I Love Chemo Day!

Today was my second chemo treatment. I go in once a week. This week the doctor told me that since I haven’t had any side effects from the chemo this past week, I’m probably not going to have any side effects. That’s a small answer to prayer! He also confirmed that Royal Brisbane Hospital is a cancer research facility, that they do human trials of promising new drugs from time to time, and that if one comes along while I’m undergoing treatment, he can get me into it. I had told him that as long as the existing treatment was deemed to have less than 50% chance of significantly extending my life, I wanted a shot at any promising new drug that came along, so that’s another small answer to prayer.

We pay for the chemo each week when we receive it. When Karen went to pay this week, the lady who routinely handles payments, insurance and so forth all day every day had to stop and make a phone call to see how to handle ours because she’d never before seen a case where the hospital itself had cut their charges. That means my oncologist wasn’t just doing something that they normally do from time to time in special cases; he was really collaring people and getting them to do totally unprecedented things for me. Roland and I had spoken briefly to the oncologist on my first visit, about why I’m here and what we hope to accomplish. After her encounter with the payment lady today Karen said: “You and Roland didn’t really say that much to him. Y’all didn’t do this. God moved in his heart.” He’s a good doctor and a good man, and he really is fighting for my life. That is, indeed, another God thing.

But that’s not why I’ve decided that chemo day is my favorite day of the week. On chemo day I get to sleep in, I get off work, I get 1-4 hours to sit and read without any obligation to be doing anything else. I eat food the hospital staff brings around for me which is off my normal diet. The naturapath says I don’t have to take my normal bushel basket of supplements that day. And I continue to have no symptoms of the cancer beyond occasional minor abdominal discomfort that is no greater than the average 50-year-old man experiences. What’s not to love?

God is giving me this day. He is on this day meeting this day’s needs. I don’t have my miraculous healing yet, but on days like today, it’s easy to believe I will. And either way, Roland and I should be ready tomorrow to go public with a new website that will keep people updated on my cancer battle, give them the opportunity to donate conveniently to my expenses, and use the cancer battle as an illustration of how we see God and his work in our lives. The site will thereby not only help my friends and family pray and donate as they want to for my battle, but will also help us draw secular, unchurched strangers into our planned church plant and ultimately into the heart of God.

For me to live is Christ and to die is gain.