Lung Cancer

To Live Is Christ, To Die Is Gain!

The news of the Rev. Dr. Henry Greene’s death has silenced me in shock and awe. My dear friend and colleague in renewal work within the PC(USA) died suddenly on Monday, while doing what he loved, hiking in Yosemite National Park. Henry was the real deal, a genuine to-the-core Christian who lived for Christ in all he did. I could devote this entire post as a tribute to him (and may still at a later date), but he would be embarrassed by that and would find a way to shift the focus onto his Lord. So that is what I […]

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Thinking Outside the Chemo Cubicle

Yesterday was my first day of the full-treatment protocol: radiation at 8:40 a.m. and a lengthy chemotherapy infusion starting at 9:15 a.m. All in all, it was a very good day, surprising even, and you can read the medical details on my log if you’d like. I promised I wouldn’t bore my blog readers with the techie stuff here, and I won’t. However, they will appreciate more what I share here if they understand the backdrop of consulting nurses, fiddling with devices, observing possible side effects, measuring renal output, and learning how to operate that cool recliner. When I arrived

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Slaying the Beast

Four weeks ago today my doctor told me there was a mass in my upper left lung. Two weeks ago it was identified as a cancerous tumor. In the effort to get my head around this new reality, I have occasionally referred to this tumor as “the beast” and written in terms of slaying it. This is mythical battle language, a genre I am not accustomed to using. Nevertheless, the image sticks in my mind, because there is a foundation of truth underneath it. Unlike Don Quixote, whose imagination led him to believe he was being attacked by giants, I

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Resting in Uselessness

Two days of radiation, before chemo gets started on Monday, have me thinking about what is required of me in the radiology oncology department. My sole job is to lie down on the table in the middle of a large room, put my arms up over my head into a custom-made cradle, allow the technicians to position me exactly in line with the lasers seeking out minute tattoos on my body, and then remain still for fifteen minutes. That’s it. No reading, no iPod, no talking . . . just be still and take regular shallow breaths so my tumor

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This Is Going to Hurt

One of my all-time favorite movies is Hook, starring Robin Williams, Dustin Hoffman, Julia Roberts and Maggie Smith. There’s this great scene where Captain Hook (Hoffman) is stealing the affections of the kidnapped children of grown up Peter Pan (Williams). Hook is making more progress with the already alienated son Jack than the younger daughter Maggie. Soon we see Jack dressed up as a miniature Captain Hook, but one thing more is needed to complete the costume: a pierced ear to accommodate a big gold ear ring. As Hook holds up his arm hook, the tool of choice for ear-piercing,

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The Supportive Community

The days getting ready for my cancer treatments have been amazingly busy. Because I will be undergoing both radiation and chemotherapy, I am engaged in two tracks of testing and preparation. Today, for instance, I will go in for a dress rehearsal of my custom-designed radiation treatment. During this procedure the technicians, the physicist, and the doctor all sign off on the mapping of high-energy x-rays that will converge on the Beast. Yesterday it was a bone-marrow biopsy to set a baseline for measuring side effects of chemotherapy. Another kind of preparation is happening at home. Because the disease itself

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The Down-side of Playing It by the Numbers

I have had my diagnosis of lung cancer for just one week now, though I was strongly suspicious for a week or two prior to that: enough time to start getting my head and heart around the possibilities. In those weeks, my cough and an antibiotic were making it hard for me to sleep, so there were so many hours and such a big world-wide-web to awaken my curiosity. Bad idea. I saw just one number (the average 5-year survival rate for lung cancer) and made a decision right then and there: I’m not going to do this by the

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Paring Down to Nothing

You might appreciate the bond between a woman and her purse. If not, it’s like this: Don’t mess with me, baby. My Bandolini bag has provisions for body, mind, and spirit in the form of water bottle, Zone Bar, mini New Testament, wallet, sunglasses, inhaler, lipstick, last week’s church bulletin, iPhone, pencils and pens, cough drops, car keys, iPad, and lip balm. And that’s just the beginning. I am prepared at any given time to be away from home most of the day with everything I need. But the current lung adventure has required a new ritual. Almost daily this

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On Assignment: A New Perspective on “Call”

Presbyterians use the term “discerning one’s call” to refer to the process of figuring out one’s vocation. In the Presbyterian/Reformed Tradition, that call is sensed not only by the ministerial candidate personally but by the Presbytery’s Committee on Preparation for Ministry and ultimately by a congregation that desires to call a candidate into pastoral service. It was a Christian community’s process over years’ time that solidified my sense of call to the Ministry of Word and Sacrament. That call, exercised as a pastor-teacher, has shaped my identity and brought structure to my life since 1987. The last seven years “without

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My Life Under Scrutiny

Today every inch of my body will be scanned; a PET scan first (neck downward), then a brain MRI (head only)…checking to see if the beast has gotten out of its cage. I welcome the scrutiny, because my cure is heavily invested in finding what ails me. Without that specific diagnosis and knowledge of the stage of the disease, it cannot be slain. Gone are any pretenses of privacy or the sovereignty of my own opinion. I mean, really, what good would it do for me to say, “Y’all, my insides are none of your business. There’s nothing wrong with

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