Lymph Journal # 70 - Back in Germany

7/10/2012

It has been a few days since the last posting and much has transpired. Our flights back to Germany were “uneventful”.  This is always one of the best labels one can hope for to describe a trans-Atlantic, overnight journey.  The jet lag, worse for us going West to East, has been manageable and the apartment was habitable upon return – friends even delivered an evening meal to the door – thanks Joe & Susie!

In scheduling our return to Germany we had to figure in the start-ups of English Camps and, months in advance, speculate on my potential health and strength so we ended up with a return on July 3-4.  This meant missing a family wedding in Virginia – congrats Esther and Daniel – as I couldn’t count on having the “stuff” to make a major round trip and then board a plane in time for camps.  On the other hand we did return in time for a wedding of two former BFA students of mine held in the village next door where the bride’s family lives – congrats Lindsey and Brandon.

Last Friday morning I underwent a CT scan to determine progression on my remission.  Yesterday was originally the day I was to have discussed the results with the Freiburg doc but he went on vacation and delayed that appointment for a week.  The results were sent on to my local oncologist in Lörrach.  We’ll be meeting with him tomorrow but a preliminary email confirmed the results to be “good”.  More details will follow as we go through this season of awaiting concrete news.

In reflecting back on our time in the States, I am sure glad we went.  It was a bit of a gamble even buying tickets but we won.  It was great to see so many people and be seen by so many people who have had us in their prayers.  Both Diane and I come from families with six kids and we were able to connect with all the siblings.  It was great to spend times with our Moms.  It was especially great to, despite the challenge of packing in a year’s direct relationships into a month’s time, connect with our children who are children no more.  I like having adult “kids”.  I like seeing how our collective history and their particular experiences and relationships are continuing to mold and make them.  I like being reminded of the things we’ve said in the past – wise things, silly things, and a great number of things I can’t remember ever saying but they swear I have – that have meant something.  And, as I’ve observed earlier, there is no better joy than to see your grown-up kids yukking it up with each other.  

Samantha, Carl, Hannah, and Amanda with Carl's Bday cake

Carl's giant Reese's Cake presented by its creator Wendy of Just Wright Catering on Carl's birthday

Grammy and Isaiah

Isaiah's First Birthday cake!

Both sides of the Brad and Amanda family

English Camp staffs have arrived for round 1 here in the Kandern area.  It was good to see some familiar faces and experienced directors – welcome back!  The whole family got to pitch in on Saturday’s grocery run - $2500 worth of food, four vans full!  The campers arrive on Thursday, may all go to the glory of God.

Lymph Journal # 69 - A short update

6/29-7/1/2012

I haven’t posted in a bit.  Somehow a lack of unoccupied time tends to depress my attempts at literary output.  Each day here seems to fill up with stuff – usually very good stuff – but it cuts down the quiet moments of contemplation.  Or maybe that’s just the naptimes doing that.

I’ve gone through all the testing outlined in the last posting.  No sign of pneumonia in the chest X-rays, very good numbers in the blood test, and a good visit with a local South County oncologist have led me to wait on other testing until back in Germany.  The lung thing has either lessened a bit or I’m more accustomed to it so I’ll get by until then.  The oncologist, by the way, was quite encouraging. He said, “You look great”, for someone so recently having undergone the stem cell transplant.

We’re coasting into our final weekend here in the States.  There is significant family time scheduled as well as homemade quahog chowder and clam-cakes.  I’m telling you right now – don’t ask for the chowder recipe – it’s one of those “If I tell you I’ll have to ….” things.  We’ve had some really fine grandkid time over the last few days – fellow grandparents know what I’m talking about.

Well, now it’s two days later and I better just post this little bit of news.  The chowder and cakes were excellent.  Suffice it to say I’m feeling very good but also ready to resume a degree of routine.  We’ll fly back to Germany on Tuesday night.  I plan to pick back up the Nerdic poles and resume regular exercise.  Friday I’ll have my CT scan that will be followed by the report on Monday.  My hope and prayer is that, after Monday, I’ll no longer be calling this my “Lymph Journal”. 

Lymph Journal # 68 - Happy Father

6/18/2012

We’ll skip the dictation software today – too many spelling and syntax errors to make me want to use it for public consumption before I’ve mastered the necessary speech rhythms.

Yesterday was Father’s Day.  I have been enjoying the chance to be a father in direct contact with my four kids, my grandkids and others important in their lives.  I certainly “got what I wanted” for Father’s Day as Diane and I watched these four uniquely different young adults laugh and retell stories together as they remembered plenty of things that I’ve forgotten but find quite believable.  May you guys always be able to laugh at yourselves and each other in the best sense of laughter.  Also the game we played was hilarious.

I continue to get a kick out of the double-takes that happen when I see folks that I know well who don’t recognize the bald guy.  So many politely and dutifully give a weak “Hello” in response to mine and then a few beats later, sometimes with a hint or two, the “Hello” becomes much more heartfelt and genuine as they realize it’s the guy they’ve been praying for over the last five months.  It doesn’t take much to entertain me these days!

Speaking of prayer, I continue to be amazed at the number of people who tell me they’ve been in prayer on a regular basis.  Many have prayed daily.  Here’s the crazy part – I haven’t prayed daily for my situation.  Sometimes I haven’t had the strength to pray – at its’ worst I don’t think the “groanings” we utter when we don’t know what to pray for were even a bit out of reach.  Sometimes I forgot.  But all over the world are people who have upheld Diane and I every day.  That is way cool!

Recovery continues in fits and starts.  Early in our stay in RI for two days in a row I walked the Pier beach – something I so looked forward to and what I hoped would be some sort of equivalent to walking Kandern’s hills.  My legs were sore for a week.  Beach walking must use muscle groups in an entirely different way than “Nerdic” hill walking.  Late last week I began to notice a bit of strangeness in my lungs, a feeling almost like I had run a vigorous race in freezing cold weather and irritated my upper bronchial region.  It hasn’t passed yet and I’ve been a bit shorter of breath so I hope to get a chest X-ray, etc. later today to rule things in or out.  Research online certainly underscores that there can be complications of certain chemo drugs that impact the lungs and I’ve had a bunch of them.  My hope is that it’s actually some sort of treatable infection/disease rather than any kind of long-term damage.  We’ll see.

Lymph Journal # 67 Back in the US of A

6/7/2012

 Well, after an uneventful journey, we made it back United States. “Uneventful, as far as I'm concerned, is a great word in the context of travel.   I tried to play the stem cell transplant low immunity card in order to upgrade to 1st class trick but it didn't work. 1st class apparently was already full. But we're able to sit together near the front of the plane and we only experienced just a little bit of turbulence. Our daughter Sam and Amanda were there to meet us at the airport. It was a bit of a gloomy day in Boston but the trip home was also uneventful.

 Jet lag has not been too much of a problem. I slept well for 3 nights now. I traveled with my mask and I don't seem to have picked up anything detrimental on the plane. My mom is been doing her best to set me up. Her best is pretty good. This morning I achieved one of my goals for the trip home. I took an early morning walk on the Narragansett pier beach. Fog covered the pier itself. But there was open sky to the East North East. I made it from the south end to the north end of the beach and back. Hopefully next time it will be a little bit warmer.

I'm trying a little experiment here. Trying to compose this on my new speech recognition software. It's a little bit awkward to begin with. But I hope this will streamline some of my writing in the future.

I feel very good. I appetite is terrific. More and more the side effects of chemo seemed to be slipping away. Of course I'm still pretty hairless. It's interesting how difficult it is for some people to recognize me. Without hair including eyebrows, people see a different face. It's kind of fun to play with. When you know they know you, but don't recognize you, you can have quite a bit of fun. I went to RadioShack on our first day home. The store is managed by a former student from the Narragansett Pier School.  The manager remembers me quite well with hair. He was busy with a long case when his associate asked if she could help me and I asked for the manager by name.  He kept giving me furtive glances while helping this couple. I could almost see him thinking who's this bald guy that knows me by name. When he was finally free to serve me, I of course asked him if he knew me. He didn't. Once I gave my name he did. This guy sets me up with a SIM card every summer. Of course he had the nerve to ask me at the end of the transaction, “Would you like to contribute to the LiveStrong foundation?” And I said it's quite unfair to ask the cancer patient that question. And then I contributed. We had a good laugh.

It's been great seeing all my kids in getting to know the grandchildren a little bit better. I look forward to much more of this on this trip. Our calendar is beginning to fill up with all sorts of visits and we do hope to see many people so please let us know if it would be convenient to visit with you.

Any weird sentence construction in this post can be attributed to my new dictation software – so far it’s not a timesaver but I trust, as we get to know one another, it will be.

Lymph Journal # 66 - Another year wrapped!

6/2/2012

Today was graduation for BFA’s Class of 2012. This is a great bunch of kids and I so enjoyed my first semester teaching Worldviews with them.  I also benefited from their fine example of appropriate messages of comfort and encouragement throughout the treatments I endured over second semester.  

Class of 2012

Just a few of the grads lined up for commencement

 I couldn’t feel more proud or more fortunate to have them as a focus of ministry and vice versa.  We’ll always have Rome!  Congratulations to all sixty of you!!

Health wise I am doing great.  My white and red counts are back in the “normal” range and I’m getting my strength back.  I know I’m only supposed to boast in the Lord but Diane and I walked the “Lonely Tree” walk a few days ago.  It’s over 5km long and has some significant slope.  Wielding my Nordic (aka “Nerdic” – thanks for this perfect label Len Reed) walking sticks we completed it in the same time as last summer and fall (65 minutes – 5km=3miles – no brag, just fact!). 

That's the lonely tree hill - looks closer due to telephoto effect - it really is a rigorous hike!

 I’m eating without needing to do anything regarding nausea (Yipee!) and sleeping well at night. 

The day after tomorrow we, Lord willing, fly to Boston via London and arrive in RI early Monday evening.  We’ll be there for one month but we’re deliberately not doing the all out missionary deputation thing.  We’ll be mainly reconnecting with friends and family. I don’t know what it has been specifically like for family to experience my illness from afar but I know it has been difficult.  It will be so good to share recovery in person.  I’ll be working on recovering strength through a strict regimen of beach walks and seafood intake.  We certainly look forward to seeing many folks informally. We’re staying with my Mom (401.783.7255).

Well it’s a short update but that’s where we’re at. 

Lymph Journal # 65 - Beautiful ugliness or vice versa

5/30/2012

Happy Birthday to our daughter Hannah!

Day by day I’m feeling a bit more normal.  I’m sleeping well at night.  I eat at least my three squares a day and I’ve no need for the anti-nausea pre-medication before each mealtime.  I get hungry between meals and, usually, do something about that.  I get in my daily walks and just received the pair of Nordic Walking poles that make me oh so trendy and offer the chance of making my walk times into more of a workout for the whole body.  Diane and I walked far enough the other day for me to experience soreness in my diminutive bottom which means I’m pushing things at a no pain no gain rate – it felt good to be sore!

I attended church the other day – it was Senior Sunday and I got to read the names out for the traditional Bible gift BFA Seniors are awarded by Black Forest Christian Fellowship.  This week is exam week and grad will be Saturday afternoon.  Last Saturday a few former students came by to visit me on our balcony – many formers students seem to drift through here around either Christmas or grad season – and I was reminded of my calling here.  My constant hope is that what happens in my Worldviews classes has an impact beyond the classroom and helps these kids to navigate life well after high school. 

The weather has been stunning this past week.  Warm, dry, breezy days and suitably crisp nights – a perfect sort of late spring/early summer.  A few nights ago I sat outside around 10:30ish.  Our latitude and longitude give us light fairly late into the evening – there was a clearly discernable horizon line between sky and surrounding hills. Over that horizon was a bright crescent moon – simply beautiful – and I sat there in a state of revelry.

In those moments of heartbreaking beauty I began to consider again the passage of these past few months.  What was brought to mind was the stark contrasts within cancer and its treatment.  In it there is profound ugliness.  Disease and death are ugly consequences of our rebellion towards our Creator – they are the revolting fallout of the Fall.  All the attendant indignities of diagnosis, treatment (“successful” or not) and possible (well inevitable, ultimately, for each of us) death – there is nothing pretty about it.  The process holds for the cancer patient (and for many other situations) moments of staring eyeball to eyeball with all that ugliness – some of you have been there, I know.

Yet, as I sat there on that beautiful night and thought of and even revisited the profound ugliness I had the realization that, as a disciple of Christ, there was – sort of off to my side, not quite within view in the depths of the uglies – the one man who had not only cheated death, not only beaten death but the one who had ultimately defeated the ugliness of death.  Red Sox fans are familiar with the phrase, “Reverse the Curse” in reference to the long drought in World Series successes (86 years!) following the selling of the Bambino (Babe Ruth) to the Yankees in the off season of 1919-20.  Well that’s small beans compared to the One who did Reverse the Curse and trampled death and all its related stings.  And He’s the One who was and is there as life offers the ugly moments – there in all His beauty.

There have been other moments of beauty in the ugliness of cancer.  I love my wife and have for many years now.  But the context of cancer has deepened our relationship, has made more vital the time we can be together and has caused me to recognize her beauty to a greater degree than ever.  She is the best, I married well, I rejoice in her beauty.

Certainly a deepened appreciation for my kids and grandkids adds to the beauty.  Family, friends, and calling in ministry – all the things that bring significance and purpose to life are multiplied by the ugliness of cancer.  And there is the experience of walking on the brink of ugliness.  As a child of God it ultimately doesn’t matter if you slip over that brink into eternity or God brings you back from it for another season of life.  You’ve “been there”.  It can’t help but profoundly impact your whole person and understanding.  I realize that especially when I talk with other members of the “cancer club”, the fellowship of those betrayed by their bodies.

So, ultimately, the whole experience is a gift – a gift I frankly would still refuse if I had the choice but for which I am, in many but not all respects (yet), thankful.  I pray I’m done with this “gift” and will live my life with the benefits and responsibilities it has brought without having to open it up again. 

If you’re a fan of the funk/disco/R&B combo band Earth, Wind and Fire you might know that one of its members, Philip Bailey (the great falsetto voice of EW&F), has also produced some good Christian music as a solo artist.  So here’s my musical recommendation of the day.  When I heard it for the first time in the hospital following the stem cell transplant I was brought to tears that still threaten leakage whenever I hear it since.  The title is I Am Gold (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoXcCjFtBes) on YouTube (or for $0.99at iTunes).  Check it out – I’m listening to it now and a bit misty am I.

Count it all joy

When you’re feelin’ the pain

For new wisdom you’ll gain

Tribulation worketh patience in your life.

I’ve been tried in the fire

And the flames get so high

That I can’t see the sky for the smoke in my eyes

But each time I’ll survive

Makes me not ashamed to stand and testify.

Little child, you’ve had more than your share

Of all the heartbreak you can bear

And it seems like life is so unfair.

Through it all you learned to stand up tall

cause God above won’t let you fall

and he hears His children when they call.

I’ve been tried in the fire

And the flames get so high

That I can’t see the sky for the smoke in my eyes

But each time I’ll survive

Makes me not ashamed to stand and testify.

I am gold

I’ve been tried in the fire

I’ve been tried in the fire

I can climb higher and higher X2

And the song continues in this direction.  So, if you’re a fan of 80’s funk (and who isn’t!) give it a listen.  And cultivate eyes that seek beauty and the Beautiful One in the moments of life’s ugliness. 

Lymph Journal # 64 - One week home

5/24/2012

Well, I’m one week home from the Uniklinik so it’s time for a progress report.  I got sprung last Thursday morning – a day earlier than I had expected but most welcome.  The trip home was a joy and yet pretty much drained me for the day.  Friday felt better – I even managed a short walk outside to the end of our street and back.  I was able to remain upright as we entertained a visiting pastor and his wife (former missionaries, now pastoring in RI) for dinner.  The next day (my birthday – made it!!!) I felt more strength returning and walked a total of 2+ km (on mostly level ground).  This was all quite encouraging and I was confident that recovery would continue apace.

Then Sunday came and I seemed to have lost all ground.  I was back to that feeling of a fish washed up on the shore wishing I could breathe my water again.  I had no strength and, I must say, it was a bit worrisome.  Monday felt the same and I contacted my local oncologist to move my appointment from the next day forward to this very Monday.  He welcomed me right in.

I was convinced poor red cell counts would account for my incredible lethargy.  I was mistaken, blood values came back favorable.  What he did do for me was set up an infusion (my handy Frankenport is still available for usage) of vitamins (pronounced here as wittameens) in a lovely yellow solution.  The technician said I was in much need of “power”, underscored by her arm raised, elbow crooked and tight fist, and that these vitamins would help.  I gladly accepted.

A few hours later I headed for home not really feeling the power. 

Tuesday, however, I did feel improvement.  No longer did raising my arm or walking to the bathroom seem to require much deliberation and self-cheerleading.  I walked outside again.  Yesterday was another leap ahead.  I was back at the doc’s for a blood test and that showed improvement from Monday.  (I do need a boost on immunoglobulin and I’ll get that next week before we travel).  Dr. K and others on staff agreed I looked better and I managed taking the stairs at the office.

That afternoon I went out for a walk and found myself walking “downtown”, which also means downhill, to Hauptstrasse.  The upshot of this meant a walk home uphill.  It worked.  I got home a tad sweaty but I got home and cooled off reading on the balcony where I didn’t promptly fall asleep.   I know this might be less than fascinating to the loyal reader but, baby, this is progress and I’m still pretty pumped.

I held off recording this in order to see what today felt like.  Today feels good.  I’m about to set off downtown again and do the monthly banking (exchange rate is pretty good today) and fill some prescriptions. 

Another big adventure in the small world of recovery!  For those who pray, please continue to pray for growing strength.  Pray also for my wife – she’s strong and compassionate and committed but it has to be wearying for and on her.  So for power all around I pray.