I Have Cancer

No pictures this week; only words that sound alien coming from my own mouth. I have cancer and the doctor thinks it’ll probably prove terminal. It’s weird. I celebrated my 50^th birthday 9 months ago in conscious, deliberate gratitude and celebration that “everything works and nothing hurts.” I didn’t have any of the little aches and pains that plagued my peers. Even now, at this exact moment, I have no pain or other physical symptoms of any kind.

I've been having stomach problems, just cramps or indigestion-type feelings that came and went. Antacids and so forth didn't seem to help. I went to the doctor a few days ago; he poked around on my belly and said my liver was enlarged. He immediately sent me for ultrasound, CAT scan and blood work. I went back yesterday for the follow-up to get his diagnosis.

He's just a general practitioner, rather than an oncologist, and he only spent about 30 seconds looking at the test results (he hadn't seen them until I got to his office. His diagnosis, however, was cancer of the bowel, spread to my liver. The prognosis he gave me when I asked for one was that it might take 3-5 years, but he thought the cancer would kill me.

My general lay impression has also been that liver cancer seems to be generally terminal, although not necessarily taking that long. My wife Karen looked online and found something that said that, although liver cancer is generally terminal, that's frequently because cirrhosis is also present. The oncologist might have a more optimistic prognosis. I'll certainly pursue every reasonable medical option.

In the meantime, I would appreciate your prayers. I believe in doctors and cures, but I also believe in miraculous healing. Of course, I also recognize with the three Hebrew children in the Bible that I might not be delivered, but that God will still be God and love will still be enough.

My mind has been racing these last few hours through all the genuinely miraculous healings I’ve seen in my life on one hand, and all the deaths of saints on the other hand, who prayed for healing and weren’t healed. I’ve been trying to run two directions at once, praying for peace in the midst of the storm and the grace to die the death of a saint but at the same time praying to be one of the miracles, believing in the love and power of God to heal.

And I’ve been thinking of, and talking to, all the people who love me, who hurt with me when I hurt, who feel like their lives will be enriched by my life and impoverished by my death. I find myself constantly simultaneously thinking “Thank you” and “I’m sorry”. Thank you for loving me and seeing good stuff in me and weeping with me when I weep. I need that right now. I need to know right now that my life so far has mattered. At the same time I find myself thinking I’m sorry that my prognosis causes you pain and, if it proves correct, may leave you feeling abandoned.

We have a lot of things we'd like to see God do through us over the next 20 years. I'd really like to not be done, yet.

In the New Testament, in the book of Acts, I find two interesting stories. In one, Peter was delivered from bondage and death; the church, the people who loved him, were strengthened by that outcome. In the other, Stephen was not delivered, but died a painful death; and the church, the people who loved him, were strengthened by that outcome.

I need God to be God and love to be enough for the people who love me. I’m so grateful that they are many, and that they are praying for me.