Middle of January 2009

January 16

Today I had a echo stress test. This would involve being on the treadmill with them increasing the grade and the speed. Actually, I was a little apprehensive about this since I hadn’t done one of these for at least ten years. But, I grabbed my sugar free gum and went for it. In the end, it was a piece of cake. I saw the pictures and the cardiologist said that I had good heart function and there was no evidence of any blockages. A couple of days later, my nurse coordinator emailed me from the Stanford Medical Center and said that she just got the echo results ”and in case you didn’t know it, you have a lovely heart!” So, the next time someone tells me that they think I don’t have heart, I will quote her words! And by the way, I did a seminar on being Heart Healthy at the Western States Conference in Bremerton last April and if you would like a copy of my presentation, I can email it to you. This is a good report for ten years ago, I had a bypass and usually they last only about ten years. So, while I was apprehensive about going, I was sure glad with the results. On Friday, I had a respiratory test and that seemed to go well too. In about a week and a half, I should be near to getting my schedule for the stem cell transplant at The Stanford Medical Center.

January 13

Since I lost almost of of my hair the previous week, on Sunday I told the church that having a bald head is like heaven is a bright and shiny place and there is no parting or dieing there. I also told them that God only made a few perfect heads and the rest he put hair on. And then I asked, “Do you know where all the hair goes when a man goes bald? It all goes inward and grows out his nose and ears!”

January 12
Now, wait until they see me next Sunday. For this morning, I received package in the mail from my good friend Ernie Clark in Texas. It was a hat with hair growing out the top. I will be wearing it next Sunday. Look and see what I am talking about: The hair on top is both black and white.

Sunday, January 11

Sunday was a great day at Walnut Creek. Yes, I am still at the pulpit. Last week’s message was, A Bend in the Road is not the End. Yesterday, it was, A Crash in the Road in not the End either. I told the story of how a girl driving on the wrong side of the road hit another vehicle and incapacited a driver coming the other way for a whole year. What was mind buggling was that I invited the mother of the girl, who had put the daughter out for adoption when she was 16, to speak on the events of the past year. There was not a dry eye in the service. But what we learned is that when we encounter a crash in our lives, our lives are not over. God somehow works in our lives and causes us who are weeping in the night to again have joy in the morning and us who are mourning to once again dance. The message was taken from Psalm 30. And David who was hurting healthwise saw the day in which he was healed. It was a great service because, the man was hit in the crash came to know the Lord and the girl started a ministry in junior highs and high schools about drinking. And even the mother learned how to forgive her daughter whom she had reunited with just 12 years earlier. One of the things we learned is that often things happen in our lives in order to grow.

Listen to this quote in Ron Mehl's book Surprise Endings says that says, "Someone had told him that the times when plants grow the most are not necessarily during the warm, gentle rains or beautiful summer days. In fact, when the fierce winds blow and the raging storms come is the time of most growth. Botanists tell us that if you were to take a cross section of the earth during a vicious storm, you could literally observe the roots reaching further down into the soil.” He goes on to say, “The German poet Goethe said, ‘Talent is formed in solitude, but character in the storms of life: (pps 60-61). And I believe that if you take a cross-section of people in our churches, we can literally observe the same thing.

January 9

This was the last day of chemo at Kaiser for this go-round. Today was a normal day of four hours of the stuff. I asked the nurse today what they do with all the tubes that flow from the bags into my arms that are thrown into a yellow bin. I asked her if they sterilize them and use them again. She said that they burn them. They are too toxic to be reused. And to think that that is what is going into me! And when I get to Stanford, they say that the chemotherapy treatment there is five to ten times worse!

In the next couple of weeks, I will be mainly taking some more tests such as a echocardiogram, pulmonary, PET and probably a few more. I may be making a trip to Stanford or two as well. Hopefully, I will be getting the schedule soon for the Stanford part of the program and when I do, I will post that.

January 7-8

We had two more days of chemo of four hours each. This wound up the second cycle of chemotherapy at Kaiser in Walnut Creek.