Chris's Lymphoma Journey

The past several days the kids have been gone on their own adventure enjoying family. Chris and I have focused on getting him recovered and ready for his next round of chemo (June 26), applying to schools, and just figuring things out so we are more settled.

Especially while they have been away, Chris and I have had the pleasure to visit with people for short periods of time and tell parts of the story…the main theme in all of those conversations is how the Lord used so many people to orchestrate the beginning of Chris’s cancer journey.

Many of the earlier posts focused on communication of where we were in that moment. Occasionally, I will weave parts of the earlier story. I’m wanting to tell the story not simply to catch you up but to share (rejoice) about his wonderful deeds, his enduring love, his goodness.

I’ve been reading Psalm 107 over and over. It begins:

Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good;
    his love endures forever.

Let the redeemed of the Lord tell their story.

This verse is on repeat 4 times…its the bullhorn calling for our attention.

Let them give thanks to the Lord for his unfailing love
    and his wonderful deeds for mankind

Finally, near the end this grabbed my attention: The upright see and rejoice.

By telling our stories of His goodness we allow others to see and join together in rejoicing.

Chris started feeling poorly in mid April, and when I mean poorly he couldn’t perform athletically like most people could only imagine. He was used to very high athletic performance for someone who works and has a family. He started to have pain in his right groin area and thought it was a muscle tear. Running even a mile would produce very uncomfortable burning in that area, so he stopped running. Eventually, biking (early May) started to cause the pain too, so he consulted with a mission friend, Bob, skilled in numerous areas and an athlete himself. Bob agreed that it sounded muscular, so Chris went to see an orthopedic doctor. This doc examined him and said it was not muscular, but soft tissue, but nothing else. Chris came home, and we decided he should see a doctor, due to the weekend it would mean waiting for Monday.

Monday’s appointment, May 8, included the doctor noting that he did not look good and she took some blood testing for various things (infectious diseases, mono, and others). By Tues night the bloodwork was in and it did not look good, many of the specific tests were not in yet but the basic CBC was poor. We consulted with two mission friends, Dr. Laurel and nurse Stacy. They both agreed we should see a hematologist. Hema what? And why are most hematologists also oncologists? Oh I had so much to learn.

Thailand has good medical care, and you can get appointments without referrals, so we called and made an appointment for Thursday, May 11. Even though waiting 3 hours for the appointment was not fun, we saw Dr. Rattiya, a Thai doctor who has had training at Mayo clinic. It was only 4-5 minutes in the room and after a brief examination she said the word “lymphoma”. My thoughts were, “what is that… that does not sound good”…I was really hoping she was wrong and the mono test came back positive. Chris started to look pale and weaker.

We started asking for what further testing could be done considering we had plane tickets to leave Thailand in just 15 days. She made a phone call and in two hours we were in a room for Chris to get an ultrasound and lymph node biopsy that same evening. Further testing would be scheduled: CT Pet in Bangkok (Mon May 15), bone marrow biopsy and aspiration (Tues 16th). We received the first diagnosis on Tuesday the 16th: stage 3 Lymphoma. On Wednesday it was upgraded to stage 4 due to the number of locations, size of the tumors, as well as the presence of it in the bones. Thursday May 18th an MRI was scheduled. All the other infectious diseases tests came back negative and so did the MRI to the brain, it had not traveled to the brain, and we rejoiced and thanked the Lord in our relief after many stressful days. Dr. Rattiya urged Chris to leave sooner than our expected date. This felt challenging, but the Lord provided.

The Lord gifted us with mission friends who are available and highly skilled, both caring and competent. The Lord used so many medical professionals to provide loving care for Chris so that we could leave Thailand with a diagnosis and good information to help the next medical professional start the next leg of treatment. The Lord enabled us to be in a location for quick care so the process was not further delayed by waiting many days for appointments. The Lord used Dr. Rattiya who provided excellent medical reports and the actual tissue samples and slides for our travel. The Lord used Dr. Rattiyas urging to prompt Chris to return a week early and this hastened his medical appointments, likely by a week, which were very needed due to the pain that would eventually begin. These are the wonderful deeds He provided for us! See and rejoice in His goodness!

As a quick update, the only medical appointment this week is a blood draw this afternoon. Chris has been feeling good, taking occasional short naps. He has no nausea, no pain, and is eating well. He went on a 40 min bike ride on Monday, and explored the river by our place with a kayak and paddle board.