He Said Yes!

“I will lift up my eyes to the hills—From whence comes my help? My help comes from the Lord, Who made heaven and earth.” (Psalm 121:1–2) 

This has been one of my favorite passages ever since I first heard it in a song back when I was in the Navy, in the 70s. I heard the song again the other day at the end of Bekah Merkle’s Eve In Exile documentary (which you should all look up and watch).

In every situation I’ve run into in my life, I’ve almost automatically turned to the Lord for help. Where else would I turn? I’ve never figured this out. People tell me that I’m so brave in how I’ve handled cancer and treatment, but I think, “What else would I do? There’s nowhere else to turn.” I suppose I could have dropped into alcohol or drugs, but what’s the point of that? I knew that even before I came to Christ. When life gets hard, there is nowhere else to turn. So, I turn to the Lord. I lift up my eyes to the Lord, from whence comes my help.

A month or so ago, I participated in a Pet/CT scan of my body. This was to see how the radiation treatment I had undergone in January had affected the cancer and the rest of my body. I was told that someone would contact me later in the week, but nothing. So, I waited.

Finally, after about three weeks, I called Dr. Lance’s office in Spokane. After a really long hold time (over 2 hours) someone finally came on the line. When I told the lady that I wanted to know the results of my scan, she put me on hold again and a few minutes later came back and told me that the doctor said there was nothing to talk about and that someone would be calling me later in the week to make an appointment. Later, someone did call and left a message asking me to call them back to make an appointment for late July or August. I thought this strange since every visit before had been a little frantic. I’m dying of cancer after all. And now, suddenly, “don’t contact us for three months.” Strange.

At the end of my time of radiation in Coeur d’Alene, I had made an appointment to talk about the side effects of the radiation. That was set for this past Wednesday. I didn’t really care about the side effects (there weren’t any lasting ones that I knew of), what I wanted to know was what about the actual effects. What was the radiation supposed to do and did it do it?

I arrived at the appointment, with my nephew Justin (he’s a great guy, BTW) and talked to two nurses. The first took my vitals and asked me all sorts of questions about how I was doing after the radiation and with the hormone medications I’ve been taking. The second came in and asked how I was doing. I responded with, “Good. I’m wondering if you know the results of the scans?”

She said, “I do. I have them right here. Let’s take a look.” She spun her laptop around and I could see a form with writing on it and behind that, what looked like an ultrasound. First, she explained how the scan works and what they look for when they read it. Mostly, they are looking for bright spots other than primary organs that should light up, like the brain, heart, lungs, etc. Then she said, “let’s start with the report.” So, she began reading. “Your head looks good. Your brain looks great (I liked that). Your lymph nodes look good, your hearts and lungs and kidneys and liver and spleen and bladder, and all your soft stuff (that wasn’t her word) look good.” I broke in and asked, “What does ‘looks good’ mean?” She said, “It means there is no cancer.” “No cancer? You mean there’s no cancer in any of those places?” “Yep, nothing here to report.”

I said, “Wait, there’s no cancer in my pelvic region? Nothing in my prostate at all?” “Nope, the radiation treatment wiped it out.”

I asked about the bones. When they took the scans of my bones, cancer was all over the place (that’s what dark spots are in the picture at the top of this post). She said, what are you talking about? I said, do you have a copy of the bone scans? She said she did and pulled them up. She looked at them and said, “Hmmmm.” Then she went over the CT scans again and zoomed in more. “Nope, you have no cancer in your body anywhere.” “Really?” I said. “Nope.” “Are you sure?” I said.

She looked again and found a really faint spot on my spine. She zoomed in and said, “that spot might be cancer.”

“So, no cancer in my entire body?” I said. “Nope, you’re clear.”

I asked if the prayers of several thousand people were the reason. She said, “Well, the medications and treatments were meant to starve the cancer.”

I praised God anyway. What does she know?

“Can I stop taking the meds?” I asked.

“No. You’ll need to keep taking those. And you’ll need to come in every three months and get a PSA test.” “And you’ll be going through menopause for the rest of your life,” she added.

Good News and Not So Good News

There is no cancer in my entire body. That’s the good news. The not-so-good news is that I’ll be taking the meds for a long, long time. Until now, I’ve not felt anything related to the cancer. I’ve been suffering from the side effects of the medications for this past year and that won’t change. So, that’s going to be interesting. 

But no cancer.

I lift up my eyes to hills, from whence does my help come. My help comes from the Lord, who makes heaven and earth. He will not let my foot be moved; he holds me in his hands. He holds me in the hollow of his hands.

I used to say that if God said, “Yes” to only one person, I would be healed. If you prayed for me this past year, I’m pretty sure it was you he said, “Yes” to. So, thank you very much. You’re my new best friend.