Is my latest cancer update good news or bad news? To be sure, in many ways, it’s good news. Probably very good news. And yet, it’s hard not to feel something like the father who said to Jesus, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!” Except that, of course, it’s not the father and his son, but me and myself.
Is my latest cancer update good news or bad news? is article #9 in the series: Do not waste your cancer. Click button to view titles for entire series
Part of the problem is that an update is, well, without context, just an update. I had a blood test, just like every other visit. A number comes back. I kind of have an idea of what’s bad news. And kind of an idea of what’s good news.
But then there’s a range in the middle where I just don’t know. I need some context to the number. And when the number comes on a cell phone. there’s no one to ask about the context.
Sure, the oncologist is right on the other side of the door. But she’s waiting for the blood results, just like me.
Of course, I could ignore my phone. Not read the message that comes in from the lab with the results. And most of the time, with most other things, I can totally do that. But not with this. I had to know. It was the difference between beginning radiation and continuing in surveillance.
Will the latest test result be good news or bad news?
If the number comes back much over 0.10, then treatment probably begins first thing next year. On the other hand, if it comes in much under 0.09, then it’ll probably be another three months of surveillance.
Guess what? It came in at 0.093! What did that mean? It’s such a small range between 0.09 and 0.10. It’s one hundredth of a point. What are the chances? And yet, there it was. Not quite in the middle, but only two thousandths of a point from it. What seemed so cut and dry all of a sudden wasn’t. And all I can do is sit and wait.
Info Box
The Bible says the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. How is it then that we can be Christian and depressed? With all that love, joy, peace, Etc., is it really possible to still be depressed? From experience, I say absolutely yes.
Of course, that wasn’t the only thing I could do. And yet, it’s what I did.
I’ll get into what I should’ve done in a moment, but first, what I did do.
If you’ve read much of this series, then you probably know I also have an issue with depression. I’m not using it as an excuse. But I believe it’s an important part of the explanation for any of you, or your family/friends with similar issues.
Depression tends to send us to the wrong places, especially with things like cancer updates. Rather than turn to God immediately, I go someplace else. Worry. Anxiety. Fear of the unknown. For me, it’s more and more often a short trip down that dark path. But it’s still a problem.
In this particular instance, I didn’t go down the worry/fear/anxiety road. However, I also didn’t immediately go to God either. Ideally, turning to God right away is the desired approach. As I said, I sat and waited.
It’s an improvement to not immediately sink into depression. But then, as we say, we Christians are a work in progress.
Those aren’t just empty words, trying to convince myself, or you, that there’s real progress. See the passage below from a letter written by Paul to the church in Philippi.
Thanksgiving and Prayer
Phil 1:3 I thank my God every time I remember you. 4 In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy 5 because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, 6 being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.
Phil 1:7 It is right for me to feel this way about all of you, since I have you in my heart; for whether I am in chains or defending and confirming the gospel, all of you share in God’s grace with me. 8 God can testify how I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus.
Phil 1:9 And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, 10 so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, 11 filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God.
Thank God every time I remember Him
The catch with that passage is that everything in it is tied to the first verse:
Phil 1:3 I thank my God every time I remember you.
When we don’t remember God, how can we possibly hope to do any of what follows that verse, let alone do all of those things?
I always pray with joy
Even when we do remember God, how often do we always pray with joy? I mean, who’s joyful about having cancer?
And yet, …
A good work was begun and is still in process
Shouldn’t we pray with joy when we read:
4 In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy 5 because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, 6 being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.
I didn’t say it would be easy. I just asked, should we pray with joy when what’s happening for/to us is part of completing a good work that God began in us? In other words, when things that happen to us are part of God’s process of perfecting us, shouldn’t we be full of joy?
Discernment – the missing ingredient?
Between the first verse and the last paragraph in Thanksgiving and Prayer, we have two really important pieces of the puzzle. We learn how we can go through something most would consider awful, and we can pray with joy.
The first verse was about remembering. The last sentence is about that church word discernment. Wisdom and knowledge from God. As in:
Phil 1:9 And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, 10 so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, 11 filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God.
What does Thanksgiving and Prayer tell us?
So, what do we need to remember from the thanksgiving and prayer passage?
- We need to remember God
- Then we can pray to God
- Also remember:
- God started a good work in us
- God will complete what He started, if we allow Him to do so
- Whatever is happening is part of His good plan for us
- But we can only do the things above with God’s wisdom, power, and strength.
- And when we, with God’s help, accomplish those things, the glory goes not to us but to God.
Does that mean we’ll always respond with joy when bad things happen? Of course not. But we can do it more and more often, if we want to and if we allow God into our lives.
Was my latest cancer update good news or bad news?
As with so many things, there’s more than one point of view here. One’s medical, which we’ll look at first. Another is what it means to my quality of life. And the last one we’ll look at is what it means from a spiritual point of view.
The medical viewpoint
From a medical point of view, the options ranged from the cancer decreasing significantly to increasing significantly. In this case, it was the harder to understand increasing but not as fast as before.
Huh? The oncologists often talk about the doubling rate for the cancer. As I mentioned, it previously doubled from .03 to .06. Another doubling would have been a score of 0.12. But that didn’t happen. It was only 0.09. Increasing, but at a slower rate. That means the expected outcome next time is likely, but not guaranteed, to be increasing but at an even lower rate, or maybe even decreasing. In other words, it’s unknown what will happen next time.
Having said that, it also appears to mean that whatever cancer cells are currently in me are not as aggressive as the worst of the ones that were removed. Best case scenario – 10 to 15 years life expectancy even if I did no treatment – as long as nothing else changed. And, of course, there’s the rub. No one knows, other than God, whether something’s going to change.
In other words, the medical prognosis is the best it’s been so far over the last three years. And yet, it’s still not known for sure. After all, it is cancer.
The quality of life viewpoint
Fortunately, there’s still no quality of life issues, physically. There are things I should eat that might help. Fortunately, I like all of them. To be sure, the dietary issues from high cholesterol have a much greater impact. Cutting way back on cheese and eggs is so much worse than “having” to eat mushrooms, which I really like.
The spiritual viewpoint
On the mental health side of things, I don’t know if depression will ever go away. All this certainly doesn’t help. But then, I don’t feel like it hurts as much as it would have years ago. I feel like my faith has grown to a point where things are better.
I need to be careful here though. I am not someone who believes that enough faith and prayer will always heal someone. I think saying that can be very cruel to someone who’s not healed. Yes, Jesus healed people. And yet, wasn’t the real point to save people? And if we always pray and insist on healing as the only acceptable outcome, aren’t we also praying for people to avoid the very things that God is using to complete the good work He started in us?
With that, I’m still a work in progress. I have a long way to go. But on this particular visit to see the oncologist, it was the first time my blood pressure was a bit low. Normally, it goes up a good 5 to 10 points just because I’m going to see her. But not this time.
More evidence of growth. Not healing. But growth showing that God is still working to complete the good thing He started in me.
And because of that, my overall quality of life is definitely better than it’s been over the past three years of this journey with prostate cancer.
Is my latest cancer update good news or bad news?
Just in case I still need to write it, it’s most definitely good news.
You know – it’s relatively easy to come to that conclusion.
But what if the cancer more than doubled? What if it got more aggressive?
What if I was more depressed than ever? That’d be really bad, because, well, let’s say cancer might not be what kills me.
I’m not going to answer those questions here. Rather than have it get somewhat buried here, in a series that not all that many people read, I’m doing a separate article on God is good – at least we say that when He does what we want. But what about when God doesn’t do what we want? I’ll the link here when it’s published.
Image by Markus Winkler from Pixabay