JOLLYBLOGGER

Self-Pity as Narcotic

I gotta agree with David Powlison here:

“Feeling sorry for yourself is one of the strongest, most addictive narcotics known to man. It feels so good to feel so bad. Self-pity arises so easily, seems so plausible, and proves so hard to shake off.”

Sadly, the reason I agree with this is that I know it well from personal experience.

The Story of Mark Herzlich

Here's a story that relates to two of the most significant aspects of my life - football and cancer.  It was because of football that I met the man who would lead me to Christ and have probably the greatest impact on my life - Jim Scroggins.  And, as all of you who have followed me over the last year know, cancer has also had a great impact on my life. 

So, here on football Saturday, I hope this story encourages you.

Health Update 10-2-09

Here's that health update I've been promising you for awhile.  I got the results of my CT scan from the doctor today and the news is good.

At worst, the tumors have remained stable over the last few months.  I say "at worst" because apparently (and you medical people would know more about this than I do) different doctors at different facilities can have slightly different ways of measuring tumors so there could be some slight discrepancies.  My last scan was at a different facility with a different radiologist reading it and measuring the tumors.

Having said that, the tumors they are watching and measuring all seem to be about the same or maybe slightly smaller.  I have two nodules they are watching in my lungs which are less than a centimeter.  Our biggest concern is that I have two tumors in my liver.  The largest one measured 2.5 cm last time and 2.4 cm this time.  The smaller one was 1.5cm last time and 1.4 cm this time.  Since the last one was at a different facility the doctor didn't seem to want to say that the tumors are definitely shrinking because the difference is so small, but it seems very apparent that they are at least stable.

So, we give thanks to God and to all of you who are praying for us.  I'll breathe easy for awhile and will devote some serious effort to enjoying my life these next few months and hopefully much longer! The next CT scan will be in two months so we'll keep you posted. 

A Theology of Illness

Hi everyone.  To all three of you who remain faithful readers let me say thanks an apologies for still checking in here and checking your rss feeds for me.  In recent months most of my posts have been health updates and have been a bit infrequent, but lately I have taken infrequency (if that's not really a word I claim it as my invention) to extremes. 

Sadly, for my blogging career I've been re-reading a bit of Neil Postman, finally read Brave New World by Huxley, and those things coupled with the serious ramifications of my declining health, have weakened my love for technology a bit lately, and all of the things you can do with said technology have lost quite a bit of their sex-appeal.

Still, I remain grateful for all of the friends I have made through blogging and Facebook so I hope to not go completely silent and may even post more frequently in the future, then again I may not.  At the least I do hope to give a health update soon, maybe this week.  Suffice it to say that aside from kicking a piece of furniture yesterday and breaking a toe (for which I have moaned and groaned like a woman in labor) I'm feeling very well these days.

But that's not what today's post is about.  I came across a wonderful commentary from Rod Dreher on praying for distasteful people like Bernie Madoff, and in this he quotes a wonderful passage from a book called A Theology of Illness by Jean-Claude Larchet.  Even us hard boiled Presbyterians ought to be able to appreciate the perspective on illness that is here attributed to Orthodoxy.

For illness always calls into question the basis, the framework an the shape of our lives, including the life-patterns we have acquired, the free use of our bodily and psychological faculties, our system of values, our relations with other people, even life itself. This is because in times of illness the inevitability of death becomes a stark reality. ... Far from being an event that touches only our body, and that for a limited time, illness often forces us to assume a spiritual struggle that involves our whole being, and destiny. ...

...Orthodox Christianity brings to the holistic treatment of a sick person a philosophically ascetic orientation increasingly alien to the way we live and think in the modern West.

For example, Orthodoxy encourages believers to pray for good health, but more importantly, to pray for what is most spiritually useful. Orthodoxy enjoins the patient to see his illness in the entire context of his life, and how it can be used to deepen his relationship with God. Elder Zacharias, a monk from the Orthodox monastery in Essex, England, tells of a woman who approached him with a diagnosis of six months to live. She had incurable cancer. "Wonderful," he told her. "You have six months to prepare for the most important encounter of your life." She used that time to work with him, in prayer and counseling, to meet God. He reports that on his final visit with her, her body was ravaged, but her face was luminous. She told the elder that she didn't feel worthy of the grace of having that illness. Orthodox Christianity could not prevent death, but it helped this woman imbue her suffering with meaning, and to bear it with grace, dignity, and even, in the end, joy.

What if you only had one month to live?

I've been seeing here and there that lots of folks are reading or involved in a program at church based on the book One Month to Live.  I haven't read it or been involved in it in any way so in what follows I'm not so much commenting on the book or program itself as much as I am making an observation on the way these kinds of discussions usually go, by that I mean discussions on how you would change your life if you knew you were going to die soon.

At the risk of sounding like a kranky, contrarian, curmudgeon, may I say that I think most of those discussions, though well intended and hitting some important points often miss the mark.

Also, if I may say a personal word to my friends who are reading this.  I hope I don't come across as mister morbid in my blogging since most of my posts these days are about cancer and dying.  It's just that this is obviously the dominating circumstance of my life right now.  But I want to assure you that, though I think often about death and dying I am in no way giving up the fight for life, nor am I resigned to a "very-soon" death. Though my hope is not in doctors and statistics, I have even seen a bit of chatter lately to the effect that some of the more grim statistics for those in my condition are from five or more years ago, and that as new stats become available for those diagnosed more recently, we may find that the five year survival rate is higher than is usually reported.  So I have lots of hope and optimism, but I am realistic - I realistically could live a few months to many, many years, and I'm gradually learning to not worry so much about that as it is ultimately in God's hands. I am learning to live each day as if it has enough trouble of it's own and not worry so much about tomorrow - that's almost biblical, I think.

So having said that, getting back to the topic I started with, here's my gripe about these discussions on how you would change if you knew you were soon to die.  Most of them focus on how you can change your life now so that when it comes time to die you won't have any regrets.  This approach largely forgets the gospel.

Granted, it's not all bad.  I think often these days about how I will be remembered, mostly by my wife and children, but also to a certain degree about how others outside the family will remember me.  I do think about the legacy I will leave, so I do applaud anyone who begins that kind of self-evaluation process and makes the necessary changes that would entail.

But the bottom line is this - if I am to face my own death with no regrets, the only way I can do so is if my sins are atoned for, and sins are only atoned for by the work of Christ.  From what I can tell, most of these "what if you only had a short time to live" discussions revolve around things you must do to cleanse the slate and clear your conscience.  Again, good stuff to do, but only in a secondary sense.  If I knew I was going to die soon I would spend far more time reading, studying, meditating on and reflecting on all that Christ has done for me than anything else.  That's the only sure way to approach your own death with no regrets.

The Practical Advantage of Having Your Life Threatened

I deeply appreciate every prayer and word of encouragement that has been offered in response to my battle with cancer, and let me be the first to say that I hate this cancer and it has upset the applecart of my life like nothing I could have ever imagined.

On the other hand, when I found out I had cancer I came to realize that life up until that point was like living in fantasyland.  I had live in relative comfort, peace and prosperity all my life and had never had to face any of the real hard things in life.

This is an unusual situation both geographically.  By "geographically" I mean that those of us who are born in America are shielded from the hard things of life that many in our world have to face on a daily basis.  We don't have to face poverty and war and death and disease like many in our world do.  By "historically" I mean that we live at a time where life expectancies are greater than ever, health is better than ever and so, even here in America, we don't face the same kinds of battles with death and disease that even our forefathers faced.

Because of this we have accomodated our Christian faith to the times in which we live.  We have lots of books and seminars that purport to offer Christian perspectives on health and wealth building, on success and things like that.  We don't have quite as much to help us prepare for death. 

And if some of our Christian forefathers are any indication it could be that the low ebb of Christian devotion and commitment we often see is directly tied to the fact that death is not a daily reality that we confront.  Unless we are old, or a soldier in battle, or have a terminal disease, very few of us see death as something that could happen to us.  And because of this, we can always wait till tomorrow to get serious with Christ. 

This was brought to my attention today as I was preparing my Sunday sermon and reflected on some words from Richard Baxter that I first became aware of when I found out I had cancer.  I offer these for your consideration and meditation in the hope that you will seriously consider the brevity of (your) life and let this spur you on to follow Christ today.

Promise not yourselves long life, or prosperity and great matters in the world, lest it entangle your hearts with transitory things, and engage you in ambitious and covetous designs, and steal away your hearts from God, and destroy all your apprehensions of eternity.

Health and Blogging Update 7-13-09

It's been awhile since I blogged mainly because I just haven't felt like it due to the aftereffects of chemo - I often am not only feeling bad physically but I get into a kind of mental fog and I just don't feel like thinking and stringing together a bunch of thoughts.  Plus, there hasn't been much new on the health front lately.

But having said that I'm feeling good today and I do have a bit of news on the health front. 

I have switched doctors - long story on why and how that came about that I won't go into here.   I now have a doc at Johns Hopkins which is a good thing.  I recently saw that Hopkins is rated as the best hospital in America and there cancer center is ranked third best in the nation.  So there is a sense of security in this in the sense that I'm probably in the best place I could possibly be for cancer treatment.  The two places that are ranked ahead of Hopkins are MD Anderson at the University of Texas and Sloane Kettering in New York.  So, since those are out of driving distance it's good to be at Hopkins.

The only down side of Hopkins is that it is internationally known and people come here from all over the world, so the wait times are going to be longer for pretty much everything.

But I went in today and spent a good deal of time with a nurse practitioner and the doctor.  The good news is that they gave me some answers to questions I haven't gotten before.  I have had 11 treatments so far and they tell me that 12 is the standard so they are going to give me one more and then stop.  One of the drugs I have been getting is called oxolyplatin (sp?) and it causes neuropoathy in the fingers and toes and that has become the dominant side effect for me over the last month.  I've pretty well lost feeling in the tips of my fingers and the pads of my feet and toes are going numb.  I have a hard time buttoning shirts and sometimes I lose balance. 

So, come to find out, ten treatments with oxolyplatin is usually about as much as they give so I won't get that with this next treatment.  I've also been given some medication which we hope is going to help me with the neuropathy so with that and not get the oxolyplatin hopefully I'll start getting my feeling back.

Now for the news that's not as good.  It's not bad news but it's just a reminder of the seriousness of cancer.  What we do after this treatment is wait for the tumors to start growing again and then go back on chemo.  I'll get a CT scan every 2-3 months and as long as the tumors don't grow I won't have treatment.  When they start growing again I'll go back on treatment.

The doctor said I could stay on some form of chemo but that statistically patients who stay on chemo vs. those who take a break and wait for the tumors to grow again don't do any better.  So, those who go off the chemo get to enjoy a higher quality of life for a time. 

The doctor expects that I will have a few months without treatment, hopefully up to six. 

I also asked about my prognosis.  The good news is that the doctor says my tumors have "good biology."  This is shown by the fact that they have responded very well to treatment.  She said that the average life expectancy for this is two to two and a half years which was a downer.  My old doctor had said three to three and a half years.  But don't forget that this "average" means 50% of people die before then and 50% live longer.  She said with my "good biology" in the tumor it is very hopeful that I'll be in the 50% group that lives longer.  On the other hand they said that those on the good side usually only live 4-5 years, not 10 or so.  That one kind of upset us.  She said the goal is to basically keep me alive and going in hopes that new treatments will come available in the future.  With Hopkins being a research hospital they will be the first to get the newest and best treatments.

That prognosis is not totally out of the blue, we have heard such things before and so this was just a reminder of the seriousness of the situation I'm in.  We have recouped pretty well from that and are just trusting God and using this as a reminder to number our days and make the most of them.  So, needless to say I would appreciate your prayers.  I do look forward to eternity but for the sake of my family and work I have yet to do I hope to stay here awhile longer.

Having said all of that I am feeling pretty good these days.  I had a drug holiday where I recouped a lot of energy.  And I have done pretty well since the last treatment two weeks ago.  Since this next treatment will be minus the oxolyplatin I expect the side effects won't be too overwhelming and then I can begin my period of no treatment and feeling well.  And I expect that will enable me to resume blogging at some regular pace.  I doubt I'll ever reach the frequency of blogging that I had in earlier days but hopefully I'll be able to post at least once or twice a week.

Video - My Battle With Cancer

A little over a month ago a friend of mine did a video interview with me for our presbytery - the interview was about my battle with cancer.  So, I thought I would share it with you, with one little word of introduction.  This was prepared for a presbytery meeting so the questions and answers are directed toward an audience of preachers, not a general audience, but I do hope that this is still helpful for a general audience.

David Wayne - My Battle with Cancer from David Wayne on Vimeo.

I'm Scared Too . . .

Ecclesiastes 7:1-4:

1A good name is better than fine perfume, and the day of death better than the day of birth.
2 It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting,
for death is the destiny of every man; the living should take this to heart.
3 Sorrow is better than laughter, because a sad face is good for the heart.
4 The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of pleasure.

For more on Clayton go here.

HT - Justin Taylor

Beauty in the Face of Agony

This is one of the most moving photojournalist essays I have ever seen.  It's the story of Katie Kirkpatrick Godwin and her husband Nick.  Katie battled cancer for three years and died at 21.  But Nick was determined to marry Katie, his high school sweetheart.  So, in the midst of Katie's pain and fatigue from the chemo Nick and Katie were married, and five days later Katie died.  This is just a great picture(s) of how beauty and joy can be found in the midst of the greatest agony.

HT - Kottke