“I am sorry to report to you that the PET scan did show that there was some increased activity at the right side of the Sacrum region, suspicious of metastasis or myeloma. Based on this finding, we will require a referral to neurosurgery for additional recommendations.” I received this message on a Thursday afternoon last December. I had been suffering from severe back pain for much of 2013. An MRI in October showed a compression fracture in one of my lumbar vertebrae along with an abnormality in my sacrum. My doctors ran a series of tests in an attempt to determine the cause, culminating in the message quoted above: Cancer. I made an appointment to see my doctor first thing Monday morning and spent the weekend in fear. I had no idea what this meant. Were these things treatable? Was I going to die? Would this be my last Christmas? I told my family what was going on. I also told my pastor. I prayed. “God, I don’t know what this means, but please at least make sure that my family is taken care of. Please heal me.” My wife called her family and by Sunday I had members of three different churches praying for me. I was still a wreck. When I saw my doctor Monday morning she immediately started allaying my fears. The most likely cancers were treatable, probably using chemotherapy and radiation. I should prepare to take a leave of absence from work for about three months for treatment. I would also need to be monitored closely for the rest of my life. She referred me to an oncologist and got me an expedited appointment for that afternoon. I believe God was already taking care of me. The oncologist reviewed my case and concluded that there were three likely possibilities, all of which were treatable. His best guess could even be treated without chemotherapy. The next step would be to get a biopsy to confirm the diagnosis then we could put together a treatment plan. I was encouraged and hopeful. From mid-December to Valentine’s Day I had three biopsies. The first two were closed, “CT guided” biopsies performed on an outpatient basis. Both results were negative. Sandee and I met with the neurosurgeon to decide what to do next. He showed us the PET scan, with the active lesion in my sacrum clearly visible. We decided to proceed with a full surgical biopsy requiring a hospital stay. Throughout all of this people continue to cover me in prayer. The neurosurgeon opened me up at Stanford Medical Center and drilled though the bone to get a sample from the affected area. He sent it to the onsite lab so they could confirm that it was suitable for analysis. In the end it took three attempts and a three hour surgery to finally get a “diagnostic” sample. At least now we knew we could find out what was wrong with me and get to the work of treatment. But again the biopsy was negative. They were out of ideas. At this point we could only monitor to see if anything changed and I would have an MRI every three or four months. After two MRIs that showed some small improvement I asked if I should have another PET scan. I wanted to know if that mass in my sacrum was quietly growing, or even worse spreading to other areas. So at the end of August I had a second PET scan: “The PET report says the area in the sacrum that was hot or metabolic activity is much better. The bone appears to be healing. The area of surgery is a little inflamed still. Overall this is all favorable - I still dont know WHAT caused all this - I guess it is some kind of fracture that is healing. It is not growing or getting worse which a tumor might do.” The standardized uptake value, which attempts to quantify PET scan results, for the active area had dropped from 17.5 in the initial scan to 3.7 nine months later. I am a Christian. Ive learned my lesson when it comes to having political and/or religious discussions over the internet. I have friends with a wide variety of beliefs and I value those friends even if we disagree on almost everything. I have no intention of changing this philosophy so if religious stuff makes you squeamish you don’t need to avoid me. I do believe, though, that I need to publicly give credit to God and the power of prayer for bringing me though this. I was given a preliminary diagnosis of cancer last December. Nine months later, without treatment, I am “much better”. I am sure there are plenty of rational scientific explanations for all of this. But I told God that if He brought me through this I would give Him the glory. So that is what I am doing.
Posted on: Wed, 17 Sep 2014 00:07:19 +0000
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