The Walk Beside

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Posted on March 31st, 2010 by Cam.
Categories: Let's talk.

I have turned the ability to make comments back on for this time as people may have noticed that I had disabled this function. I am very thankful for the people who have contacted via email, and even if you haven’t I am thankful you are able to read what has been happening.  It is big stuff, and I feel it is not over yet.  I hope the real journey is about to begin.  What a suck of a prelude till now, that’s all I can say.

5 comments.

Still well

Posted on March 31st, 2010 by Cam.
Categories: Let's talk.

I have no reason to doubt that I am still well.

As I mentioned before, my physical body is still taking some time to catch up with the news, so it remains in pain most of the time.  This time will pass, I believe.

I had chemo yesterday, in keeping with Dr Brad’s desire to finish off the cycle that I have started.  I woke this morning still quite sore and having some sweats.  Once I was good to move, I headed down to my friends Geoff and Ruth who run Houses of Healing.  We spent the time just in worship and prayer.  Was good.

Geoff told me that they prayed on my behalf during the week at a conference that was on up here in Perth by a guy called Graham Cooke.  I have listened to a lot of his stuff about 6 months ago that was really encouraging.  Bummer I missed it, but thankful I was prayed for at that time.  I am not sure what precisely it was that has given me these great results – prayer for healing that I went to with my pastor and sister, the readings that I have been doing praying God’s word over my body, prayers on my behalf, etc etc.  But I have reason to believe that my body changed just in this last week, as I noticed an absence of some symptoms specifically in this last week.  Should I say, I noticed the continued symptoms over the last month except this last week.

So not sure, but don’t really care at this point.  I feel I need to live out the belief that this has been a significant time of healing.

Yesterday, when I went to get my chemo injection, I asked the nurses at Haematology if I could get a printout of my results.  These ladies have been an amazing support for me over my entire journey. I told them a month ago that if I got better, it would be because of Gods word being relied on for my healing. The were stoked that I got the results I got, and were gobsmacked that it has happened.

My results clearly show my blood and urine tests from a month ago, where indicators were found in my blood and urine, to what they were now, after the month of praying Gods word and having prayer for healing a couple of times.  Last month’s results say clearly ‘D’ (- detectable), Abnormal, and proteins present in my whizz.  My levels in my blood were 8 point something (still good – normal range is 3.3-20 roughly).  My protein level in my blood is now 6.6 (the lowest it has ever been), and now the report reads ‘ND’ (not detectable) and Normal.  Ultimately, they read as any healthy person’s results would read.  Go figure.

So it would be rude of me to not live in light of these results, though that is harder than it sounds to do for reasons I may go into later.

For now, I yearn for my physical body and my mind to catch up with my good news.  No pain, and no pain respectively.  It gives me hope, certainly, as there was a lot riding on these results.  I was ready to go into this last consult on Friday to tell Dr Brad that I had had enough treatment.  The whole, ‘enough is enough’ chat.  It is the equivalent to switching off life support, it just takes a bit longer and there is less beeping of the machines.  I told Carms on the way into the consult to be prepared to hear that conversation, and she was, as much as you can be.

So it has been a significant turnaround.  Timing was impeccable.  We didn’t talk about much treatment at all, apart from coming off chemo completely fairly soon.  That is a miracle.  What you have read bears testament to it.  If the cancer comes back tomorrow, bah humbug – a miracle took place last week.

8 comments.

…and He healed them.

Posted on March 26th, 2010 by Cam.
Categories: Let's talk.

These are the words cut out in ply that rest over a door frame in my sister’s house.  The full verse is Psalm 107:20 – He sent his Word, and he healed them; he rescued them from the grave.

I had a consult today with Dr Brad, to get results from my bloods and urine tests earlier this week.  All my results are perfect for a healthy person, and there is no evidence of active cancer either in my blood or urine.  Something has happened between last checkup and this week.

I went in to the consult with a shop-a-docket list of questions about future treatment.  We discussed none of it, as there was no point.  It seems we don’t need to talk stem-cell transplant or further chemo at this point.  The only thing we did discuss was dropping the chemo I am on now down to nothing over a few weeks.  I asked if I could stop now, but Dr Brad felt more comfortable finishing this cycle off to make extra sure.

Whatever.  I think healing has happened.  I don’t know what to do now.  Still in shock a little bit.

Based on past experiences, the natural tendency is to be skeptical and cautious.  But I think I can go ahead and live with the belief that I am not sick.  See what happens, or doesn’t happen.

Since the last lot of results, I have been praying believing that there is power in God’s word to heal – as it says there is.  Though I don’t think there is a formula to conjure up healing, the absence of cancer markers indicates my body is becoming less dead.  What happens in the future is irrelevant in some respects – these results are significant.  I could not have got a better report.

What happens next I don’t know.  Dr Brad doesn’t need to see me for another month or two.  I feel like I have been rescued from the grave, again.  Will write more later, I have some celebrating to do.

0 comments.

Dealt with

Posted on March 25th, 2010 by Cam.
Categories: Let's talk.

The situation with the presence in the house has been dealt with.

After the incident with being pinned to the bed the other night, I haven’t been in the house much.  I went to York one night to do some silver work, so didn’t get back down to the house until yesterday afternoon.  I invited my pastor Grant and brother-in-law Michael over to help pray through the house, to basically tell any presence it was time to go.

While we were praying up in the upstairs bedroom, where the incident happened, Michael had the sense that there was something that needed to be removed from the house.  He went over to a storage compartment in the roof and pulled out some bags of stuff.  It all belonged to the previous tenants (of which there were many, as it was used for short term accommodation).  In amongst the collection were two bags, both had the faces of demons on them.  They looked like showbags basically, but nothing fun about them.  So we took them outside and put them in the bin.

Once that was done, the house seemed to be free of any bad presence, and I got a great night sleep last night. Make of that what you will, but I have seen enough stuff to know that this stuff is for real, and needs dealing with when encountered.  Done.

Off to see Dr Brad tomorrow.  This consult is a biggie.  I get the results back from my bloods and 24 hour urine test (relax, its not continual, you are allowed to have a break).  I am not sure how I am going to deal with whatever result I get.  I have been getting my hopes up in some respects that I am getting better, hoping God has been tending to things while I have been praying specifically in the last month or so.  But my body doesn’t feel any different.  I feel like a broken spirit carrying around a heavy broken carcass.

It literally feels like there is not only a quality of life, but a quantity.  The saying ‘He is full of life’ seems to ring true in the sense that life feels like it can come in degrees.  At the moment, I feel like I only have about 20% of life in me, I am mostly dead, but the 20% keeps me looking alive, insists on air filling my lungs, commands the heart to keep beating and mind to function as best it can.

The other 80% is dead, but revivable (flashback to “The Princess Bride” where Billy Chrystal’s character informs Mantoya that the Westley is only ‘mostly dead’).  I have often thought that it is the Doctor’s task to keep me alive, but it is God’s task to heal me.  There maybe a crossover point that comes soon, or it may not.  But that 20% is hell hard to maintain, I tell you.

Click here for \”Mostly Dead\”

Tomorrow’s discussion will lead to some big decisions.  These decisions involve choosing lines of treatment that carry different degrees of risk and different levels of life-quality.  An aspect of the decision making process involves the question ‘when is enough enough?’.  If it came down to a purely physical decision, the answer would be to just keep on going until the body can’t take any more treatment.  My mind in it’s current state, however, has to work hard to choose life.  It needs to go against what it ‘feels’ like doing, believing that the current situation will pass and the future holds what is hoped for.

But then again, reflecting back on life, many significant hopes have not come to fruition.  In fact, they have ended up in catastrophe.  This is where the battle lies.  I hold onto hope, knowing full well that my situation may not get any better, that I may not see those hopes turn out.  I know that any hope I place in earthly things or broken people is not guaranteed.  They still remain as hopes, but I have learned the hard way that things don’t often turn out how we had hoped.  Sometimes, it is the most precious of our hopes that don’t turn out.  When our foundations have been based on hopes that don’t come to fruition, then we are up a small guano tributary without a wooden implement fashioned for watercraft propulsion.

What then?  Well, a re-establishment of hopes need to be made, but ones that are base on something solid, something certain, something Christlike.  The only thing that I hope for at the moment is for my body and mind to be healed.  There is no valid reason to continue whilst the discomfort of both of these elements undermine every good thing available in this life.  This sayeth the despondent heart.

The heart that goes completely against what the body and mind desire says to keep on going, squeeze every hour out of every day, make the body walk past its muscle ache, make the mind think it is alive again.

At this point in my life, I am unpacking boxes for the forth or fifth time over a year or so.  Each time I wonder, is this worth it?  Is it worth unpacking belongings.  If so, for what?  So that I can pack them up again soon, or worse, so that someone else must pack them up?

I keep getting told that this time will pass.  Yes, of course it will pass – it is time, and thats what time has always done, and always will do – it passes.  The outcome, however, is beyond any person’s knowledge and certainly beyond any guarantee.

At the moment, each hope I hear gets filed under ‘M’ for “Maybe, Maybe Not”.

0 comments.

Presence

Posted on March 23rd, 2010 by Cam.
Categories: Let's talk.

I wrote the entry ‘Tired’ the night before last. It wasn’t a good night. I went to sleep reasonably early, and it had been quite some time since I had any tablets.

I woke suddenly in the middle of the night and was aware something was not right – there was just a bad presence in the room.  I didn’t see anything or anyone.  I was awake, and fully conscious, but I could not move my body at all, nor could I speak. I felt pinned to the bed. It was a terrible feeling. I tried to sit up, but once again, couldn’t move anything. I knew I had to pray out loud, but I couldn’t speak at all. I thought “I just need to be able to say ‘Jesus’ “.

After about 15-20 seconds I was able to say Jesus, and then I could sit up and prayed out loud. Whatever had kept me still on the bed was gone.  When I was praying, I was praying out of exhaustion and disbelief thinking, “What more do I need to deal with?”  Again, I questioned God as to why things continue to be difficult.  I thought I was done with my share of complicated situations.

Although I was a frightened when I couldn’t move or speak, the fear was gone and I eventually fell asleep again.

0 comments.

When it rains, it pours.

Posted on March 22nd, 2010 by Cam.
Categories: Let's talk.

You would think that it would have been nice to have a nice day.  Well, it was nice this morning – sunny and warm.  I went to the hospital in the afternoon to have bloods and chemo.  While I was in Haematology, the sky went dark – really dark.  Then it started to hail.  It was like a plane landing on the roof.  Hailstones like golfballs.  I have never seen a storm so violent in all my life.  Long story short – this is my car that I bought last week.  When I left it in the carpark, it was sunny and warm.  I came back to see it like this.  Every panel has at least a couple of hundred dents, and the windscreen is cracked in quite a few places.  The funny side to the story..?  There is no funny side to the story.

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Tired

Posted on March 21st, 2010 by Cam.
Categories: Let's talk.

It is hard not to be upset with you sometimes God.  No – a lot of the time.  The good things that happen each day are slammed by the reality of hardship and what feels like hopelessness.  Knowing you can do something to relieve people of their suffering gives hope, but you leave sufferers on stand-by, and they wait to find out if they are picked to be relieved of their suffering.

I writhe in pain daily, if not from my body, from my head.  I started this life pretty well.  Did the right things, behaved, kept promises, stayed good.  The onset of grief, confusion, sickness, and then a crumbling leaves me wondering why the hell did I bother trying so hard to be good – my life turned to rubble anyway.  Could it have been any worse if I had of stuffed up the first half of my life?  I don’t think so, from where I’m standing.

I still have hope, but I don’t know what would be worth hanging on for anymore.  The hope that I live for another six months – but for what?  More of the same? Please!  Just release me!  Do whatever you do to let me be free from this life, this mind, this pain.  What are you keeping me here for?

Yes I do thank you constantly for the good things, yes I praise you when things here are more than horrendous, yes I try to keep a positive outlook and yes I talk with you constantly, asking for healing, asking to be heard, asking for you to help change the direction my body and my mind are going.  What am I missing?  Is there something I have missed?  Have I missed a point somewhere along the line?

All I know is that I haven’t lost hope for healing, I just don’t know if I want it anymore, as death and eternity without all this is a far better option – unless you can show me otherwise.  I am sick of waiting to be healed.  So many people are praying.  What does it take?

You leave me hanging it seems.  You know I am tired of all this.  Really, really tired.

0 comments.

For goodness sake, settle down!

Posted on March 20th, 2010 by Cam.
Categories: Let's talk.

Tonight I spend my first night in my new place. It is really good to have a place to settle into. It is right near the other houses I have lived in here in the city, so I love that.

Yesterday I had a wake up call regarding my painkillers. I went to work without my tablets, thinking that I would be ok. By lunchtime I was a mess. I couldn’t write with a pen, I was shaking, my mind was all over the place and I wasn’t feeling flash at all. I had to get one of the guys there to drive me back to Rachel’s place where I had my meds and downed a few tablets. Within a few minutes my body had returned to its normal abnormal. It dawned on me that it was the first morning since November last year that I had not had at least 100 mg of oxy’s .

Just when I thought my body could do without it. Got to take it slower, which suits me fine because I still need them to get through a day.

0 comments.

Time out

Posted on March 17th, 2010 by Cam.
Categories: Let's talk.

For the last month or so I have been living on the farm out at York which has been brilliant. Apart from being a very relaxing place, Ma and Pa have poured out there generous care for me in every way.

Dad has also spent a lot of time converting one of the sheds into the new silver studio, and it is looking fantastic. We really just finished today, so it is all functional. Very happy to get that done.

The time up here has really been vital in getting through a very rough time mentally. I would say that only in the last couple of days have I seen some progress that has been positive. At this time I am also struggling to lower my intake of painkillers. They were originally prescribed for my hip pain, but that was back in October last year. I can hardly believe that I have been on them constantly since then, but I have, and my body has become very used to them. I didn’t need them for physical pain as much as what I was taking them to get through the day mentally. I still rely on them now, but I am lessening the dose each day.

At my worst, I would have had 400mg of Oxycontin in a day – but usually 200 – 300, depending on how I was feeling. I would say they have been a life-saver though. The times I have been at my lowest, I have been able to chew through a wad of tablets and capsules to bring me back to a place of respite in a matter of 20 minutes. On many occasions I have gone from painful hysterics to drowsy ambivalence thanks to these medications. I take them because they work.

Last week, I came across a book on healing that emphasises the power of Scripture, God’s Word. I have been reading specific verses over and over, believing that there is power in doing so. This is a big thing. I told the nurses last week that I believe that I am going to get better, and if I do, it is because God is healing me. My treatment regime has been halved, in that I will now only be getting one injection of the miracle chemo Velcade per treatment week rather than two. So if my body shows signs of improvement, it is unlikely due to the chemo. I told them to wait and see what happens.

I had a consult with Dr Brad a week or two ago. The options ahead include a stem-cell transplant with my own stem-cells (as I had before) but with other drugs in combination. I still have Velcade for a few months yet, but I don’t want to be on that forever. It keeps me alive, but I don’t want to be just kept alive – I want to be free from this disease – that is what God promises. I want to see this stuff happen. I believe it can, and I expect it will.

Mental health, physical health, spiritual health – I need a gym that takes care of them all.

0 comments.

Posted on March 14th, 2010 by Cam.
Categories: Let's talk.

hope, blessing, courage, strength.

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