What does it mean to live in Hope with the real possibility of death staring you in the face? That's what I continue to ponder. Somehow, normalcy has to continue; people cannot sit around staring at the "dying" person anticipating the signals that "it" is about to happen, can we? Especially not, when the dying person gives no indication that his death is as imminent as certain statistics indicated.
I decided, a month or so ago, that I was going to go about my life as if everything were normal and just deal with the extra-ordinary things as they crop up. And then I lost my step, grabbed the door handle nearby, and yanked my arm out of its socket. Now my movement around town is dependent upon a "dying" man rather than him being dependent on me for transport. Or that's what it seemed for a while.
This week Michael had an appointment at the Duke Brain Tumor Clinic at Duke University in Durham, NC. He had the usual radiology and blood work and then we met with the research doctor in charge of his case and the immunotherapy trial that he is now a part of. She came in to the exam room and sat down. She was almost excited as she told us everything looked good. She pulled up the MRI of Michael's brain and showed us the tiny white spot that indicated something had been there and that the area was healing - more specifically, almost completely healed! Then we talked about the trial and how it is done in conjunction with chemotherapy because that therapy is, in fact, the only thing known for sure to be at all effective. In the trial, Michael is given "re-trained" antibodies - his own antibodies that were removed and then "taught" to attack cells that cause the tumor. She explained that in the nearly 2 decades she's been working with this, she has seen very good response and that, because Michael's surgery was done well, and his particular type of tumor responds well to chemo, and Michael is otherwise basically healthy, there is a lot of reason to believe that he will respond well to the immunotherapy treatments. Regarding the word "cure" - that, she said, is what we're hoping for!
We left the Duke Cancer Center smiling!
We will celebrate Christmas with our kids and grandkids this year, thinking of traditions we can start. We will talk about what we will do when we eventually retire. We will work on plans to continue serving God where each of us is called. And when physical therapy has strengthened my right arm sufficiently, I will sit in the left seat of my Jeep and drive Michael crazy, again!
We are thankful for God's presence. We are constantly aware that our complete Hope is in God and the fullness of the Resurrection.
We pray that each of you will know the certain Hope that began with the babe in the manger.
