A few random thoughts on cancer and mental and emotional health.

I had chemo today and one of the drugs they give me for nausea is a steroid that keeps me up at night, so it's a little after 1:00am now and I'll probably be awake till at least 3:00am tonight.  So, I'm looking for something to do besides laying in bed wishing I could sleep and thought I would share a few random thoughts that occurred to me today about cancer and things associated. 

I'm talking about this because I recently read that one out of four people in America will get cancer - so either you or someone you know, or you and someone you know or you and several someones you know will get cancer at some point in your life.  I am just hoping that my experiences can be of help to you in dealing with it and that I can be a testimony of the grace of God and the reality of hope in this. 

Jim Murray was the greatest sportswriter of his generation and he lost his wife to cancer.  One day the doctor told them that the cancer had metastasized.  Rick Reilly replays that incident: 

"Sorry," the doctor said. "The cancer has metastasized."

"The cancer has metastasized."

"The most terrible collection of syllables in the language," Murray says.

I couldn't agree more with Murray, but I also believe that if our profession of Christian faith is worth anything, then we must profess and confess that the Christian faith is made for the most terrible times in life and God can sustain you in the midst of it. 

I am in a clinical trial and I had a chat with the nurse who is administering the trial about my scans and the lesions in my body.  I'm going for a CT Scan on March 30th - it's a pretty big deal because it will show if the treatment is working by showing if the tumors are shrinking.  While talking she gave me a paper which was the interpretation of my last scans and she was a little nervous about giving it to me.  She said she knew I would read it and she didn't want me to freak out about it. 

Basically, the paper showed that I have minor lesions in several places in my body.  We got the tumor on the colon out and now are most worried about a couple of fairly sizable tumors in my liver and some smaller lesions in my lungs.   The good news is that much of the rest of my body is clean - there is nothing in the brain, the spleen, the pancreas and a couple of other areas.  But she was afraid that I would see the mention of some other minor lesions and freak out. 

I've grown to trust this nurse a good deal so I simply asked her if this was common and nothing to get overly worked up about and she said yes, so I'm fine with that. 

But I bring this up to help you understand just what happens when cancer metastasizes.  It will start in one place but then it will throw cancerous cells out throughout the body and those cells will land in different places and start tumors there.  

The cancer is identified by it's point of origin.  Even though we are focusing mainly on my liver now, this is still colon cancer I am dealing with because the colon was the point of origin.  The treatment regimen I am on is one specially designed for colon cancer, even though it is working on the liver and lungs.  If it had originated in the liver I would be on a different set of drugs.  

I offer that because some of the folks I have talked to about my cancer have been confused about that, just as I was when I first found out. 

But I also bring up the whole idea of metastasis to help you have a healthy respect for the deadliness of cancer.  One of the most devastating things for my wife was when, on our first visit to the oncologist, they told her I would be a cancer patient for the rest of my life.  Yes, we are hoping and praying that this will go into remission, and I have even read some things where, if the cancer is gone for five years then they consider you cured.  But since my cancer is in an advanced stage I'll probably have to be carefully monitored for the rest of my life.  You have probably known and heard of people whose cancer goes into remission and then comes back a few years later.  This kind of thing will always be hanging over my head. 

So, you ask, how does a person maintain any kind of quality of life with that hanging over their head?  It's kind of like being on death row without an execution date. 

When this all hit I did some reading on colon cancer and found that, as one person put it very clinically, the onset of colon cancer causes a precipitous long term decline in the mental and emotional health of those who get it.  When I read that I thought, "no kidding, I wonder why."  And I wondered if I would ever achieve any kind of mental and emotional stability after that. 

I think I have, or I think I am on the way. In my recent post about emotions I talked about the up and down nature of my emotions these days and it is something I am learning to live with, but I'm hoping to not merely "live with" this but to thrive in the midst of it.  For me, mental and emotional health won't be marked by a return to my pre-cancer mental and emotional condition. 

I know this is hard to take, but if you or your loved one gets cancer, you cannot and will not be able to return to the person you once were.  But that's ok. I don't know about you but before cancer I lived a life where I was one part oblivious to suffering and another part committed to my own personal peace and affluence in such a way as to block out the realities of life in a fallen world as much as possible. 

Now I just think I am in better touch with reality.  So back to my comment about living on death row without an execution date.  This is where we all live, most of us just build up a fantasy life geared to escaping and denyingsuffering and death. I know I gave lip service to the idea of suffering and even preached some sermons on it, but now see I really didn't know what I was talking about.  I still probably don't know much, but I know a little more than I did two months ago.  What I find is that getting cancer has put me in touch with reality in ways I was never in touch with it before.  And that's a good thing.  Reality ain't easy, but it's where we live and it's good when we realize that.  

Still, staring at death is a scary thing.  There is a lady named Lil who works at the hospital where I am treated whose job is to offer emotional support and encouragement to patients.  She has survived cancer and I think has lost one, maybe two husbands to cancer.  Yet, she beams and has joy and is a great encourager to all of us who are being treated. 

Today she told me about a child in the family, I can't remember if it was a granddaughter or a niece.  When she was eight, this child came down with ewings sarcoma, a rare and deadly cancer that afflicts mostly males between the ages of 10 and 20.  She, a female, got it when she was eight.  So she was an extremely rare case of an already rare disease.  Lil told me about her treatment, how the local hospital where the girl lived wasn't able to make any headway against the disease so she was able to get into some treatments at the National Institutes of Health up here in Bethesda, MD.  She had surgery, chemo and several other treatments and were able to extend this little girl's life for three or three and a half years. 

The thing I was curious about was whether or not this child was happy during those years.  Lil's face lit up and said "I wish you could have seen her."  Apparently this girl was full of joy and life during those three years. 

And this can happen.  I don't know what the future holds for me.  I don't know if I have one, three, five, ten or twenty years to live, and I don't know how I will react if a day comes when the doctors tell me there is nothing more they can do.  I'm banking a lot on some words I read from John Piper a few years ago - that part of having faith today is having faith that you will have the faith you need tomorrow, to face tomorrow's trials.  

But I also wonder if this may turn out to the good, whether I live a short time or a long time, in that I may find more joy after cancer than I have found before. 

I've had tastes of joy (and sorrow!) I never had before and it may be that this brush with death is simply recalibrating my life and re-aligning it to the realities of life in a fallen world.  I think I may have never experienced God as I could have because in seeking so hard to avoid suffering I was really seeking to avoid ever needing Him. 

And so I give you all of that simply to say that you are going to die and you can live with that.  Some of you will die suddenly and won't have time to think through things as I am doing now.  I hope that even now you will take the time you need to realign yourself with the reality of your mortality.  Many more of you will probably die from a long and extended illness.  And I hope to encourage you that it is possible that during the time of your illness you may still experience joys and a quality of life you have never experienced. You don't have to be one of the statistics of those whose mental and emotional health declines precipitously and permanently. 

I realize that not everyone who reads this shares my faith commitments and I know that there are many who don't follow Christ as I do who have suffered and died courageously and in ways that inspire me and others.  But I do want to offer Christ for your consideration.  One of the reasons I have the hope I do is that I have a hope of an eternity in a new heavens and a new earth, but more importantly I have tethered my life to that of Christ and I let Him define reality for me.  I take comfort from the fact that He has suffered for me and thus I will not have to pay the ultimate penalty for my sins.  But I also have hope that the greatest suffering leads to the greatest blessing because that is how it was for Him and therefore how it will be for followers.  Everyone will suffer, regardless of their faith commitments or lack thereof.  But Christianity is a faith that I believe is uniquely equipped to handle suffering.  It is a faith born in suffering and faith that is most effectual practically in the midst of suffering.  So I do hope that everyone who reads this will at least consider following Christ.

Comments

[J.]

Your writing is showing a more natural depth. Un-self-conscious, or un-affected depth is what I mean. This may sound like a back-handed compliment, but I don't mean it like that either.

[Lesley S. Bateman]

What you said in this sentence resonates with me: " I don't know about you but before cancer I lived a life where I was one part oblivious to suffering and another part committed to my own personal peace and affluence in such a way as to block out the realities of life in a fallen world as much as possible. "
I told you that our family experienced suffering, non-medical, in a way that made me see the world differently. I hope i am more compassionate and aware than i was before. Rather than wallowing in pity or sadness, i see life through a different lenses. each day is new and God's plan unfolds every day. Keep sharing as God leads!
Warmly,
Lesley Shackelford Bateman

[Jan]

Just to let you know I'm keeping up.

I visited my neighbor across the street Sunday evening. My first time in his house. He is 65 and has cancer of the esophagus. First he was told it was benign, then unknowingly a doctor on a later follow-up assumed they knew it was not and began talking about treatment options. What a shock for them!

My neighbor is not a Christian, not much of a believer in God. His current concern is about the coming boredom of three five-day rounds of chemo in the hospital as they try to shrink the tumor pre-op. Of course, test may show he is not able to endure the operation. It is long and risky. They'll remove his esophagus and re-attach his stomach without it.

He is not a reader and spends most evenings watching the tele. The last time I offered to pray with him, he declined, not harshly, but with little interest.

He has to take a pill to sleep, isn't able to quit smoking, and drinks a bit.

I tell you this to say how precious a hope we have in Christ and what it must be like for those who do not. I spent and hour or so with him and his wife. I promised to visit him during the chemo and he said he would really appreciate that. I listen, pray, and hope the best for him.

[Tina]

I was reading about the tragic accidental death of Natasha Richardson and a doctor was explaining about how she could be very lucid but at the same time her brain was bleeding. He said, "We call this 'talking and dying.'"

That took my breath away for a second, because I realized I am talking and dying and writing and dying, every day. I don't mean it morbidly, just realistically.

Your comments fit into that concept and I appreciated them very much. Tina Lewis Rowe

[Catez]

Thankyou for this David. God does hold us - and I've found he holds the emotions as they are expressed too.

[sojourner]

came over from Nancy's Love blog - thank you for sharing your in most thoughts during your should be sleeping time

[Alexander Jordan]

Thank you for sharing these very personal thoughts. It does seem suffering is a means God uses to grow believers, though, as you testify, we try so hard to avoid it. My wife's been dealing with chronic and debilitating, though not life-threatening illness, for a number of years. I naturally have a hard time accepting it and embracing what God is doing in our lives through it, but I think perhaps I'm accepting it more these days, by God's grace.

Of course no one naturally likes to suffer and there's no need to seek out suffering-- it will come soon enough. I'm encouraged when Christian sufferers draw close to God though, and become more dependent on Him in their suffering because to me it proves these events are not meaningless, random events. God uses them and often becomes more dear to us than ever before.

In my situation, I still must draw closer to God, but one benefit has been a refining of my theology. I have seen that God is good-- in good times and bad.

Someday all our sufferings will cease, amen? I hope your pain in the body is healed and may your soul experience renewal and strength through our Lord.

[SUE]

I WAS TOLD BACK IN SEPTEMBER 2008 THAT I HAD A TUMOUR WHICH TURNED OUT TO BE CANCER THAT MAST INTO THE LIVER THEY SAID I WOULD HAVE AROUND 6-12 MONTHS TO LIVE.I WENT TO THE ONLY SOURCE THAT I KNEW THAT COULD REALLY HELP AND KEEP ME FROM GOING NUTS, GOD.HE HAS ALWAYS BEEN THERE FOR ME AND MY FAMILY. I PUT MY TRUST IN HIM AND I WILL NOT GIVE UP ,BUT WHAT EVER HIS PLAN IS IT IS FINE WITH ME.SO FAR CANCER MARKERS ARE DOWN ALOT AND LIVER MASS IS SHRINKING. SO I THANK GOD FOR EVERY DAY AND ALL THE HUGS AND I LOVE YOUS THAT I NO LONGER TAKE FOR GRANTED. I GIVE GOD ALL THE GLORY FOR MY GETTING BETTER INSTEAD OF SICKER BECAUSE I BELIEVE HE SENT ME WHERE I NEEDED TO GO AND I KNOW HE WALKS WITH ME AND CARRIES ME WHEN I CAN NOT CARRY MYSELF. GOOD LUCK AND MAY GOD BLESS

[Timothy]

Thank you to JB, Sue (above) and to my brother Chris and his wife Linda for referring me to your blog and for their love and support. I too have colon cancer. Colon cancer runs in my family. My sister had polyps removed in her twenties. I waited until I was 52 before getting a colonoscopy and only then because I had blood in my stool. Thank goodness because the symptoms helped me get an early diagnosis. The tumor was removed a few weeks later through endoscopic surgery and I have healed rapidly. The colon cancer hadn't metastasized, but like JB I will live with cancer and need to be on my guard for the rest of my days. If you have a family history of colon cancer (or any other kind) get a colonoscopy or the appropriate screening test ASAP. In my case, research indicates that the sooner the polyps are removed the less likely you will develop cancer. An ounce of prevention is worth many pounds of cure. More below.

The diagnosis changed me dramatically for the better. I stopped taking things for granted, especially my faith, health, family and friends. Over the last couple of years my attitude has improved tremendously. I want to live, and I want to live a good life. As soon as I learned that I had cancer, I immediately started to learn as much as I could about how to it. I discovered that one of the big things I could do was to change my diet. I love ice cream and my beloved dog (Maxine) likes it even more. Every night we'd sit together and share and have a big bowl. We stopped this cold turkey when I discovered that sugar can feed cancer's growth and that milk fat (actually fat's in general) collects and concentrates a lot of poisons that are known carcinogens. The bizarre thing is that in less than a week the arthritis that I was suffering from started to diminish and within a month it was gone. It turns out that milk fats including ice cream can set-off an inflammatory response in the body. Attempts to heal one disease resulted in a cure for another ailment. Amazing.

I started to exercise daily, but took a breather during the surgery and recovery. Within two months of being diagnosed with cancer I felt better than I had in years. I shed a lot of excess body fat and built up my muscle mass. I cut a lot of meat out of my diet. I still eat a little chicken, fish and occasionally a BBQ ora small amount of red meat. I eat lots of organic veggies of all kinds, salads, whole grains, beans despite recent data that indicates a higher risk of colon cancer amongst vegetarians. All other cancers seemed to benefit from a veggie diet. The benefits were immediate, I had literally forgotten what it felt like to feel well. I get lots of sleep and I try to practice praying throughout the day. My spiritual diet nurtures a positive attitude which makes me want to fight and beat the cancer and help others do the same. The good food makes me feel strong and well and I know however many days I have left, they will be good quality days full of love and true happiness.

Two years before the cancer diagnosis, I battled the worst bout of depression in my life. I was full of despair and really didn't want to live. After laying awake for 5 nights, I experienced what is best described as a miracle. My head completely cleared as a result of listening to the rain drops hit our roof in a torrential rain storm. With the help of my wife, friends, counsellors and people of faith, I have changed my whole outlook on life. I am no longer depressed or full of fear and anger. This dark outlook may have allowed the cancer to take root, but it is gone. Once I discovered I had cancer I resolved not go back to that horrible place where I had once dwelled: the land of depression. If I hadn't beaten the depression, I am sure that my response to this cancer would have been one of resignation, even relief.

If you find out that you have cancer and you are depressed, please go and seek out help not just for the cancer, but for the depression too. I found the most help from people of faith, people full God's love. In my case, I am a Christian. Jesus' healing love is expressed in a myriad of ways through the Bible which records his healing words and touch, his death and resurrection. And I am blessed to have people of great faith who have shown me love and compassion and helped me heal. They are all inspired by Jesus, the greatest healer the world has ever known. I believe my healing also reveals the glory of God. Please ask for help in prayer, seek wise and compassionate counsel, look after yourself, seek excellent medical services to help you heal. Then go and do likewise.

[Brigitte Sands]

Interesting thoughts from all of you ..Thank you Timothy..I relate to what you shared.I am in recovery now and resting home from an hysterectomy where I had endometrial cancer and waitng on tests results to see if there is anymore in that area that wasnt detectable at the time,my faith in God keeps me positive and keeps my depression down so Im not as low as I was before I began treatment nor after the surgery.God bless you all.