A Small Miracle

Pretty much all the events of this week are at www.choosing2live.com on the following pages:

Choosing to Live Physically
Choosing to Live Psychologically
Choosing to Live Spiritually
My Thoughts on Choosing to Live

However, since those entries will disappear as soon as I replace them with new entries, here's the short version of my week.

Mama and my brother Roy Lee arrived this past Tuesday for a 2-week visit. This week we visited rain forests, mountains, downtown Brisbane, the Gold Coast beach and enjoyed a proper "Devonshire Tea". We laughed together, cried together, prayed together and generally had a good time.

A potential major breakthrough or two at work give us optimism about the future of the company. Physically I had more trouble than usual with nausea this week than normal. The doctor has slightly adjusted my medications for that so we'll see if it gets back under control in the next few days. I've also had a problem this week with hiccups, which make me more likely to throw up if they coincide with nausea. That makes it harder to gain the weight the doctor wants me to gain, so it's a problem.

The coolest thing for me this week was the regular monthly district prayer time here on the Australia Northern Pacific District of the Church of the Nazarene. Mama requested prayer for my healing at the meeting, and prayed with her usual fervor and emotion, which kind of drew everyone else into her pain and desire and faith. The group that gathered around me ranged from strangers to new friends to deep old friends, but they all poured out their hearts and love on me a foreigner who had not yet given much to them. As they prayed for my hiccups, the hiccups vanished and haven't come back.

I felt their faith and their love and the healing presence of God for the hiccups and was encouraged to believe it might not be the only miracle he has in store for me.

Roy Lee's largest expression of love for me was the astonishing gift of his own very nice laptop computer. I'm amazed at the openness and generosity of his precious heart.

All in all, a lot of small things pointing to the possibility of big things ahead. It was a week of increased joy, hope and faith.

It's Good but it Feels Bad

Initially, the weekly chemo requirement of getting a needle stuck in my arm was no big deal. But I lost 20 pounds in the first month because of a naturapathic diet designed to rob the cancer of needed glucose, then had trouble gaining it back the second month because of chemo-induced diarrhea. Between the direct effects of the chemo and the effects of the weight loss and tendency toward dehydration produced by the diarrhea, it became increasingly difficult for the nurses to find a vein each week, and the attempts became increasingly painful. I raised that issue with the doctor last Tuesday and he advised getting a permanent line stuck in my arm so they only have to stick me that once and then every week when I need chemo or blood work, they just stick the needle in that permanent line sticking out of my upper right arm, instead of trying to stick the needle in my arm. It makes the whole process quicker, easier and less painful. When they're done, the line will just come right out and not even leave a permanent mark.

It's good, but somehow it feels kind of bad on a purely psychological level. Something permanent sticking out of your arm every minute reminds you every minute that you're not really as well as you feel; that you're a patient. I feel like it makes me look like a patient, too, to people like my mother and brother who'll be here in three days, and for whom I wanted to look as normal as I feel, to reassure them. It's an odd, silly little thing, and it'll pass, but for the moment, there the feeling is.

Another good thing that feels bad is the people who are being drawn into my consciousness. When you're fighting cancer as publicly as I've chosen to, you get to know a lot of other past and present cancer patients. The first round of stories that you hear are the great, encouraging victory stories of people who won their battles when the doctors said they couldn't. But part of the reason I've chosen to be so public in my struggle is that I want God to use even this as an avenue for ministering to other people. That means I'm getting to know other people who are still fighting cancer now, and some of their battles aren't going well at the moment. Because I'm in the same battle, I know how to pray and what to say that will be encouraging instead of merely trite. God gets to use this as a tool for more effectively loving other people who need to know that they're loved and lovable.

That's good. That gives my own struggle meaning and value even if I ultimately lose it, but even more so if I ultimately win it. But it feels kind of bad at the same time, because I care about those who seem to be losing their battles at the moment and I begin to carry their load with them. And it feels a little bad because I realize that what's going badly for them could be going badly for me tomorrow. It even feels a little bad that my latest news is encouraging while theirs is discouraging, because it raises the question of why God will heal some of us of cancer but not others. The trite, easy answer of the living that suggests it's because those who live always have more "faith" than those who die, doesn't fit my personal observation or experience or understanding of faith or scripture or God, or the view of most of the wisest and most holy of Christians through the centuries. So trust has to be enough when my understanding isn't. When I don't have all the answers like I did when I was younger, I have to choose to let God be God and love be enough.

So I do.

My execution date has been postponed!

I had a new CT scan yesterday, 14 May, 2007. The previous scan was on 27 February, 2007. That was the original scan that diagnosed my cancer. The oncologist said then that my kind of cancer only responds to chemo 50% of the time. Today he told me that I'm in the 50% that does respond. He showed me the two sets of CT scans and showed me what he was looking at and said they showed "quite significant improvement."

I'll take it. He also said I look better. I still have no symptoms except side effects from the chemo. The doctor isn't yet willing to say the cancer won't ultimately still be terminal, but my improvement was clearly on the high side, the "hoped for" side of what he would consider the normal, expected response to chemo. He agreed with me that we're just almost weekly seeing news reports of potentially major breakthroughs in cancer treatment that the researchers expect to have on the market within 1-3 years, so staying alive that long potentially dramatically increases my chances of a cure for what he initially declared flatly incurable.

In short, I am still having no trouble remembering to live each day as if it may be my last, but I am encouraged and thanking God for his healing at work in my life. And of course, I'm profoundly grateful for the love and concern of so many people for my well-being. Today's chemo has left me a little woozy and I really want to lay down for a little while, but I can't until I've written something here, on my blog and on the choosing2live website, because so many amazing, precious people are waiting anxiously for news, like Darius outside the lion's den.

Thank you for your love and prayers, and thank God for his love and power and grace.

Love,
Brad

A Time for a Miracle

I measure my life these days by medical re-assessments; by those moments when, if God is performing a miracle in my life, I'll have a chance to hear a doctor confirm it. Next week is my next chance to hear that God has healed me. On Monday, 14 May 2007, I'll get new CAT scans and on Tuesday, 15 May 2007, I'll meet with the oncologist and he'll tell me what they show and give me an updated prognosis. I've had no symptoms this past week except a couple of minor chemo side effects. It's easy right now to believe in miracles. It'll get harder if the news is bad next week. I'll obviously take any improvement that results in an extended life expectancy, but it would really be cool to get a genuine, flat-out, supernatural, miraculous total healing.

Miracles are by definition the exception rather than the rule, but if you're reading this, I'd sure appreciate it if you could over this next week pray for a miracle, no matter how small your faith.

In life or in death, God will be God and love will be enough, but I'd sure love to "be the miracle", as Bruce Almighty says. I'd sure love for this miracle to be a part of the story we tell when we tell the story of the great church God is planting in Brisbane. I'd love to be the first in a long list of stories of how God is transforming people's lives, healing them, liberating them from fear and from shame, "happifying" them in this place, in this generation.

And as my kids cling to me, hoping to see God intervene to avert tragedy in their young lives, I'd love to see the look of relief and triumph in their faces as their budding faith is confirmed and sealed by one enormous "YES" to a prayer that they've prayed, to carry them through all the dark moments that will come in their lives when God will seem silent. One memorable yes, can carry a person's faith through a lot of silence. I'm prepared to hear from God that his grace will be sufficient for me even on my death bed, but I'd love to be that yes in the early life of my children and my church.