Finally!
Mike was {finally} admitted yesterday to begin high dose chemotherapy conditioning for his stem cell transplant. The featured image for this post is the second bag that was hung. As always, the folks here at Duke are phenomenal.
Conditioning
This part of the transplant process is referred to as conditioning. Conditioning refers to any treatments that are required to prepare the body to receive new stem cells. (Read more about it at the American Cancer Society’s Website.) Conditioning usually includes high dose chemotherapy and/or total body radiation. If you’ve been following us for awhile now, you know that Mike’s conditioning is high dose chemotherapy. No radiation is planned because his type of tumors almost always respond completely to chemotherapy. The point of the chemotherapy is to wipe out any remaining cancer cells, suppress the bone marrow, and make room for the new cells to graft—which is a clinical way of saying they find a new home in those empty spaces left by the high dose chemotherapy.
This conditioning is the process that is currently happening during his hospital admission. So far, he’s in great spirits, has had no nausea or vomiting, and no other extreme side effects. However, it’s just day 1 of the conditioning treatment and there are two more days to go. We’re praying that every day goes as awesome as yesterday went. Will you join us?
Lessons From Job
If you’re not familiar with the Bible, that sub-header probably looks like I forgot to include an article and have no grammar skills, but I promise I didn’t. Job is the name of a person in the Bible who faced so much suffering, he has an entire book dedicated to him in the Old Testament. He, very appropriately, calls his four friends “miserable comforters” at one point in the dialogue they exchange. His friends are convinced he has somehow sinned and brought about all the calamities he faces. Calamities that he had no control over. Throughout the book of Job, he maintains his innocence and laments before God. He’s no stranger to the “why” question.
These sorts of wrestlings are familiar to us. We’ve asked God “why” so many times. And you know what? God hasn’t turned away from us for it. Cancer is only a result of sin in that our entire world is affected by sin and our bodies are dying daily. Indirectly, yes, cancer is because of sin. But directly, God doesn’t punish people with physical illness. It’s not how God works. Sin affects us all. Cancer teaches us things about God, but it isn’t because he’s punishing us for some unrepentant sin.
But there are those who functionally believe exactly that. Think about it, when you’ve seen a person (or a group of people) you deem a bigger sinner than you and they have some sort of chronic illness or major disaster happen to them, haven’t you occasionally wondered if they were being punished for their crimes against God? Or worse, secretly thought “I warned them ____________ behavior would result in pain.” I know I have been guilty of this thought pattern. God forgive me!
Job gives me comfort that ordinary people trying to live their lives as faithfully as they can will suffer at times. Sometimes we never know the reasons why. Sometimes God pulls back the curtain just enough to show us one or some of the “whys.” But we can never know everything God is up to behind the scenes because he is infinite (without limits) and transcendent (everywhere, all the time). We might think our own small little world with all its problems and joys is the only thing affected by our experiences. But our God is huge. He’s always active in so many more ways than we could ever even imagine. He’s able to do far more than we can ask or imagine (Ephesians 3:20), which means he’s able to meet us in the midst of our suffering and work in ways only he could.
We have no idea why Mike has had to suffer so much the last year and half, and we may never know. We know we’ve grown closer to God and to each other this year. We know we’ve made relationships with people that we never would’ve met if he hadn’t been so sick. We know we’ve learned to trust God in new and deeper ways. We know we’ve learned to pray more boldly and more desperately than ever before. But, like Job learned through his suffering the vastness of God, we are choosing to hold our questions in one hand and our hopes in the other, knowing that the God who spoke from the whirlwind to Job is the same God who speaks to us today. May we be willing to pay attention and bow the knee to his perfect will.
“My ears had heard of you
but now my eyes have seen you.”
