Lymph Journal # 35

2/29/2012
Happy Leap Day!

Well, I’ve had a quiet few days since the last posting as my body has gone through the ever more recognizable post chemo treatment cycle.  Each time I seem to be tolerating it better with less time spent in a fog and less trouble with variations on the theme of nausea.  It’s now one week since the last cycle and I’m hoping for a string of strong days.

I’ve had a busy calendar – well busy in my new understanding of the word – basically meaning I had one place to go/procedure to undergo for three days in a row.  Monday was a CT scan (results of which I hope to hear later today).  Tuesday an echocardiogram to determine any negative impact of chemo on my heart (preliminary finding: no problem), and today blood tests and a follow up with the oncologist.  We’re beginning the communication dance of trying to sense where the doc feels we’re headed diagnostically speaking.  How do we ascertain the real effects of the treatment, how likely is further treatment, and, of course, some sense of the , “What are my chances?” question.  A bit sobering.

A package arrived from First Baptist Church of Narragansett, our home church, loaded with valentine hearts promising prayer and bearing personal messages from the folks back home.  Here they are:

 Happy Valentines Day!

Previously I have mentioned that we’re quite pleased with the standards of medical care here in Germany – in general and particularly with regards to state of the art treatment for lymphoma.  We still feel that way.  I’d also like to mention that our living situation is pretty pleasant.  As a somewhat housebound patient whose world has contracted to passing much time in the apartment, I want to let you see that things could be a lot worse.  We really like our place.  The photos below will give you some sense of the main living area and the views from our balcony (where I hope to spend more time as the weather breaks).  One of Carl’s friends upon entering the apartment said, “This reminds me of a beach house.”  Despite the fact we’re far from a beach, especially one that involves vast amounts of salt water, I think he hit on something and maybe that’s one reason we like it.  It’s bright and cheery, relatively easy (meaning cost effective) to heat and illuminate, and keep clean, and being on the top floor on the high side of town gives us a sense of connection to the hills and vistas around us.  We’re also at the quiet end of a cul-de-sac – quiet unless the two dorms that are located next to us are up to some noisy outdoor activity.  By the way, we love the sounds of those activities – they’re a reminder of the pleasure we have had working with the students of BFA.

 Living/dining area.

 Our, "Watch your head!" kitchen.

 Overview from the loft.

 One balcony view to the North.

 View to the Southwest.

So, life is pretty good for the shape we’re in.  We continue thankful for the prayers and support shown by folks far and near.  God blesses us directly and through the lives of his people.

Lymph Journal # 34

2/24/2012

 Part III of III

“…and to die is gain,”

I’m starting this blog entry back in the chemo lounge as the red medicine (Doxorubicin) begins its flow.  That’s a sign to start drinking copious amounts of mineral water so that the water I make spends less time taking on the hue of the infusion.  Full house this morning but pretty quiet.

Back to the subject – remember that this is not coming out of a morbid preoccupation with mortality or of pessimism regarding my treatment it was just time to work through this essential piece of what I hold to as truth.  I am, rather, optimistic at this time but should things “go south” these truths are especially important.

“Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die.”  The first record of this maxim I found is that of Tom Delaney (1889-1963) – an African-American blues and jazz composer, pianist for Ethel Waters. It is the title of (and a lyric from) a song Delany wrote sometime prior to 1948.   It has appeared in the reggae and in the bluegrass traditions and was recently recorded by David Crowder who then (I just discovered in my research this morning) used it as the title for his first attempt at publishing a book. (Zondervan).

Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die. Yeah, I guess it’s another gross generalization.   Some people want to die due to despair in circumstance, shame, clinical depression, etc. but, by in large, we tend to want to avoid this inevitability.  And we cannot argue that everybody wants to go to heaven but, I would argue that, everybody wants at least a neutral to a positive outcome on the other side of life.  Yeah, there are those who assert that they would rather end up in the eternal destination that is full of the cool people rather than the religious nuts but I really don’t think it quite works out to be enjoyable – please people, be careful for what you wish.  If you want to get one thing right in this life, it ought to be a reasoned and informed view of what comes after.

Paul asserted that death was “gain”.  Intellectually, rationally, based on the truth in Scripture regarding eternity he is absolutely right.  He knew that the “weight of glory” that lay ahead far outweighed the “light and momentary” troubles of this life (2Corinthians 4:17).  He knew “absence from the body” is “presence with the Lord” (2 Corinthians 5:8).  (Lord knows he brushed death many times before he made his “death is gain” assertion and he must have been a bit weary of “cheating” death so many times.)  People who hold to a hope of some kind of heaven and certainly the Christian believer can agree that “death is gain” but the death part still bothers us.

Well, death should bother us.  It ain’t the way it’s supposed to be.  Here’s the biblical argument: death = a curse that wasn’t there at the start, death = a penalty for rebellion against God that won’t be there at the end of time, death = an enemy (Paul in I Corinthians 15:26 calls it the “last enemy to be destroyed”) already defeated in and by Christ but as not yet destroyed.  This is an enemy we’re not supposed to love. 

This is an enemy we’re called to fight against even though we never ultimately succeed, barring the end of time, in avoiding.  Death, even though it serves as the gateway to all that is promised, still stinks.  It usually hurts, it’s fraught with anxieties, it grieves all involved – yeah it pretty much behaves like an enemy.

How can death already be defeated but not yet destroyed?  Well, take a look at the bookends of Scripture.  On one end you have Eden and on the other end the New Earth joined by the New Jerusalem aka the New Heaven.  In both places there is the Tree of Life (in the last place its fruit is shared and “heals the nations” – cool picture!).  In both places there is God – in Eden a regular evening visitor, in New Jerusalem everlastingly at home.  In both places there is no rebellion towards God (temporarily in the first, permanently in the second).  But you and I live in “In-between land” – the place of rebellion against God, the place where death casts a dire shadow, the place of gross imperfection that the perfect Son of God entered into to make it possible for us to be reconciled with God.  “In-between land” has many a paradox, much upside down thinking, frustrating levels of things that make little sense. Have you ever considered that so much in this world makes little sense until you can see beyond this time and space and think things through in an eternal sense?  When you get there most everything makes sense – consider Paul’s “light and momentary” troubles – he faced some really bad stuff  for years before release came by, tradition says, beheading.  Bet it all makes sense to him now.

In In-between-land we can begin to see that death, the last enemy, has been defeated, as the resurrection of Christ clearly demonstrates, but is not yet destroyed.  We can know that its destruction is part of God’s game plan.  So here and now we’re stuck with needing to face and fight an ugly enemy to find the gain that comes when that enemy wins round 1.  It totally loses after that – the believer has gained immeasurably above all that could be asked or imagined. 

So, I think it’s OK to be a bit ambivalent about death as a believer.  I don’t want to die right now, I want to engage in “fruitful labor” – it’s a great life when you see that happening.  But I also want to, when it happens, die well – to “in no way be ashamed but will have sufficient courage” (Paul’s words).

But, like I stated before, it makes sense to figure out in this life a rational, reasoned and informed idea of what happens when you die or rather after you die.  I was once drafted last-minute to speak at a Career Day session because the “rocket scientist” (really – true story) had a last minute schedule conflict and the coordinator figured. “Well Kraines, he’s had a lot of different jobs, let’s ask him.”  Well Kraines doesn’t mind getting these kinds of opportunities but how to share core truths in a public school address?  Towards the conclusion of my recounting of the lessons learned in each job I had held to date I recalled the lesson from my days working in the funeral business.  I told the kids that “you’re going to be dead for a really long time” so you better search for truth regarding what’s up then. 

Yes, it makes sense to prepare for where and how that long time will be spent. There are loads of opinions out there.  Those that don’t think too deeply might assume that it’s all going to work out OK because, well, on the spectrum of living I’m not so bad and the God, or the Force or whatever vague idea of the spiritual - well, he, she, it is not so bad either so I’ll end up in the vague not so bad eternal not-so-badness or, at worst, it will just be all over and I won’t care.

But, for the believer, we know there is the enormously bad alternative ending.  Jesus, the real Jesus and not the vague guru of pop culture, spoke of Hell more than he spoke of Heaven.  He didn’t paint a pretty picture and He intimated that the pathway to there is wide while the way to Heaven is narrow (and, indeed was through Him). 

Consider another gross generalization: Human beings crave justice.  We don’t like to see cruelty run rampant (unless we’re excusing our own cruelties), we don’t like seeing tyrants win (unless it’s a tyranny that benefits us), we want “fairness” (as long as it breaks our way).  Our desire for justice is strong yet fractured.  Sometimes we even accuse God of unfairness because if He’s so “all that” why does such suffering happen? We don’t want to see Hitler in heaven or have Stalin in the next room of the mansion.  The drunk driver that walked away from the fatal accident – how is that just? 

This stuff bothers us.  Good – it’s part of the cracked image of God we bear.  God does not have a sense of justice - God’s is just, God is justice in all its perfection.  And God doesn’t only love, He is love and He doesn’t want any to ultimately perish but to come to repentance. And so God does the crazy thing.  He satisfies the demands of justice through his infinite mercy (but mercy is not enough) and the personal sacrifice of the incarnate God (yeah, that, God declares, is enough – as Jesus said on the cross, “It is finished” – no more important words were ever spoken by human lips). 

So our imperfect, self-biased search for justice is perfected by God and offered to us as a choice.  God does not make us buy into this but He desires that we will and offers it freely to all who will trust in it.  But that leaves the question for those who still hold out against the mercy of God.  This, the Christian view argues and it seems a rational argument to me, is not a choice that leads to anything I’d want to experience after I die but it does makes sense that such a bad outcome exists.  For the rebel against God’s mercy death is anything but gain.

But how to make death a gain?  There are two things necessary.  You need to trust in the finished work of Christ (trust is a big word – think putting all your eggs in one basket – kind of what it means when you say “for to me to live is Christ) and, here in “In-between land”, you’ve got to die. 

Think about this – you’re going to do the second thing no matter what, what are you going to do with the first?

Lymph Journal # 33

2//2012 - Part II of III

For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain.  Philippians 1:21

Let’s get some context – Paul is writing from prison (a place where death was always a strongly possible outcome).  He has just told the Philippians not to get upset if others are preaching the gospel with different motives than Paul – as long as it is being preached and then he launches into this:

   …Yes, and I will continue to rejoice, 19 for I know that through your prayers and the help given by the Spirit of Jesus Christ, what has happened to me will turn out for my deliverance. 20 I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. 21 For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. 22 If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. Yet what shall I choose? I do not know! 23 I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far; 24 but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body. 25 Convinced of this, I know that I will remain, and I will continue with all of you for your progress and joy in the faith, 26 so that through my being with you again your joy in Christ Jesus will overflow on account of me.

27 Whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ…(NIV ’84)

I could go on and on about points of this but you’d be better off to read it through a few times and see what he’s saying, where his joy lies, what he hopes for, who he depends on, etc.

Did you do that?  Good.

But back to Paul’s key phrase for this entry – “For to me, to live is Christ…”

For to everyone (yes, gross generalization again but..) there is something for which to live.  For the human species “living” is more that the mammalian qualities of digestion, respiration, locomotion, reproduction and Got Milk.  There’s community, culture, beliefs, purposefulness, self-consciousness, aesthetics – things the Christian believer sees as rooted in our creation as God’s image bearers (Yikes!, don’t we blow this often individually and as a species). 

But what is a real, good, juicy, purposeful, and full life supposed to be?  From the dim recesses of childhood TV viewing I remember the punch line from one joke in that corny show about the U.S. Cavalry out West, F-Troop.  I wish I could remember the set-up but it came to the point in the joke where the Indians, the Heckowees (– I do remember this – that’s what they were called because they had been lost and cried out to some dim white folk, “Where the heck are we? -  heard as We’re the Heckowees) were asked about where they lived and the response was, “You call this living?!”

So, what do you call living? What does it mean that one’s life can be Christ?

Well, I’m not Christ.  I can’t be him.  God is not my natural Father (although I claim him as my adoptive one and I consider myself as also being “born” into the family of God).  I have not lived a perfect life (although Scripture claims God sees me as one washed by the blood of Christ into the standing of one perfected).  I cannot die as a substitute for the failings of the world or even for my own failings (although I will die physically as a result of these failings but I will live beyond because Christ was willing and a capable to do what I can’t).  I can’t overcome death (although Christ has done so and extends that to me).

So, if I can’t be Christ it must mean that I have to find myself in Christ.  Some of that shows up in the parenthetical remarks of the previous paragraph.  But, what does it mean day to day as I walk through life and live? Here’s just a few things I think it means.

We’ve got to learn to live dangerously.  Many might recognize this as a theme I first really explored when I had the high honor to address BFA graduation of the class of 2005.  It has since been turned into a theme for one season’s English Camps (complete with T-shirts and coffee mugs) and a song by Danny Plett (for which he generously listed me as a co-writer – he’d been to graduation).  I guess I should have franchised the idea.  What I mean by living dangerously and what I told that graduating class was that living in Christ’s hands means that you’ll be called to do things that aren’t always safe and expected in whatever culture you find yourself.  It might mean a literally dangerous setting.  It might mean extending love to someone you just distrust.  It might mean living counter-culturally in a materialistic (philosophically or wealth-related senses both apply here) culture.  It might means truthfulness when lying seems so much easier or even less hurtful. 

Another classroom wall hanging from back in public school days was a question paraphrased by me offered in various forms by a number of famous thinkers and activists - my version went like this: “If what you’re living for isn’t worth dying for, then is what you’re living for worth living for?”  A fifth grade teacher on seeing this on my wall (yes, fifth grade teachers think differently from eighth grade teachers) said, “Gee, that’s kind of dark.”  Well, I don’t think so. Life should be so real.

What “living dangerously, safe in the hands of God” doesn’t mean is living recklessly.  Don’t ignore the common “sense that God gave geese” as the phrase goes.  Don’t ignore the precepts of Scripture, they provide plenty of range to live well dangerously and to keep us from living or even dying stupidly.

What living dangerously also does not mean is living “safely”.  Living “safely” means never taking the risk of believing God or of answering his callings in your life because they might not seem safe or comfortable.  I hope that safe living comes to bore the heck out of each one of us and we learn to be in Christ and live a bit dangerously.

What does it mean to be in Christ on a more micro level – on a day-to-day, moment by moment level.  Well, there are many spiritual disciplines of thought and attitude you can practice for sure – all well worth doing.  But the thing I was churning over last night and again this morning (I’m still writing from yesterday’s early wake-up) was that being in Christ causes us, as John the Baptizer put it, to let him increase and let us decrease – to, in a modern expression, realize that it’s not all about me and it should be all about him.  Imagine this – you’re about to walk into a room or situation filled with people and the messiness of life is there.  How do you approach it “in Christ”?  Consciously and, with practice, then maybe unconsciously you can tune up with some of these conveniently rhyming questions:

Is there an aspect of God’s goodness I can reflect?

Is there someone here to whom and for whom I should connect?

Is there some truth here I can help others to detect?

Is there a lie here I should lead others to reject?

Is there someone’s hurt here I can deflect?

Is there a situation I can positively affect?

(Make up your own questions for “correct”, “respect”, “protect”, “direct”, “expect”, etc.)

Any or all of these can help you decrease and Christ increase as long as you pursue them in his grace and strength.

For to me to live is Christ – it brings depth and meaning and purpose into my life while at the same time lessening that which needs lessening.  Certainly Paul, as he develops his thoughts, recognizes the importance of ministry and calling.  I don’t want to die yet.  I like it that I’m in a place where that I believe God has called me to in a ministry that I enjoy and shows fruit – I think I have some yet to give – but that, of course is my thinking.  I want to grow old with the wife of my youth and to see my kids all walk with the Lord in the paths that God has for them.  In Christ may my life be for as long s it is granted here.

So may we come to say with Paul, “For to me to live is Christ…”  I can’t say it in full confidence yet – there’s along way until I get there but I want to get there.

We’ll get to “death is gain” next time.

Lymph Journal # 32

2/22/2012

Time to start another round today.  It’s been so great to feel so great for the last week and now it’s time to spend a few days feeling less than great.  It’s part of the deal and it’s OK.  It broke sunny and cloudless this morning and I scored a lounge chair in the chemo room with my back facing where the sun will be pouring in more and more as the day progresses – thankful for these little things.  The lounge crowd is pretty quiet this morning and the antihistamine fuzz is beginning to be felt as the infusion begins - so much so that I need to put this aside for now.

Well, for now meant until 5AM the next morning.  This is, I think, the first time I’ve had trouble sleeping through the night since treatment began in early January.  Generous hydration (recommended as part of the therapy) and some of the internal rearrangements of chemo – my abdomen seems to vary widely in shape and tension throughout each cycle – lead to a night’s rest with – Oh, how to put this delicately? – frequent (I can almost set my watch by them) brief interruptions but I usually get right back into REM mode and have more crazy dreams.  Last night as I went to bed I could feel the day’s long antihistamine fog lifting and I began the think about where I wanted to go with this entry and woke up at 4AM still working it out.

Good news! – we’re back online at home.  The new router arrived and I actually

rallied enough by late afternoon to set it up.  Thus ends a week of trudging next door

or, on days with the right microclimate, opening up Carl’s window and trying to grab

next door’s signal to check and send email.  It’s kind of funny some of the cross

cultural pronunciations between German and English.  In “talking” (a generous

description on my part) with D-Telekom the word router was always pronounced

rooter (as in my rooter is kaput). It took some getting used to.  There’s all sorts of

these things in any language crossover.  “Th” as s, “w” as “v” and the reverse,

pronunciation of all vowels including what, to an English speaker, would be silent -

it’s all quite fun.  Ven vee say that our city, vich is more like a large willage, lies in the

sous of Germany, people often sink vee live in Bawaria.  I remember that most

amusing day in German I when I was assigned a read aloud portion that

compared geographical features of Germany and the USA.  Much amusement was

had by all (including my classmate Diane) as I fell into the ex-pat trap of trying to

pronounce American terms the way a German would.  Such and such a region in

Germany compares to the state of Mine-ay (Maine – duh!) in the Northwest of the

OOH.ESS.AH.

(Sorry about the formatting issue above)

This is enough digression if I expect anyone to continue reading what I actually have

been working through.  As I begin this bit may I say that I am relatively optimistic at this point in the therapy so it is not coming out of an overwhelming pre-occupation with the life-threatening nature of my brand of lymphoma but that it is something everyone (I may use “everyone” often from this point on and I know that is a gross generalization but forgive that and remember I recognize the point) has to deal with due to the fact that at some point in their ones life one dies. (That’s not a generalization but a proven medical fact – so far).

Depending on whatever your formal or informal – I’ll say it because that’s my schtick in the classroom – worldview you have a different starting point for the thought process.  For the Christian believer it is hard to find a better place than the apostle Paul’s confession that, “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain”.  (found in the first chapter of his letter to the Philippians) For an apostle that could be so wordy (just try diagramming some of his longer sentences sometime – do people diagram sentences anymore?) this is pretty succinct.  It’s also pretty packed as you consider it.

When you have the luxury of a “heads-up” on the substantial possibility of looming death (as if is it is not the thing that we ALL have to do sometime) you can’t help but ask some of the classic questions of what your life has meant?, don’t you wish you had more time or had spent the time you did have better?, what comes next?, etc.

I’ve asked them.  Diane and I have had some of the necessary conversations and I’ve tried to write out the practical details of navigating through the detritus of death (financial records, how do you pays bills online with our German bank, you’d better get multiple official death certificates for life insurance, retirement pension, etc.).  So we’re in the loop on matters of life significance and practical considerations.

As Paul faced the real possibility of his own death (that man had a lot of practice with this, I’m sure) he came up with (my paraphrase),  “Here’s life – Christ, here’s death – gain.”  I’ve had the opportunity to teach about this before and recently to have conversations regarding this truth and tension and, of course, I have to live it but then again, so do you.  As I’ve thought more intensely about it over this past week I realize Paul’s mantra is both true and a call to understand what we consider life to be, what we consider death to be and how does Christ and “what comes next” relate to it all.  I’ll start my attempt to break it down in today’s post and continue in the next – no, actually, I’ll let you rest your eyes today and pick it up next time.

Lymph Journal # 31

2/20/2012

The bridge at Bad Säckingen

This is the fourth or fifth day in a row of feeling quite good.  The cycle will begin again two days from now so I’m enjoying it to the full.  It is so novel to be eating like I am.  I feel like a teenage boy in this respect – I have vague memories of what that was like and Carl serves as an everpresent reminder of that time when you could eat like a horse and not gain any weight.  I’m getting my three squares a day and they’re each generous with much snacking (often food that’s “good for you” but sometimes just stuff to add protein and/or pounds) in between.  I’m also feeling good enough to cook – last night’s pork roast – yum!

Today is Rosenmontag – Rose Monday – part of the pre-Lenten season here in Germany.  Janz Team Germany traditionally hosts Kindertag, an outreach to younger children, at BFA which is a convenient locale seeing as school is out for the holiday. This year over 70 volunteers from Janz Team Germany, BFA, local German churches, etc. are helping out and we look forward to hearing good things from it.

I mentioned the Fasching celebrations in a recent post.  On Saturday Diane and I took advantage of a sunny day and my feeling well to goof off for an afternoon.  We ended up driving down (or rather up as in up the Rhine) to Bad Säckingen a town famous for the longest wooden covered bridge spanning the Rhine, a trumpet museum and a Baroque style church which houses the bones of St. Fridolin.  Saint Fridolin was an Irish missionary who, back when centuries were labeled with three digits, traveled to this region to bring the faith to the local Alemmanish peoples.

 St. Fridolin's

The community also has, get this, a Woolworth’s Department Store – go figure!

Bad Säckingen is also a “city” that celebrates Fasching on the Saturday of the weekend so we ended up in the thick of it unintentionally.  The central square was populated by costumed folk both young and old, food vendors and a stage where the raucous discordant Fasching bands played.  We wandered a bit, made our pilgrimage to Woolworths which, incidentally, was not selling either hats or watches – the very two things on our list.  For our RI friends – you know one could find both of these at Benny’s!  (If it’s not at Benny’s, you don’t need it!).  Later we found what we thought would be a somewhat quiet restaurant in a successful search for gulasch (spicy vegetable/beef) soup.  The soup was good, the bread even better but, then , as we approached departure time, in streamed an entire Fasching band.  (Sax, trumpet, drum, clarinet, tuba, a dancing snowman, etc.)  They were actually pretty good and got through three numbers before wearing down the barkeep who sent them a round to slake their thirst and rehydrate their chops.  Living in Germany we run into more festivals than you’d think.

The disappointment of the weekend was the second death of our internet service (grrr!, grrr! More dealing with DTelekom!).  We had scheduled a Skype type chat with our home church so this was a little problem soon solved by going next door to Diane’s office and conducting it from there.  That was fun for both sides of the interchange and certainly a blessing for us.

Today was a beautiful sunny day and Carl was off so this afternoon we decided to let him try out some driving.  This is a little problematic over here where the driving age begins at 18 but if we were back in the States it would be appropriate.  There are quite a few practice strips of pavement running through various fields and vineyards but not a lot of wide-open and empty parking lots.  The Holzen soccer field parking lot is where I always take my English Camp van drivers in training so we started there with the hardest lesson of all – mastering the clutch/accelerator balance in a manual transmission.  I never really forced my girls to learn this largely because we really had only automatics on which to learn.  (Well, there was the non-power-steering , 4WD Toyota that needed a weightlifter to steer in a parking lot but I didn’t push it).  The lad came a long way in a day!

Diane spent most of the day today productively tearing through the pile of work she has before her.  It’s good to see that that aspect of our ministry lives is still growing and prospering.  I did get to talk with a few of my students – some who walked by when Carl was going through his parking lot paces and a few next door at a bonfire behind the dorms.  It is a reminder of how much I miss this bunch of students.  Despite that longing to be involved in their lives through the classroom, God continues to grant such a peace about it.  I continue to be amazed that, at the end of the day, I’m not feeling shortchanged or cheated.  I am “doing” what I should be doing right now, for this season of life and that is OK here at the halfway point of six rounds of treatment.  Pray that such peace would continue to rule.

 Strolling the bridge

Lymph Journal # 30

2/17/2012

Feeling really great today!! This morning included a walk downtown (Kandern residents don’t laugh too hard) with Diane for an appointment she had.  I loitered on the streets for a bit while she was occupied.  In the twenty minutes or so I sat on a park bench opposite the Forest/Hunter House established 1587 (the weather has warmed up to where this was pleasant) I observed three of the constant locals of Kandern.  There was “walking Man”, a guy who spends much of his day just walking around the explanation of which I’ve heard different versions but none authoritative, walking Older Lady who always looks to be in a pleasant mood, and biking Older Lady who does the same as these other two but on two wheels.  The central square, the Blumenplatz was festooned with loftily strung clotheslines from which hung an assortment of old shirts, rags and, most provocatively, underwear of varying shapes , sizes and styles.  Between that sight and the sound of a brass and drum band somewhere outside our apartment last night I know we’re reaching the “highlight” of Fasching season.  This is Germany’s version of Carnival and is associated with a period of bacchanalia, a masked parade, competing Fasching bands, and a blind eye to some pretty gross immoral license on the eve of the Lenten season.  It seems to be an amalgamation of old pagan customs somewhat influenced by the adoption of the Christian calendar.  Traditions do run deeply here and we’ll be seeing fires on the hilltops this weekend as part of the “observance”.

Fasching parade 2009

Time for a more detailed treatment update for those who are curious.  I have completed 3 of 6 R CHOP chemo cycles each lasting for two weeks.  My blood work came back as, what I would call, good yesterday.  Reds, whites, and platelets are better than when I was first diagnosed.  I’m eating well and trying to keep the weight on (I think it swings a few pounds either way depending on what part of a two week cycle I’m in.).  I should be finished with the 6 initial cycles by the end of March.  In discussions with the oncologist yesterday he said, and this agrees with some of the online research we’ve done, that I’d probably have two more rounds of the Rituximab (Rituxin on the western side of the pond) – again these are monoclonal antibodies that attack lymphoma cells with, hopefully, a vengeance.  Following this there is the possibility of another chapter of treatment involving autologous (my own) stem cell (pulled from my blood) therapy.  The stem cells would be harvested and jujued up in the laboratory and frozen while I get hit by two more powerful blasts of chemo.  After this the stem cells would be reintroduced to rebuild my blood, etc.

Here’s a fairly coherent explanation: http://www.cancercenter.com/stem-cell/stem-cell-autologous.cfm

So, halfway on phase one of treatment.  After round four I go for a CT scan and an echocardiogram both standard procedure here.

That’s it for now.  Sitting outside today has really whet my appetite for warmer weather – we have a lovely little balcony here and many park benches around the town from where I can see the familiar characters on their daily rounds.  I just might become one of them.

 A view of the apartment in a warmer season

Lymph Journal # 29

2/16/2012

Well the Internet has been down in our home over the last few days shrinking things for us just a bit more.  Three days phoning back and forth with Deutsche Telekom has yet to yield a positive outcome although they have promised to send a technician between 8AM and noon today.  I began writing this at 11:21 – promises have been made and broken over the three previous days.  I don’t mean to sound whiny and there is so much I appreciate about getting by in the culture of Germany but “customer service” is rather a novel concept here.

I’ve made it through the expected physical crash following the last round by not experiencing it.  I did have a few days of mental fogginess but never reeled under nausea and kept my appetite throughout.  I strictly kept to the anti-nausea pills (I swallow so many pills!).  That and the concerted prayers of many people have seen me through this usually unpleasant window.

Today is our thirty-second anniversary.  I’ve got to say, I married well. 

A few entries ago I wrote of the beauty of “normal”.  That was really only in relation to how one physically feels and normal is so good in that respect.  But normal in other contexts is not always the most beautiful way to approach life.  Our life together has been far from normal and for that I am very grateful.  And that life together has been energized by the steadfast love of Diane for me and for her God throughout all the less than normal chapters of our lives together. 

As I reflected in the early morning today I remembered how her love and faith have endured as we built the unique family we have and enjoy.  Nine years of “challenge” in getting a family started (which also moved Diane’s instrumental role in getting CareNet RI started as the South County Crisis Pregnancy Center), our first being a seventeen year old niece from whom we learned child rearing from the opposite end of the chronological order, two adopted beauties, one miracle birth, one foster child, a second miracle birth, and all the adventures, joys and hurdles in that litany – Diane was loving and faithful and wise throughout.  Yup, I married well.

Multiple career choices for me – public school teacher, fisherman, carpenter, missionary – Diane survived them all and thrives as a full time missionary herself today pushing the Language Services envelope for TeachBeyond and I couldn’t be more impressed by how she’s taken on this responsibility.  Yup, I married well.

Multiple strange physical health issues with me (we were taking inventory a few weeks back and it’s hard to find a region of my body that hasn’t had some weird circumstance occur – I’m a modern medical miracle!) including the present condition and we’re still good.  Yup, I married well.

Rebuilding our first house literally around us – you, if you haven’t seen the pictures, how squalid things were for a time – (Brief, I hope, time-out – D-Telekom is here!) (We’re back online!) Moving back and forth from the USA to Germany as well as moving five times in Germany – she was game for it all.  Yup, I married well.

Those are some of the things on the short list of not so normal.  This chapter of life certainly ranks as an unexpected chapter but we are as close or closer than ever and, even though it won’t be a fancy restaurant tonight (but I did buy some steaks) I can say with all assurance that it is another happy anniversary and that I, indeed, married well.  I’d do it again in a heartbeat!

Lymph Journal # 28

2/11/2012

Day 2 following round 3 of chemo and I’m enjoying a fairly comfortable day.  I recognize the signs of impending side effects over the course of the next few days – a bit fuzzy in the head aka “chemo brain”, tightness in the chest (no not heart attack just something that lasts a day or two after chemo but I see now why heart and lung evaluation were necessary before starting up chemo), and all sorts of weirdness in the belly region.  Do I dread the days? – well, a bit, they’re not comfortable but it’s part of the deal and overall I guess I’m pleased that I “lose” only 3-4 days out of a fourteen-day cycle.

The past few days have been filled with encouragements and a grudging admission that lymphoma can be counted as one of God’s blessings in my life (and Diane’s as well).  God grows us through the hard stuff.

Grudging because – well, it’s no picnic and I wouldn’t have chosen this path – so I don’t eagerly embrace the time-honored, repeatedly-celebrated, sometimes cliché sounding truth that we are to “count it (all trials, etc.) all joy”.  But, darn it, I’m finding it to be true. 

But, why a blessing?  Well, first the internal effects of going through this disease and treatment are profound.  Facing the immediacy of possible death and/or the seriousness of heavy-duty medicine have a way of concentrating the mind and heart on things of importance – that should come as no big news to any of you who have walked such a path.  Back in my grade eight public school classroom I used to have posted on the wall this: Momento Mori meaning “Remember, you must die” and used sometimes as a label for reminders of mortality found in works of art.  It took the students about a month to ask me why it was up there and what it meant at which point I’d explain the literal meaning and offer them the perspective that you ought to consider mortality when you figure out how to go about living your life.  Cheery guy me, but I always thought it a good life lesson.

I’m not big into the more mystical aspects of religious practice – I respect those traditions but have never been one to seek out ascetic retreats or feel that incense could somehow enhance my prayer life – again, this is not meant to malign such practice, it just hasn’t been mine.  But, I’ve got to tell you now, with a few weeks perspective, I found my first round of chemo (day 2 heavy chemical day) to be one of the most profoundly mystical experiences of my life.  It was a time of deep worship.  Plugged into my music, listening mainly to Rich Mullins tunes (he had a deep appreciation for the eternal perspective – even deeper now, I suppose, having “crossed over” himself) I reveled in the truths of God’s promises. 

And then I got peeled. 

I’ll say it here, disagree with me if you will, but we’re all messed up and we’re all at different places on that road to getting more or less messed up.  I am messed up and chemo day helped by peeling me.  Think about the discussion between Shrek and Donkey in the original Shrek movie.  Shrek maintained ogres were like onions – they have a lot of layers and Donkey, insisting on a more positive spin suggested that one could be like a cake or a parfait – you could have layers but not stink.  Shrek stuck to his guns – he had onion layers and he was right.  I have/had layers that are/were more onion than parfait.  We all do.  Prideful disguises, artful dodges, secret protected weaknesses and sin, fears and insecurities, old hurts and baggage – man the list can go on and on and I could check of a number of these less that delightful items.  But that day, facing the awesomeness of my God’s tenacious, terrifying and absolutely tender love and in the light of the circumstances I got peeled – that’s the best way I can describe it.  I could almost feel the layers gently being torn away.  I am far from perfect, far from finished and I wish I could better articulate this but I am so thankful for it.

Why else has lymphoma been a blessing?  Well, back to the encouragements of just the past few days.  We’ve had all sorts of notes, emails, dropped off treats and CDs or DVDs, packages in the post, etc. just in these past three days.  I even got assurances from a former BFA student/staff person who now is an international flight attendant that, seeing as the inhabited continents were all covered, she’d cover s in prayer over various oceans.  All these things are buoying but the best pearls within them are when people reveal how our journey through all this is impacting or has impacted them.  I deeply appreciate hearing these things from friends, family, students and the like.  It brings joy and reveals God’s wider purposes in this to some degree.  We can see God working in us and in other people and that is marvelous.

So we’ll do our best to count it all joy – and we’re seeing just how, unlikely as it is humanly speaking, God’s providing the signposts to get there.

Lymph Journal #27

2/8/2012

Chemo Day #1 Round Three

After six days of feeling quite good it’s time to face the music again.  I’m hooked up and ready at nine AM with today’s gang of fellow infusionees.  The Marmalade Lady has just entered the room her knitting needles and sonic voice confirm the sighting.  We’ll have to wait and see whether today will have a topic for her.  There’s another lady stretched out in one of the lounges not hooked up to anything but asleep and snoring up a storm.  Another pair of patients in quiet conversation and a Sudoku puzzler is hard at in in another chair.  So far I’m the only overtly chemo bald person I’ve seen in the treatments so far.  I’ve suspected a few wigs along the way (in a quick room scan there are two pretty certain cases today) so I guess I sort of stand out.  Well, the hat was getting itchy so I’m letting the head shine in all its glory.

Today’s the day when, along with a few other odds and ends, I get the Rutuximab (Rutuxin) infusion.  I got the bill for the chemo drugs administered by infusion the other day and Rutuxin is definitely the big ticket item costing excess of 3000€ or $4000.  The mice used in the process of growing the monoclonal antibodies that make up Rutuxin must be pretty well paid. 

My hemoglobin is down a bit but still in the acceptable range at 9.0.  I’ve been feeling quite strong – I even skipped the elevator this morning to get up to the treatment center.  The lowest I’ve seen it was 7.  The day I had that reading was he day when death truly looked like a likely outcome of the disease.  Blood transfusion rectified the problem but today I don’t need one.  The slowness at which my hemoglobin has run down over these past few weeks is really quite encouraging and gives me hope that treatment is doing what it’s supposed to do.

Diane and I had a taste of home last night for my “last supper” before a round of chemo.  A local supermarket was advertising “winter Kabeljau”, German for codfish.  Sure enough that’s what it was – fresh cod filets with the skin still on thereby confirming the species.  So, creamed codfish was last night’s entrée (Carl had dinner out with his German teacher and two other classmates as a reward for having spoken the most German during their weekend in Munich) and it was delicious.  I’ve been craving decent seafood of late and I don’t think there’s much better a way to ingest protein that fresh fish.  Apart from bouncing grandkids on my knee and seeing family and friends, fresh seafood is what we miss the most living here. 

All is quiet from the Marmalade lady and the dopiness that is part of today’s infusion is beginning to manifest itself so, until later, Tschüss! (informal greeting/goodbye now banned in favor of Grüss Gott in certain Bavarian public schools).

Back from the edge of drowsiness and I look around the room seeing that some of the characters have changed.  The Marmalade lady knits (looks looks a mitten) on but remains conversationally quiet.  The snorer is hooked up to something now and there are a few new faces.  Day one of the two day cycle runs five to six hours for me so there’s lots of time for the actors to change.  The cast of sunlight has shifted about 45 degrees along the floor and walls and I hope to be out before I become a direct recipient of its rays.  The snorer has awoken, been disconnected and bid Adieu to us all,

I was listening to music while in and out of sleepy mode and it’s always a powerful thing.  I started writing today with no particular “message” in mind, I just wanted to give a first hand “real time” impression of the chemo therapy room experience.  But the songs once again force reflection.  Twice, in the last twelve hours, two different people have asked me how I’m “doing spiritually”.  It’s a question caring brothers and sisters of faith who’ve achieved appropriately intimate levels of relationship and respect are entitled and, indeed, encouraged to ask of one another.  It’s more that a Hello, how are you sort of question and it deserves an honest answer.  (in part because they know it might come right back at them!)

So, how am I doing spiritually?  The short answer is, “I’m doing well” but that certainly could use some definition.  The greatest anchor in doing well spiritually these days is the anchor of peace.  God has granted to me and to Diane as well, I believe, and, as is promised in Scripture, a peace that passes all understanding.  We are firmly assured, convicted and convinced that God is powerful, loving, strong and good.  He’s also in charge whether or not we recognize that so we might as well recognize that. We know that when all is said and done, what is important boils down to being found in Him.  In future posts I want to explore some of these ideas but for now just listing them is meant to identify the roots of our peace.  That peace ranges from enjoying each day in Him and with each other to, while missing the classroom that I love so much to being OK with not being there to whether this disease is beaten on this or the other side of eternity.

The last tune I listened to before picking up the computer again was David Crowder’s Never Let Go.  It pretty much sums up where I’m at right now.

When clouds veil sun and disaster comes

Oh, my soul, Oh, my soul

When waters rise and hope takes flight

Oh, my soul, Oh, my soul

Ever faithful ever true

You are known

You never let go

You never let go, you never let go, you never let go

You never let go, you never let go, you never let go

When clouds brought rain and disaster cam

Oh, my soul, Oh, my soul

When waters rose and hope had flown

Oh, my soul, Oh, my soul

Ever faithful ever true

You are known

You never let go

You never let go, you never let go, you never let go

You never let go, you never let go, you never let go

Oh my soul overflows, Oh what love, oh what love

Oh, my soul fills with hope

Perfect love, that never lets go

You never let go, you never let go, you never let go

You never let go, you never let go, you never let go

Oh, what love, Oh, what love, Oh, what love

In joy or pain, in sun and rain

You’re the same,

Oh, you never let go, you never let go, you never let go

So, I’m doing remarkably well spiritually.  No great revelations these past few days, no mystical heights or depths but peace. In the face of this great and good God and in the grip of His tenacious love I’m not in the mood to rant and rage (and yes, I know it’s OK if I do – I believe that, I’ve read the Psalms – but I’m not “there” right now). 

I’m OK and to those of you with whom I’ve earned the right to ask I will ask – “How are you doing spiritually?”  For all of time and beyond it is the most important question to which you can and should seek an answer.