I didn’t intend to write another blog until Monday evening when I will be back at Mayo. I don’t have any update on the results from the bone marrow biopsy. I likely won’t; the doctor who will relay that word is gone all this week.

If you are reading these blogs only for information about the medical side, then you can stop here. If not, then I invite you to read what could be a chapter in a book that maybe someday I may write.

Yesterday was a day that I will long remember. There are many lessons that only a crisis in your life can teach you. We never want to go through them, but we know that God has a way of using them in ways that we could never imagine.

Paul writes in Romans 8:28 that “God works in all things to bring about His good for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.” The old KJV is a bad translation when it says that “all things work together for good.” Things don’t work together. God works in all things to bring about His good.

God is able to take the worst of life’s circumstances and transform them. The Cross is the greatest example of that. God takes the very worst of all human atrocities and transforms it into the greatest blessing and hope that the world has ever known.

Yesterday was a Romans 8:28 for me. Had I not had to deal with cancer, none of three circumstances would have occurred.

I stopped by the Court House in Cynthiana to register one of our trucks. I’ve been wanting to see my best friend when I was growing up and he has an office right around the corner on the main drag. Parking on the street is limited, but I thought, “if there’s a spot near his office, maybe I’ll run in and see if he’s there.”

Somehow I don’t think it was mere coincidence that there was an open spot right in front of his office.

John is a lawyer. He was finishing up with a client and had some free time. We hadn’t really talked for 50 years. We’d see each other from time to time on the street or in a restaurant, but never a serious conversation.

It’s amazing how after 50 years there’s still a closeness that time couldn’t destroy. I spent more time with him growing up than anyone else. He was my best man when I got married.

We lived in the same neighborhood most all of our lives, but we came from two different worlds. His dad was a judge and his mom a teacher. Neither of my parents graduated from college.

When I was four mom and dad started the business and the three of us kids had no clue how tight things were. I thought everybody ate mustard sandwiches for lunch and fried bologna for supper.

John’s first car was a Jaguar sports car. My first car was a 1971 Ford Pinto. I never remember a day in high school when John didn’t wear a button down shirt. I can’t remember a regular school day that I did.

And yet, there was a closeness that we knew that returned like it had all happened yesterday.

John has become absolutely the last thing that I would ever have thought would ever happen. He’s become a farmer. Raising cattle. A lawyer and a farmer. I laughed like I hadn’t in a while as he told me about his side vocation.

At some point John turns, opens the drawer to the credenza behind his desk, and takes out a two page file and hands it to me.

Across the top is Mayo Clinic. He shared with me an experience that I had never known that happened in his life about 10 years ago.

As hard as it may be for you to believe, the file explained the results of a bone marrow biopsy that John had at Mayo.

After not so good news John went through months of treatment. And 10 years later he is still alive.

There are lots of things that are hard to deal with when it comes to cancer. The unknown and then the known. Maybe the greatest is the struggle of losing hope.

God put a marker in my life yesterday, a marker of hope. Not just the hope that healing in this life might happen, but rather that Biblical kind of hope that brings assurance that there is One who is behind the scene orchestrating what we could never. Thanks, John, for being that marker of hope.

I headed back to the warehouse to get some things done. It wasn’t long until everyone had gone home and I was there alone.

Rhonda came a bit after 6:00. I knew she had been wanting to speak with me and I with her. I am blessed with two marvelous older sisters. In many ways I am more like Jan. We share so many of the same perspectives of life. Since she went to college when I was 12, we have never had the privilege to spend the time together that Rhonda and I have. But I love her nonetheless with a deep love.

It's kind of like being a parent. We have two daughters and I love them both. I don’t love one of them more than the other one. But I do love them differently because they are different personalities.

That’s the same as my love for my sisters. Other than Teresa, there’s no one in this life with whom I have spent more time than Rhonda. We traveled for seven years together singing (that would be her!) and preaching. The year after I graduated from seminary she and I traveled across the Eastern US, just the two of us.

And for the last 27 years we have worked together at the warehouse. I know her pretty well, as she does me.

She’s been carrying this weight on her heart that I knew was there. A second coincidence that she and I would be there late when no one else was?

Rhonda has never handled death or the thought thereof very well. If you know what happened early in her life, you’d understand why.

Her best friend when she was a child was killed in a tragic train accident.

Her best friend when she was a teenager was killed in a very strange car accident. In the days before seat belts, this friend’s dad stopped the car quickly and Marsha hit the dashboard. The only mark on her was at the top of her nose.

When Rhonda was in college the man she was planning to marry was killed in a traffic accident on the interstate.

Her husband Steve has had cancer twice. Just last week Steve had a stroke.

And her baby brother’s life could be in the balance. And without him, running the business could be nearly impossible.

I have been one of the stabilizers in Rhonda’s life. She has been one of the encouragers in my life.

She spent a half an hour getting off of her heart of what she was feeling. We then spent a hour trying to make some plan about how things might work when I wouldn’t be there.

We both left with some hope that maybe, just maybe, there could be a plan.

We also left with a deeper love for each other, something neither of us could likely have believed could or needed to ever happen.

Well, I said three instances, God instances I believe in one day. Life is lived with an ebb and flow. Sometimes we have mountain top days and sometimes walking through the valley days. God uses them all to bring about His purpose. Back to Romans 8:28. His purpose in all things is to do one thing: to fashion our character more into the likeness of Jesus.

I head out of Cynthiana after 9:00 pm. I hadn’t stopped for lunch, so I drove through the drive thru at the DQ to get two double cheeseburgers, no cheese and no condiments. I lost 35 pounds this summer eating a lot of protein and little salt.

Who could ever believe that you could have a God moment going through the DQ drive thru? Both lanes were open and there was a car in the left lane and I pulled into the right side, ordered my burgers, and was finished before the car on the left.
The car on the left moved forward and so I stopped and motioned them to go ahead. They were there first and I felt that was the right thing to do.

When I got to the “pay” window, the young girl said, “Yours has already been paid by the car in front of you.”

I pulled up behind that car and got out and walked around the passenger side to thank them. I hadn’t noticed until I got close to their car that it was a beater of a car. Worse than my 13 year old Explorer with 320,000 miles on it. I looked in the window to thank them for buying my meal.

What I found was a young family of four. Two kids in the back seat of this beater. I asked them if they lived in Cynthiana. They said, “Yes, we just moved here. We had to move because we were wrongly evicted from our previous apartment.”

At this point it was all that I could do to hold back the tears. Unlike Rhonda, tears rarely flow. Cancer somehow releases the tear ducts, at least for me.

A young family trying to make a new start buys my meal. Are you serious, Lord?

I got back in the Explorer, knowing God wasn’t done yet with that moment that His hand was upon.

I almost always have a $100 bill in my billfold, sometimes tucked away, just in case. Dad always had a $100 bill in his billfold, just in case.

I took that out of my billfold, folded it once, and walked back to the passenger side where the wife was sitting. I handed it to her so that she could see what it was. All I said to them was this, “There are times when you give that God blesses you a hundredfold.” I nodded and they knew that God had helped meet their need.

I sent a letter to my Elders last week and the last line was this: “one of the great things about using a computer is that the tears don’t stain the paper.”

I feel that as I write this about this young family.

I have tried to live my life as a giver. Teresa has been a great partner in that. In some ways she is more of a giver than I am. My mom and dad were great models of that for me. Mom was the best giver I have ever known, in every area of her life. I guess I married my mom.

Good givers, however, are usually not so good receivers. My mom wasn’t and I am not. That’s one of the challenges of dealing with cancer. Folks want to do something, but other than prayer, there’s not a lot that folks can practically do to help.

Except give. God has blessed us financially so that we don’t “need” any help financially. Yet, many who love us have already blessed us with their gifts of kindness.

Lord, teach me that what you said is true. It is more blessed to give than to receive. I have tried to live out that truth all of my life. But there is within this truth that there is also a blessing in receiving. It isn’t nearly the blessing of giving, but it is still a blessing.

And Lord, help me realize that it’s really hard for others to get the blessing of giving, if I am unwilling to receive it in the love in which it was given.

The young family in the beater car enabled me to experience the blessedness of giving because they received it with gratitude.

There was one final kicker to the DQ story. I called Teresa and we talked about what had happened in each of our lives that day. I didn’t open the bag from the DQ until I stopped for fuel. I took one burger out of the bag and it wasn’t the right burger! Apparently the bags got switched at the drive thru.

Just two single cheeseburgers, no fries, likely for two kids in the backseat because that is what they could afford.

Much love as I begin another day, a day that the Lord has made, I will rejoice and be glad in it.

We knew when we came to Mayo that there would be a day that would be a defining one. It looks like today is it.

We didn’t get the news we had hoped for today, but it was not surprising news. We met for about an hour with the Dr. Nelson Leung who is on the Multiple Myeloma team at Mayo. Though we haven’t had the bone marrow biopsy yet to confirm it, the folks at Mayo are proceeding believing that I do.

I asked Dr. Leung what could it be if it wasn’t MM? He said, “we have no clue.”

Some extensive blood work is scheduled for Wednesday morning and the bone marrow biopsy for Friday afternoon. He asked me if I wanted sedation or no sedation for the biopsy. You don’t need to ask what I chose.

The results that would conclusively determine that it is MM won’t be available for a week or maybe two.

Dr. Leung wants the prostate cancer treated first so all of the focus can be on the treatment for MM.

Our hope is to return home by Saturday afternoon and be in church this Sunday. I am to return to Mayo for two days, February 20-21, to be set up for radiation treatments. Then we would return home for about 10 days before the those treatments.

I would have five radiation treatments that are scheduled to begin on March 6th and be every other day for 10 days. Near the close of those (around March 16th) I would receive one dose of hormone therapy that is intended to remove as much testosterone as possible for about six months.

The plan would then be to begin treatment about the end of March or the first part of April for the MM. At some point Dr. Leung believes I will be facing a stem cell transplant. When/if that happens we would be staying in Rochester for about a month.

Obviously, many changes lie ahead for every aspect of my life--church, business, family, and the things that I enjoy. For all of those we ask for your prayers for wisdom and direction.

I did learn somethings today that might bring some wisdom to your life:

1.) Ice cream has a healing agent to it. It seems to always make me feel better when I need a lift.
2.) In the middle of trials, it never ceases to amaze me at the timing of God.
3.) Prayer does change things, often not the circumstances, but changes us in the circumstances.
4.)When one of your kids says, “Dad, I know you are a fighter” brings you a resolve to be what she believes you to be.

Much love,
Chuck

After Dr. Brian Davis (the radiation oncologist) on Friday had told us that the best treatment for me for the prostate cancer would be radiation, not surgery, I wasn’t looking for this morning’s appointment with the urologist to be too productive.  I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Dr. Igor Frank walks in, sits down and the first thing that he says to me is this, “I am a surgeon who performs prostate cancer surgeries.  As a surgeon, I wish I could say to you that the best treatment for you is surgery.  But I am here to tell you that would not be your best treatment.  Radiation is.”

How’s that for a magnificent doctor?  Dr. Frank has a persona about him that few people have.  You can tell immediately that he is extremely bright and knowledgeable.  But there isn’t an ounce of haughtiness in him. He also comes across as a very caring man.

He had gone over all my tests, scans, etc., and even knew who the surgeon was who did my abdominal surgery in 2012.  Dr. Frank was to consult with Dr. Davis sometime today and the two of them will determine the next step for me.  It is his opinion that I have something in the bone that is an issue. 

So, it appears that a bone marrow biopsy may be the next major test.  I asked him how painful that will be.  He chuckled a bit and said, “Well, you’d be under sedation, but they do have to get to a bone and drill through the bone.”  Maybe a special DeWalt drill? Hopefully not a cheap one from Harbor Freight.

Dr. Frank confirmed that I do have a moderately aggressive prostate cancer that cannot be left untreated.

We spent the day anticipating some word on the next step but that word didn’t come.  I have an appointment with the hematologist in the morning.  Hopefully we will get some clue as to how they will proceed.

Some things I have learned since the last post:

1.) The key card at the motel doesn’t work no matter how many times you swipe it at room 123 when you are staying in room 119.

2.) Minnesotans must have really thick blood.  We stopped in Sam’s to pass some time over the weekend and they had bathing suits and ski life jackets on display.  Hum.  It was just 15 below. 

3.) It’s a wonderful thing to have worship online when you can’t be there in person.  But it’s nothing like being there with others. 

Much love and thanks for the prayers.