Re. the Cancer 2 post — I realize that with a journey like this that people want different degrees of updates: None, acquaintances, friends, family, and mom/wife level. So instead of multiple blog posts, I’ll just put some updates and observations at the top of the original post and anyone interested can check at their convenience. No need to fill up your inbox or blog reader with small things. I’m not on any other social media so that seemed like the best place.
Be blessed, and thanks for all the encouragement and prayers!
Note: Page down for the original post. I realize that with a journey like this that people want different degrees of updates: none, acquaintance level, friend level, family level, and mom/wife level. So instead of multiple blog posts, I’ll just put some observations and updates here and anyone interested can check at their convenience. Be blessed, and thanks for all the encouragement and prayers!
OBSERVATIONS AND UPDATES
10/15 – Big update! By the grace of God, the cancer is in complete remission! Will do the high dose chemo / stem cell transplant soon. That will be an adventure but definitely worth it to put it in further remission. Thanks so much for the prayers and encouragement!
9/13 – I’m glad to be home after round 6, the final one for this phase! Hard to believe this part is over. I went in for the first round on Memorial Day and started the last round on Labor Day. What did I do on my summer vacation? I went through 36 bags of IV chemo, 7 Covid tests, 6 spinal taps and a whole lot of pills.
This may be the steroid talking, but I’m feeling pretty good right now. I’ll probably crash for 4-5 days later this week but I’m still working out and walking wherever possible. Then again, they did give me a couple units of blood this time that may help with the recovery, so we’ll see.
Next step is getting a scan next month. If it comes back clean, and we have optimism that it will, then I’ll do the high dose chemo / stem cell transplant later this year or early in 2021. That should put it into further remission. If there is still cancer on the scan then that’s a fairly sizable problem, as they would need to switch me to some other treatment such as a new clinical trial. But we trust in the Lord for all that.
More importantly, this last week in the hospital had one great opportunity after another to encourage fellow believers and to share the Gospel. That was a big answer to one of our main prayers.
Looking forward to a couple months, Lord willing, of being able to work out regularly without taking a week off every three weeks to go to Chemo Camp. Exercise just does so much physically and mentally.
I had lots of spare time in the hospital, so I was able to memorize Revelation chapters 2 and 3 (see blog posts below). That was a blessing. And I binge-listened to about year’s worth of Stand to Reason podcasts, which were edifying as always.
Thanks so much for all the prayers. Please pray for continued witness opportunities as we go through this. I can assure you that we got great answers. So many blessings I can hardly count them!
8/22 — Done with round 5! Hard to believe there is only one more round of this cycle to go. Just need to plow through the first week home, which is the hardest. Then one more cycle, then a couple months off until the really hard high dose regimen late this year or early next year. Had good opportunities to share the truth of Jesus this week – please pray for more of those, especially for the 6th round.
The time in the hospital goes slowly, as most of the time I’m just tethered to the IV pole 24×7. I get totally caught up at work and have been able to redeem the time catching up on Stand to Reason podcasts, reading the Bible, and memorizing Revelation chapters 2 and 3 (what a blessing – just polishing it all off now!).
8/7 – No big news. Slogging through side effects of round 4. Glad the process is working. Hope you all are well!
7/23 – Scan news: Thanks to Jesus and great medical caregivers and technology He has provided for, the results came back well. Some parts were in complete remission and the largest one had reduced considerably and had less activity (whatever that means in cancer terms). The doctor was very pleased, which means we are as well. This means we’ll do these next three rounds of chemo and then the likelihood is high that I’ll do a high dose chemo / stem cell transplant after that. Long road, but it provides the best odds of longer remission. The high dose chemo thing includes a bone marrow biopsy, which was apparently something created by the spinal tap people because they didn’t like having the most painful procedure. Thanks for all the prayers!
7/19 — Finished round 3 and had the predictable week of side effects. Feeling a little better today. Getting another scan late this week so I’ll update again then. Pretty sure the tumor is down quite a bit but will be curious as to how the doctor interprets the status. Good week for work. Nice morning of worship and online community group today. Still doing normal prayer / Bible reading / memorization pattern. Really enjoying Revelation chapters 2 and 3 and will have a few blog posts on those later. Hope you all are well. Feel free to email or text me with any prayer requests. I have time!
7/6/20 – Round 2 side effects much more than expected, but had a few good days. Was able to work out enough that I’m started to get strength back for round 3. Praying for no spinal tap complications again and for witness opportunities. Hope you all are well!
6/21/20 – Made it through round 2 of chemo – 6 full days plus another spinal tap. By the grace of God and many answered prayers there were no side effects from the tap this time, which will make all the difference for this recovery period. I’ll crash for a couple days but will work out hard from there to build back strength. So much to be thankful for! Most of all, had many great conversations in the hospital about Jesus.
6/12/20 – Good news! Chemo is working. Eating better, working out and starting to gain back a little weight for the next round. Very long road ahead but extremely grateful for the progress and all of your prayers. Alternative treatments exist had this chemo combo not worked, but I’m not sure I would have had time. Thanking Jesus for this progress.
6/7/20 — Apologies for the lack of updates. It turns out that while the spinal tap procedure itself isn’t that bad, it is a problem when it doesn’t seal properly and you get headaches and are somewhat immobilized for a week until they decide to fix the patch. Long story, but it made for a darker week. I’m pleased to say that it seems to be better now.
#1 prayer request: I need to be able to eat more. Seriously. I’ve lost 23 lbs., and nearly a pound a day since being in the hospital for chemo. I think we’ve stopped the slide but that obviously can’t continue. My focus for the next week is to regain some weight and strength before the next round of chemo in the hospital.
Enjoying being at home. Mrs. Eternity Matters is being her usual amazing self and taking care of every little thing. I’ve learned to listen better and let her do things for me. Win-win. She is great at researching things (retired librarian + excellent discernment) and has helped immensely when looking into drug interactions, side effects, questions for the doctor I hadn’t thought of, etc.
And we continue to be blessed by all the family and friends supporting us and praying for us. Blessings to you all!
5/29/20 – One thing I’ve been trying to thank people about for their prayers is that they are already getting answered. Yes, we obviously want complete and permanent remission, but it’ll be a long time until we know if and how that was answered! But we’ve had a lot of very specific prayers answered already: very clear decisions, rapid progress in getting tests and treatment started, great caregiving teams and more. I want people to know that the prayers are working and deeply appreciated. And let us know how we can pray for you. It isn’t a one way street!
5/28/20 – It is humbling when you think about the millions of things that had to take place to end up with the medical personnel having and knowing how to use all these different machines, chemicals and preventatives and so many other things to make all this work. The amount of trial and error and suffering had to be staggering, and here I sit getting to benefit from it. Feeling blessed. Was there a profit motive for some of it or most of it? Sure, and I’m OK with that. Yea for capitalism! But I never forget that these people could be doing a lot of different jobs. Oncology must be extra demanding because of the technology and how you can often lose patients despite your best efforts.
5/27/20 – I have found that my habit to respond to “How are you” with “I’m blessed” is a good conversation starter / “faith flag.” I don’t say it in a dramatic way, just matter of factly and sincerely. As I like to say, it has the added value of being true. But when saying it in settings like the oncology floor people do notice and appreciate it. It usually brings a smile and an “amen” from Christians. It works in regular settings, too. And it is an easy segue to explain how in the midst of things like this that I really am blessed beyond measure.
5/26/20 — I had my first spinal tap, so I can take that off my bucket list . . . right after I put it on. One nurse said, “Some people get very anxious about them.” I wanted to say – but fortunately didn’t – that maybe if she didn’t cringe the whole time she talked about them that it might help. She’s actually a wonderful nurse, just not a poker face :-). But it was way better than I expected. Just a couple numbing shots and a little pressure. Nothing to fear. They must have come a long way with those, because I know they used to be much more painful. And yes, the Dr. had seen and enjoyed This is Spinal Tap. He noted the “this goes up to 11” line and I said my second favorite was, “There is a fine line between stupid and clever.”
5/25/20 – I just heard from a dear friend who has suffered mightily for years but has served the Lord wholeheartedly during that time. He just found out that he has leukemia and only has 2 to 3 months to live, but he’s still sharing the gospel and led to people to Jesus last week. A lot of people would like to have my problems.
ORIGINAL POST
It is always a good day to be a Christian. In good times or bad, his salvation, peace, truth and more are priceless.
That is even more true on the day when your oncologist tells you that not only has your cancer returned much more quickly than expected but that it transformed to a very aggressive form. I’m really hoping that this sequel is the last in the franchise.
Random thoughts . . .
As before, by his grace alone we are at complete spiritual peace with this. We are task-completers and are always eager to know the next steps and to get on with the program, but with respect to matters of eternity things are as solid as could be. Praise God for that, because it is absolutely not my nature. It is purely a supernatural thing provided by his grace.
We pray that it leads to many opportunities to glorify his name and share his truths with others. We’ve already had several significant opportunities. Our outlook is pretty much the same as with the first cancer plot twist.
We are extremely grateful for the health care available to us, especially in light of the Covid-19 restrictions and pent-up demand for services. I went from initial scan to treatment in three weeks. I’m really glad we don’t have socialized medicine.
This will be a big burden on Mrs. Eternity Matters, the best of wives and best of women. This treatment is much more severe – 6 cycles, 21 days each. The first 5 days of the cycle are 5 different chemotherapies, then a spinal tap of a different chemo in between each cycle. Oh, and another Covid-19 test each time. If all that puts it into remission – and it should – then I may do a high intensity chemo series where they take my stem cells out and then put them back in and re-do my childhood vaccinations. That would increase the odds of eradicating it.
So we both have to be super-isolated as much as possible, and for quite a while. Covid-19 makes it worse. I think my body can fight Covid-19 or cancer, but not both.
But it is good that as aggressive as this type is, it is also well known with a distinct – albeit challenging – treatment plan. One of my goals in life is not to have a disease named after me, so I’m glad to keep that streak going.
The outpouring from friends and family has been amazing once again. We are blessed beyond measure. Such a blessing to be close to the girls and their husbands and their families.
The work situation is great. I already worked from home, and now much of the rest of the company has joined me in that. My supervisor and my team are phenomenal. I obviously won’t be going anywhere this year, so I have plenty of vacation days to cover anything. What are you doing for vacation this year? Trying to stay alive :-).
I got a comment from someone I really like and respect, but who said something that wouldn’t have occurred to me: He said it is OK to be angry at God. Believe me, I’m the chief of sinners (with apologies to Paul in 1 Timothy 1:15), but I can honestly say it never occurred to me to be angry at God. He has blessed me mightily for so long that it is laughable to me to question him now. It isn’t like He did it all to set me up and pull up the drawbridge on me. Live or die, I’m his. Him forgiving my sins was more than I would have dared ask for and all I really needed, but He has done so much more.
Like I’ve said, the end of the book of Job is in the Bible for a reason, in that we don’t get all the answers to everything in this life and God is fine with that. But the rest of the Bible is there for a reason as well, so that we can learn everything God does want us to know, such as how Jesus is the only way to salvation.
I often think of what Pastor Kevin DeYoung said about how Christians should think: Jesus loves me and He knows what He is doing. In tough times we can rest in that simple, timeless truth. He is sovereign and we can trust him completely.
It was a blessing to have already been in a great relationship with God when this came up. I was already in the habit of My favorite Bible reading / prayer / memorization routine, so it wasn’t like I had to say, “Oh no! Cancer has returned! Better get back to God!” I wouldn’t fault anyone who turns to the real Jesus for any reason at any time, but it was so nice to already be there.
Everything is already shut down for a while, but even as things open it will probably be a year before I can go to church or do prison ministry. Our favorite hobby, ballroom dancing, is out – except for dancing in the dining room when we move the table and when I’m physically able. So no more of this for a bit . . . but our goal is to get healthy again and be able to compete in late 2021, God willing.
I found that it helps to have things to aim at when working your way back into shape. Last time I’d lift a lot between cycles. The first few days were really tough, having to give myself pep talks for every brief set. The warm up sets felt like heavy sets, just like they do these days. But it gets better quickly and really helps long-term. Dancing helped as well as it was a great for energy and a nice mental diversion.
I’ll probably blog quite a bit less but hope to still follow all of you. Dialing back on the news cycles probably won’t hurt, either.
The odds of survival seem good, but it was a good catalyst to update my screen capture videos and other documentation of all of our financial, insurance, etc. matters in case I die. You really do your loved ones a great service if you line things out for them. Things are miserable enough when someone dies without having to go through lots of extra high stress searching and paperwork. My Dad was very organized and things like being able to export information from his password software to mine saved countless hours when I was setting things up for my Mom. If you don’t have a will, get one right away.
The chemos I had last time didn’t cause me to lose my hair, but this batch definitely comes with a free haircut. A wonderful follically-challenged friend/relative already sent some lightweight headwear and we have some bandanas ready to go. I think the world will get by just fine for a while without my chronic bed head. And the doctor already prescribed three anti-nausea options, so I think she is hinting at something there. And there are a “few” others meds to take . . . the doctor basically said, “Go to Walgreens and get one of everything.”
Prayers for healing are appreciated, of course, and I covet prayers for the peace and comfort of Mrs. Eternity Matters, and also for my 85 yr. old Mom. She’s a very committed believer but this really worries her.
But please also pray for endless opportunities to glorify God and share Jesus through this. Having something like this always focuses me like a laser on the things of God. I’m comfortable with any discussion about Jesus and his word once it gets started, but I’m terrible at starting conversations. But this disease gives unique opportunities to share with non-believers and to encourage believers. No one seems to mind if the cancer patient brings up Jesus, so I shamelessly exploit that :-). Seriously, I use my usual Stand to Reason tactics in conversations, but the talks do open up much more quickly and easily.
We got Daisy just before my last chemo treatments (she was a rescue dog, 6 years old at the time). She was a great chemo napping buddy, and now she’s back in business. (OK, she never really stopped.)
We will all die someday. I pray that anyone who reads this makes sure he is right with Jesus. We are all sinners in need of a Savior, and He is the only Savior. His terms are indescribably generous, but you must come to him based on them and not your own made-up terms. The latter will land you in Hell for eternity.
I praise and thank God for his salvation and his assurance. I am enjoying his word as much as ever.
Be blessed.
Psalm 16:11 You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.
Romans 12:12 Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.
1 John 5:12–13 Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life. I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life.
Jude 2 May mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you.
Shane is a foolish, muddled-thinking man on many topics.
He opposes Christians owning guns. But there is nothing wrong with owning guns, because self-defense and protecting others is completely legitimate.
He uses weasel-words to justify his pro-abortion stance. He claims to love his neighbor while letting them be slaughtered with impunity. He doesn’t care deeply about eradicating it at all, as he claims. He endorses candidates who want to force you to pay for abortions up to the child’s first breath.
But he says wants a “better conversation.” Sure. Abortion kills 20,000 children per week and the death penalty kills one person a week who survived 10+ years of appeals. Abortion is the ultimate in violence, literally crushing and dismembering innocent human beings. Guess which one the pacifist fights?
And the notion that God won’t reach whomever He likes is false. Shane acts like it is bad that you might kill a murderer before he supposedly would repent, but that just makes the murder that much worse. After all, on his logic the murderer may not have just taken the victim’s physical life but his eternal life! These anti-capital punishment types shoot themselves in the foot with their arguments but no one points it out to them.
And he leads the “Red Letter Christian” group, another tip off that he is a wolf. “Red letter Christians” tip their hands at their foundational error. Jesus is God and is in agreement with all of scripture. He quoted the Old Testament extensively, and referred to its most controversial elements without apology: Sodom & Gomorrah, Adam and Eve, Noah, Jonah, etc.
And Jesus didn’t hand-write the Gospels. They authors had some eyewitness accounts and some reliable second-hand accounts, just like the epistles. And all were inspired by God.
The “red letter Christians” are nearly always false teachers who pretend that the only words of the Bible that really matter are direct quotes of Jesus (i.e., the words that are printed in red in some Bibles). Their logic fails on many levels, and they can’t even get their own pet verses right.
If they were the least bit consistent they’d agree with Jesus’ “red letters” that say you should live on all the letters. Matthew 4:4 But he answered, “It is written, “ ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’ ”
The red letters say to live on all the letters. Why don’t they obey that simple teaching?
The “red letters” crowd is full of nonsensical hypocrites. Black Letters Matter!
He also says Trump’s Christian supporters don’t look like the Sermon on the Mount blah blah blah, as if the fornicating, perverse, coveting, Molech-worshiping pro-aborts of the Left do represent the SOTM? What a tool.
And on racism he’s also completely wrong. Abortion kills blacks at a rate over three times that of whites, and that’s not an accident. Yet he defends the act that kills more blacks in a week than the KKK ever has!
And black-on-white violence and murder are more than 10 times the inverse. Is that racism? Why does Shane ignore it?
Run, don’t walk, from wolves like Shane Claiborne.
This is a phenomenal video. Justin Peters is great at clearly taking down these leaders, who are demon-possessed frauds. I pray that their followers will watch, learn and escape.
Here are some screen shots and notes:
Both Hindus and Word-Faith/Charismatic groups do this. Watch videos of each and you’ll see the behavior is indistinguishable.
Cessationism is the belief that the apostolic spiritual gifts have ceased, not that all have ceased.
Pagans can speak in tongues just as professing charismatic Christians do. And they sound the same!
The “you must speak in tongues to be a Christian” reasoning is nonsense on many levels. Biblical tongues were known languages, not gibberish. And they had to be interpreted. And not everyone was speaking in tongues at once. And not everyone had the gift of tongues. Other than that . . .
Go to the 15 min. mark of the video to watch wolf Sid Roth “teach” you how to speak in tongues. You have to have a complete void of discernment to follow these people.
He does a great job exposing all the “Heaven tourism” books and the dangers of “Christian” bookstores, which have about half biblical books and half satanic books. They are poster children for being unequally yoked. It shows that their real motive is profit, not glorifying God (remember that even a pagan can sell Bibles for profit).
Don Piper, for example, claimed in his book that he went to Heaven but didn’t see God. But now he goes on TV with detailed descriptions of how he did see God. What a phony. If your entire claim to fame is that you went to Heaven then there is no way you miss a detail like that.
Peters also exposes the Burpo, Malarkey and other frauds. One of the alleged Heaven visitors said it was a fraud, but his dad wrote the book and exploited his son’s paralysis for the sake of gain.
Jesse Duplantis is a fraud on many levels, including claiming that an angel called God “Jehovah.” I didn’t realize that Jehovah was a word made up in the 1500’s and that an angel wouldn’t use it.
Only Stephen, Paul and John are listed in the Bible as having glimpsed Heaven. Paul humbly said he couldn’t describe the splendor. But the “Heaven Tourists” describe it in weird and contradictory ways. And their claims imply that scripture wasn’t complete.
He also took on Beth Moore and Sarah Young’s Jesus Calling early on (the video is from 2013) about their “God told me” nonsense. As Peters says, “If you want to hear God speak, read your Bible. If you want to hear God speak audibly, read it out loud.” God is not speaking outside scripture in the way that these wolves claim.
He also exposes the faith healers who pretend that you can always avoid sickness and disease, or that if you get sick then healing is guaranteed. By claiming that God always heals those who have faith then they are saying it is always your fault if you are sick. Hey, that’s great, please pile on those who are already suffering. Oh, and you need to send them money.
Those wolves are not Christians. You can’t be a Christian and teach those vile lies. The atonement accomplishes so many things, but some are realized here and some in Heaven. God still heals, but not on command and definitely not at all times. The apostolic gift of healing ended almost 2,000 years ago.
And note the goofiness of those who pick a random Bible verse and say that is why you need to “sow a seed” for the chapter and verse (e.g., $54.17 for Isaiah 54:17)?
No legitimate teacher should go on TBN, Daystar, etc. because it gives legitimacy to these wolves.
Sure, pray for healing, but God can use our suffering to sanctify us and glorify himself.
He notes how we are losing the battle on the sufficiency of scripture. So many people want something more, as if the Bible isn’t enough.
California closes beaches even though outdoors and sunshine are very non-conducive to virus transmission and social distancing is easy even on “crowded” beaches.
New York subways are extremely crowded, poorly ventilated and filthy – in other words, the worst-case scenario for virus transmission– but New York must keep them open, despite being a center of the pandemic. It took them a long time just to close them at night for cleaning. What incompetence! It isn’t a secret that NYC has a wildly disproportionate infection rate. It is obviously Trump’s fault. And racism.
Huntington Beach protesters assail California Gov. Newsom’s order closing beaches – Basic human nature: When you force people to do ridiculous things they are more likely to rebel. You don’t see these protests in the more reasoned states. These Californians are getting mugged by reality. Maybe they shouldn’t reflexively vote in all these Leftist overlords?
Side note: The bigger issue here is the media and Democrat hypocrisy with this compared to Kavanaugh. But note that Biden doesn’t call her a liar. Wouldn’t you if you were falsely accused?
‘Food supply chain is breaking,’ Tyson Foods chairman says as processing plants continue to close — This is huge. The average person has no idea how supply chains work and thinks that things just magically appear in two days no matter what, or that store shelves will always be full. We need to open things up now. Sure, wear masks if you like and keep the at-risk people isolated. But count the costs of this continuous ridiculous shutdown!
There’s a very important text message from Lisa Page to Peter Strzok and that is from November of 2016 and the context for the text message is – Strzok asks Lisa Page, “Hey, what are you doing?” or words to that effect.
She reports back very excitedly that she’s preparing talking points for Director Comey to go brief the President on what they’re doing. And the quote from Lisa Page is quote – “POTUS wants to know everything we’re doing” – closed quote.
That POTUS of course is Barack Obama. And, I will take Lisa Page at her word. It’s an off the cuff communication with her paramour. She’s excited. She’s getting the Director prepped.
In the clip, Erickson asserts that there is only a “0.03 chance of dying from COVID in the state of California,” prompting him to ask, “Does that necessitate sheltering in place? Does that necessitate shutting down medical systems? Does that necessitate people being out of work?”
Erickson also asked why fatalities were being counted as COVID-19 deaths when other ailments were actually more to blame.“When someone dies in this country right now, they’re not talking about the high blood pressure, the diabetes, the stroke. They’re saying ‘Did they die from COVID?’” Erickson said. “We’ve been to hundreds of autopsies. You don’t talk about one thing, you talk about comorbidities. ER doctors now [say] ‘It’s interesting when I’m writing about my death report, I’m being pressured to add COVID. Why is that?”
The video was deleted late last night for “violating YouTube’s terms of service.”
Eternity Matters 