Testing the Teacher

I’d been thinking about my appointment today, praying about it, and praying for my oncologist.  He (Dr. Joe Stephenson of the Greenville Health System Oncology Institute) and I met for the first time today and we had a productive discussion.  He found it interesting that I’m the chairman of the Chemistry Department at BJU and thanked me for teaching all these years (now over 31).  I didn’t expect that, and it was very nice of him.

He said that my follicular lymphoma is “low-grade,” as opposed to mid- or high-grade.  This is good and bad.  It’s good because it appears to be slow-growing.  It’s bad because it’s considered to be incurable.  This doesn’t mean that I’m going to die soon, but it does mean that if it remains in the state it is in right now, then I’ll probably have to just live with it for the rest of my life.  But it should be medically manageable.  In other words, we’ll do what is called watchful waiting, which means we’ll watch it and respond to what we see.  Will I need chemotherapy now?  I don’t yet know.  Will I need it later?  That’ll be determined by watchful waiting.  Oh, and low-grade follicular lymphoma can progress to the other grades, and it can also turn into diffuse large B-cell lymphoma.  It doesn’t sound like watchful waiting is optional.

After reading and thinking about things, I went into this appointment convinced that we needed to do more testing, and in particular that a PET scan would be a very good idea.  Before I had a chance to bring this up, Joe said, “We need to do a PET scan.”  Thank you, Lord, for answering prayer in exacting detail.  He also said that we need to do a CT scan of my neck.  And a CT scan of my chest.  And a CT scan of my abdomen.  And a CT scan of my pelvis.  And a biopsy of the bone marrow in my pelvis.  OK, well, I did think we needed more testing.

The bone marrow biopsy will be done next Tuesday, and then all of the scans the next Tuesday after that.  Anybody that knows me very well has observed that I’m a fidgety kind of guy and that I rarely stay still at all, much less for long periods of time.  How in the world will I be able to stay still for several hours of scans?  I sure hope it’s not like the x-ray of my back and CT scan of my head when I broke my back in 2011.  This was the result of what I call The Fall of Brian (as opposed to A Lump of Brian, which as you know was recently removed).  Although I was loaded with morphine–no, make that really, really loaded with morphine–I was still in serious pain and fidgety.  And I wiggled, and they pulled the x-ray sensor out from under my back, checked it, came back and said, “We have to do it again. Try to stay still.”  And then they stuffed the sensor under my back again.  Excruciating pain, deep breath, try to stay still.  I think we did it one more time after that.  And then they did multiple CT scans on my head.  “Try to stay still.”  I hope I can.

Joe and I will discuss the results of all the tests on Friday, September 26, and then I’ll know if I need any chemotherapy.  Today he said that if chemo is necessary he expects it to not be the harshest kind.  That’s reassuring.  I wonder, what are the side effects of not-the-harshest-kind of chemotherapy?

It appears that I will be in this for the long run, something I never expected.  Over the last few weeks I have anchored my soul to the words given in Hebrews 13:5:

“I will never leave you nor forsake you.”

How precious those words are, particularly during difficult times.  No matter what happens, no matter where I am, I will never be alone.  God will be with me, as he is right now.  He continues to give me peace and comfort.  And the comfort continues:

We can confidently say,

“The Lord is my helper;

I will not fear;

what can man do to me?”