the clinic for regular blood work. Whenever I achieve the desired level for everything, I will be able to come back to Augusta and be followed by my oncologist here.

How soon will I be able to resume regular activities? That depends on how fast is the recovery. But, for the first three months after I get out of the hospital, I will have to be very careful about where I go. They told April I would need to be treated like a newborn for three months. If you wouldn't take a newborn "there," then I shouldn't go either.

Prayer Requests:

• That God be glorified in and through it all, and that he would use us to share His grace with others.
• That the side effects will be minimal as the medications do their necessary work. 
• That my stem cells would start working rapidly so that my levels would move quickly toward normal.
• That my strength will increase even while in the hospital.
• That the doctors wouldn’t practice but would know what to do each and every step of the way.

Thanks everyone. Your prayers are the essential ingredients in my recovery, because God is the Great Physician. Healing will come from Him.

Slick Top

When I look in the mirror, there is a bald guy staring back at me. It isn't completely gone, but it has come out rather patchy and so it was more fashion conscious to go ahead and shave the little that was left. So, another milestone, or at least a step.

The Bible doesn't have a lot to say about being smooth on top. Leviticus 13:40 says, "And the man whose hair is fallen off his head, he is bald; yet is he clean." Then there is a rather graphic incident about some young toughs who made fun of a bald-headed prophet in 2 Kings 2:22-24. Let me spare you the details, but making a public mockery of a bald prophet is a very bad idea.

A friend sent me this poem on facebook:
         “God is great, God is fair,
         To some He gave brains and others hair."

Positively, this new hairstyle is very low maintenance. Negatively, I feel every cold breeze on my head, be it ever so slight. Hats are my friend.

Here is a look...

By the way, that basket to my right contains the cards and notes many of you have sent. If I printed out all the encouraging emails so many have sent, the room would be full. Your words mean more than you know, and your prayers, well, they make all the difference. Thanks!

I'll be updating you more about the next steps as we near the end of the week and we go back to Emory.

Blessings,
Tom