ONE DAY AT A TIME!

WALLA WALLA, WA, Sept. 20, 2010, Mostly Sunny, 75 degrees.

We left Seattle Friday afternoon and drove down to Kelso, WA to visit our daugthter, Hanna. Saturday we went to Portland, OR to visit daughter Ella and her husband Chris Brown, as well as Kriss' sister Patty-Jo and her daughter Heidi and her two children. It was a good weekend to see family and watch some football games and just get out of the cancer world. Sunday, we drove back to Walla Walla to get settled back into a routine here for 6-8 weeks until we need to go back to Seattle. We had an appointment this morning at 9 am for blood tests and a visit with Dr. Quackenbush to schedule our next R-CHOP cycle October 7. We received a confidential letter from the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance today summorizing the Patient Care Conference they had about us last week and a detailed explanation of the potential risks and benefits of going ahead with stem cell transplant using donor cells from a sibling. One sentence, in particular, jumps out at you when you read it: "We described the risks of graft-versus-host disease associated with the transplant and the risks of infections, which resulted in accumulative transplant-related mortality of 20-40% depending on the regimen." Depending on how one looks at the world, that means I am facing abouty a one in three chance of death from the treatment or a two in three chance of survival with a possibility of a broad based cure. The risks of not doing the transplant may be even worse. My father developed both prostate cancer and leukemia prior to his death and they took their toll very quickly. Kriss and I both feel that this is one of those times when you have to put your complete trust in God's promises and presence. We both feel a deep peace about going forward, at this time, and we will trust that the best donor can be found which will create the least amount of GVH (Graft-VS-Host) complex and replace my faltering immune system with a stronger one. We also received a letter from one of our beloved parishioners today who lost her husband a year or so ago after going through a very routine procedure that spiraled out of control in a matter of days. She wrote: "Thank God, no matter what the journey, you are surrounded by God's loving arms - holding you tightly with passion and comfort to give you peace, especially when you need it most. You are both loved so much! Keep the faith! Each day is a Gift! Love sustains us all! Love, Susan." These words have a particular significance to me. I remember sitting with all of Susan's family for several days following her husband's downturn. We prayed so hard and hoped so much, but her husband would not recover. I will never forget the evening the family made the decision to remove all artificial life support. We all gathered together in his room and as they began to shut off one machine after another, we began to sing. When we came to the end of that song, Tom took his last breath and was gone. Susan's words carry such impact because they come from a heart that has loved so deeply and lives her faith so authentically. It is that kind of loving support from people who have allowed me to share God's hope in their lives, that will sustain us now. My very favorite French author, Antoine de St. Exupery, wrote that there is only one true luxury worth having in this life. That is the luxury of deep human friendships. Those relationships are forged over the years of shared experiences, life and death, victory and defeat. One waits in vain if one thinks that one can plant an acorn today and sit under the shade of an oak tree tomorrow. Surrounded by a grove of such long term friendships, we take strength from their nearness and protection from their presence. When they are gone, our lives seem defoliated by their absence. The last sentence in this book, WIND, SAND, AND STARS reads: "Seul, L'Esprit, s'il souffle sur la glaise peut creer l'Homme!"  My own translation of this sentence goes: "Only if the Spirit of God breathes upon the clay of human life, can authentic humanity exist." That is my deepest prayer; that God will breathe His Spirit of life upon all of us in this journey of faith and we will live the abundant life only Christ can give. As we visited with Dr. Quackenbush today, he asked how I was tolerating the R-CHOP therapy I received last Thursday. I said I felt fine, except for some fatigue. He warned Kriss that tomorrow, Tuesday, after coming off the Prednizone I have been taking for 5 days, that I would have the biggest hangover of my life. Well, I have no way of knowing what that feels like, seeing as how I can honestly say that I have never been intoxicated or high on anything in my life. That leads me to the next chapter in Junior High School, the crisis of experimenting with underage drinking and drugs.

Wapato, WA, eigth grade, Wapato Junior High School, 1964
About 8th grade, I began to notice a subtle push to drink alcohol and experiment with whatever drugs people my age could get their hands on. From as far back as I can remenber, people under the influence of any intoxicant were frightening and repulsive to me. It all began with Great Uncle "Sup", (pronounced soup). Sup was my Grandmother Peterson's younger brother who lived in Omaha, Nebraska as an adult and who was a raging alcoholic. He was definitely on my Mother's short list of persona non grata and she dreaded the day that he might just show up back in North Dakota. One year when she would still allow him to enter the house, he dropped his suitcase on the floor and three Nebraska cockroaches scampered out and she threw Sup, the suitcase and hopefully, the cockroaches out together. The next time I saw him was one winter when my parents were gone and he showed up and made himself at home with Grandpa and Grandma. While he was there, he thought it would be a good idea to introduce his grand-nephews to the mysteries of John Barleycorn, or hard liquor. My older brothers had probably tasted beer before, but this was a night none of us would ever forget. Somehow, we congregated at our Cousin Rudy's house down the road from our place outside of Beach, North Dakota for the initiation. Someone had found some warm beer for an appetizer and by the time Sup arrived with the "hooch", there was beer on the ceiling and floor and a little bit in the gullet. I got really concerned when Sup showed up with the hard stuff and I told them that I was going to call an older brother who I thought would save the day. Sup took me aside and warned me that it wasn't in my best interest to blow the whistle on a good time, so I was to just shut up and put up with it. That isn't in my nature and I somehow snuck the phone into the kitchen and called my rescuer to come out to Rudy's and save us. He actually came,along with a friend, I believe, and they broke up the party, confiscating the goods. I suspect that they put them to their own usage, but I didn't care, as long as I wasn't present. I remember two of my older brothers who had inbibed, throwing up repeatedly, which taught me an early lesson about the ultimate results of intoxication. In seventh grade, I used to walk home for lunch. One day I stumbled upon an end of the school party at the house hosted by a family member. Since I was there to make lunch for myself, they all thought that it would be a great idea if I cooked for all of them, as well. I tried in vain to get out of it, but in the end, I grilled hamburgers for a bunch of people I didn't like at the time, and ended up getting sent to the Principal's office for being late when I got back to school. The next time that I was more likely to start drinking, was when a friend of mine who had moved from California, offered me some alcohol at his house. His father would die within 5 years from that date from alcohol related diseases. There was always some form of alcohol around the house and he said he drank it with his Dad and they wouldn't mind if I wanted to try it. I could see that alcohol was destroying this man's health and his family and, once again, I had the privilege of seeing where that road could lead, and I politely refused. I have never seen anything truly positive come out of intoxication. I guess for young people, like adults, for that matter, it's about alterring your consciousness. Whatever pain, anxiety, fear or meaninglessness you can't cope with, numbing the rational part of the brain with intoxicants seems like a legitimate escape. The problem is that it may introduce you to a pattern of avoidance and behavior that will make your original problems pale in comparison. Junior High School and now Middle School seem to be the time when you have to face the crisis of intoxication. I can only thank God that I got to see the harsh realities of drunkedness at any early enough age that there was absolutely no attraction. By the nineth grade other forms of crisis would appear.