Our Cancer Journey, Part 12: Where We Go From Here

This is the final installment of a 12-part post, sharing our leukemia journey. If you're just joining us, you can start at Part One here.

The Right Timing

It has brought me great joy to write out our leukemia journey. It was a long time coming! Honestly, I’ve known for a while that I wanted to write about it, but I think it was just still too real, too raw, for me to be able to write objectively about what happened. Of course, all experience is subjective, but I think the perspective I developed in waiting til now before writing about it was helpful. I hope you have found it encouraging, and I hope you’ll pass it along, maybe to someone who is going through something similar, for their encouragement.

As I write this, my dear leukemia-surviving husband is suffering with Influenza B, and is quite miserable. Even just a few months ago, I think this illness would have sent me into a terrified panic attack. I can imagine all the what-if’s I’d be running through: What if his immune system can’t handle it? What if he develops pneumonia? What if I come down with it—who will take care of him? But, much to my joy, I had none of these thoughts. The Lord has been so faithful in caring for us throughout this entire journey that my trust in Him has become quite sufficient to keep me calm and unafraid.

Different Wife, Different Life
I am not the same wife I was before my husband got a life-threatening illness. The trial brought on by this deadly, aggressive cancer has taught me a lot about my faith and the God in whom I have placed it; and I thought I had been through some pretty tough stuff already! Surely my battle with chronic pain and all the limitations that come with it would have humbled me, would have deepened my faith and matured me. That is true, but this trial of seeing someone you love—on whom you have depended for most of your adult life—fall  victim to an aggressive, deadly disease? Well that is a trial on a “whole ‘notha level,” as they say.  

John has always been my go-to friend; my buffer in difficult situations; my safe place to go when life is scary. Experiencing the most frightening thing in my life so far, without his strong shoulder to lean on, has taught me much about myself and about God. I’ve learned that in some ways and seasons, I have made an idol of my husband. In seeking comfort, solace, and protection in him, I have become unaccustomed to seeking it in God. Of course, our spouses are to be a source of all these things, but they should never be the primary source of any of them. I’ve learned through this leukemia journey that God is my refuge and strength, my very present help in trouble.   

John’s illness gave me the opportunity to learn this dependence on God through experience. Though the trials in my life had prepared me to some degree for this one, I don’t think there’s any way we are ever truly ready for such a challenge. The Lord had given me many opportunities to learn this dependence on him through previous trials, but I believe that in my self-sufficiency, I had come through most of them without really disciplining myself to depend on Him. This time though, there was no choice.

Learning Submission Through Love
I can’t tell you how many nights I sat on my back porch after coming home from the hospital and just cried out to God for his mercy and help. I cried for John’s pain and suffering, and I cried for my loneliness and fear. I cried for the possibility that I might never bring him home, and I cried for the loss of life as we’d known it, even if I did. Those were gut-wrenching nights, exhausting but humbling. In the end they left me softer, more willing to be shaped and molded by my Creator God, and more eager to submit to his loving will.

I’ve learned more about submission over this past year and a half than at any other time in my Christian life. But what’s taught me about submission wasn’t the practice I got in submitting. It was the overwhelming, awe-inspiring, all-encompassing love of God. He showed me in countless ways throughout this awful ordeal how much he loved me. He comforted me in my pain; answered my husband’s prayers in ways that deepened his faith; provided for my every need, and heard my pitiful cries. But most of all, he came alongside me and walked me through it. This is the simple, beautiful, perfect love of God: He is near.

I sensed God’s presence with me in ways I had never experienced before. But the wonderful thing is that this closeness, this intimacy with the Lord has remained with me as this illness falls further into the rear view. My God is my own now. The God of the Bible, whom I studied diligently to know; the God of the counseling room, whose Word I studied to show myself a competent counselor; the God of the universe, who inspires awe and wonder every time I open my eyes: That God became my God over the course of these two years. A distant God I'd known intellectually became my sweet Friend and Counselor; my Abba; my Jesus.

What’s Next?
In just a few short months, Lord willing, we will have a final bone marrow biopsy, and the doctors will declare John “cured.” (There’s even a gong he gets to bang, and a certificate involved! I’ll pop back in here then with the update, and possibly a video of said gong-banging!)  The lessons I have learned on this journey will stick with me. I know this because those lessons were not self-taught or learned from others. They were seeds of assurance, planted by the One who can guarantee their growth and longevity. I’m not worried that I’ll lose this deep relationship we’ve developed, because I am not the one who sustains it. Jesus is the creator and sustainer of all things, including my relationship with him, and He will hold me fast. Hallelujah! What a Savior!

Our Cancer Journey, Part 11: Zooming In

Last time, I shared with you more of the ways God worked in our lives and in our hearts during the course of John’s treatment. He was so faithful and so good to us, I think I could probably get to “Part 100” of this blog series and still not list all the ways! Today, I’d like to narrow that bird’s eye view of God’s work in our process and share a bit about how our marriage was renewed along the way.

Answered Prayer

Like most Christian wives, I have prayed every day since our salvation for my husband’s spiritual growth. Neither of us knew the Lord when we met, and we were both saved after about 10 years of marriage. Being academically inclined, I dove in right away and learned all I could of the Scriptures and Christian doctrine. All along the way, I prayed that we both would have this desire to know our Creator better and when John got sick, I began to see the Lord taking hold of him as never before.

Though I was with John as much as I could be during his treatment, there was much of it that he had to endure alone. I was not present with him in the radiation machine, the many bone marrow biopsies, or the long nights of sick sleeplessness in the hospital. I believe these were the times the Lord’s presence encouraged and matured him.

“It Shouldn’t Work!”

There’s one story in particular that John loves to tell. After he developed a blood clot in the first picc line, they removed it and placed a temporary IV in his arm. It was only meant to be functional for a day or so, but they wanted to leave it in as long as it would function, just to postpone another insertion. The first day it worked just fine. The second day the nurse said, “It probably won’t work today, but we’ll give it a try.” It worked perfectly all day and night! The third day they said, “We probably will need to get this out today, but let’s check and see if it will work.” Again, no problems. The same thing happened the fourth day, as the techs kept saying, “This really shouldn’t still be working!” But each time they came to draw blood or hang meds, John was praying. He was so weary of the pain of his treatment, and he just wanted this one little blessing from the Lord, not to have to be stuck with needles yet again. He asked the Lord, before and during each attempt, to allow it to work one more time. God was gracious. He knew what John needed, and He generously provided.

Now this may not seem like a big deal, but for John it was just one of many faith-building providences. It deepened his love for the Lord and his trust in God's goodness. Not only were John’s prayers answered, but mine were too. My husband is a different man today than he was before he became ill. He is even more sensitive to my needs, more humble in our relationship, and quicker to see his own fault. These changes didn’t happen right away, but as time has passed and we’ve both gained perspective on what we’ve been through, we are seeing the changes the Lord has made in our relationship. There is a deeper connection than ever before between us, and between each of us and the Lord.

Grateful

If I had to choose one major change I’ve seen in our marriage as a result of John’s illness, I would say it is gratitude. Gratitude for each other, for our relationship, for our family. We don’t take each other for granted. We don’t get hung up on little things or petty differences, because we know something much more important: Life is fragile. The Lord gave us this marriage, and He can take it away at any time. We are both so thankful that He saw fit to let us keep our marriage, and to continue to grow in Him through it. We both love the Lord more deeply than before, and we treasure our relationship with Him and with each other.

And Even More Grateful

There was a couple we met one day at the clinic as we waited for our turn to see the doctor. Joe was the patient, and Jill was his caregiver. Though he had a different disease, Joe had had the same type of transplant as John, and after striking up a conversation we decided to exchange numbers and try to keep in touch. Jill was a sweet lady who texted me often and always had words of encouragement for me. I tried to encourage her too, though her husband suffered many more complications than mine and their journey was much more arduous. I was so grateful for her kindness and her interest in me and the challenges I faced. She was my “caregiver buddy” and her support was invaluable.

We kept in touch for over a year, and the last I’d heard her husband was doing well. One day, I texted to check in, and I received this reply: “Joe passed away last week. We buried him yesterday.” I can’t describe to you the shock and sorrow I felt upon reading that. In her last text, she'd said they were headed on a trip to visit family, and things were looking really positive. This news hit me hard. I struggled with whether to reach out to her, trying to put myself in her place. Having just lost her husband, would she want to hear from me? I did respond to her text, but never heard back from her. My heart still aches when I think about it, and John and I still pray for her nearly every night. This was another providential event that deepened my gratitude to God and my love for my husband.

My dear reading friend, who in your life do you treasure? Who do you love and value? Who has God blessed you with in your life? I’d like to urge you right now to tell that individual how much you love them, and how much of a blessing they are to you. Tell God how thankful you are for that person, and how grateful you are that He allowed you to have them in your life. We are not promised tomorrow, and none of us knows when the Lord will ordain the end of that relationship. Now is the time to reach out, both to God and to your loved ones, to express your love and gratitude.