The diagnosis of cancer has started a new direction for me. We all have our own journeys, but the invitation is to walk beside.
Posted on April 20th, 2010 by Cam.
Categories: Let's talk.
I can’t believe the freedom that I am experiencing at the moment. It is quite foreign to me, and frankly I am having difficulty adjusting to it, or believing that it is happening.
It has taken a psychiatrist only a session or two to speak truth into my situation, and I have been released from incredible guilt, oppression and made my future look tangibly hopeful, not just a belief that things can get better, hopefully, maybe, one day. Possibly.
I feel that they are better now. I still deal with a deep sadness that my marriage has gone, but there has been resolution in this decision, and it has been turned into a healthy resolution.
It has been a very long time since my mind has felt this freedom, so I hope it will do wonders with my health also. I am sure that my health has taken a real beating while my heart and head have been struggling to survive.
For me, it is going to be an exciting adventure to see how long I can remain on this earth. I have found peace in a lot of things recently, and I am happy with my lot. I don’t feel like life would be unfinished from any point here on. I haven’t been able to say that or think that for a long time. I am loving the possibility that my life is about to begin again, with more freedom living to be experienced.
This has been the most significant battle of my life, even over the cancer – I can’t explain it fully, but the resolve in my head has been the miracle that has defined a real turning point in my life I feel. I just hope the body joins in the party.
Posted on April 18th, 2010 by Cam.
Categories: Let's talk.
Still getting used to such great results the other day. It is extremely difficult to live in the now and accept that things could be good, hopefully forever.
My body is still catching up though. If there is something I would love continued prayer for it would be for my nerves. One of the side-effects of multiple myeloma is what is called peripheral neuropathy. This sensation is like a burning pins and needles in the feet and hands usually. Great during winter when you need warming up. It is also caused by the medications that I have been on for chemo. So you are damned either way.
The downside is that peripheral neuropathy results in permanent nerve damage, and that seems to be getting worse. I am losing feeling in my fingers and toes, making it very difficult to read Braille for a start.
I had a lot of nerve damage after my stem cell transplant, which come to think about it was two years ago a few days ago. Now, the nerve damage continues.
I have my last chemo shot tomorrow, hopefully forever. The end of this treatment should make things better, but I want my feeling to be restored. All things are possible.
I have been advised to stay on my painkillers (yay) which is a big relief in one way as they do get me through the day emotionally. But once again, the side-effects are hindering to say the least. But until I have some stability for a while and until my other treatments kick in, I will be relying on them as per usual.
A friend who has had 59 operations to save her leg after a car crash years ago said that coming off these painkillers was the most difficult thing she has done. I can see why. When your mind is having to deal with medical and personal traumas, and you have a pill that can give you relief from that 15 minutes after swallowing – the decision not to take it defies logic and expectation. Becoming an substance abuser, in my opinion, is a process that follows logical decision making, making the wino in the gutter one a temporary genius.
Posted on April 13th, 2010 by Cam.
Categories: Let's talk.
This was the line from a song that I kept singing over and over yesterday afternoon (no, really?!).
The torment in my head has been broken. It is truth that sets us free.
To go from depths I can not describe to a feeling of freedom almost forgotten is worth celebrating with the rest of my life.
A counselor who I was seeing last year spoke a blessing in my life and declared that all things unsettled would come to pass before I died. I can say that all things are settled now, but it did not mean then I wouldn’t live for a good 50 years more as my pastor is praying.
Either way, it is well with my soul I feel. It is time to live now, dying can come later and I feel released from the pressure of time to find peace before that time comes.
There may still be a way to go to clean up the mess of the past, but I do so knowing that the end result is not at all absent of goodness and mercy. They shall follow me all the days of my life.
Peace be with you, and also with me.
Posted on April 11th, 2010 by Cam.
Categories: Let's talk.
Until told otherwise, I am trying to live as much as possible and talk about sickness as little as possible. The dependency on painkillers is still an issue, but I have my breakthroughs every now and then. Today I celebrated my dose cut-down by taking a painkillers to lift my spirits. Depression is lifting at times. Projects are coming together. Many things to be thankful for. Many good things ahead.
Posted on April 3rd, 2010 by Cam.
Categories: Let's talk.
Keith passed away in London today.
Posted on April 2nd, 2010 by Cam.
Categories: Let's talk.
Now I just wonder if the my good results are going to stick, or whether it is just another good set of results.
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.
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.
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.
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”.
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