It’s Hard to Sing While Wrestling

I’ve never been much of an athlete, but I did spend quite a bit of time during my youth firing arrows at a target in our back yard.  This generally went well, although one day I aimed a little too high—OK, it was way too high—and the arrow went sailing past the end of our yard toward the neighbor’s house.  Fearing the worst, I ran to see what happened and was greatly distressed to find it stuck in the siding next to a bathroom window.  Whew, I’m very glad I didn’t hit that window.  I went to our neighbor and confessed the error of my ways, and she promptly forgave me.

Rarely did I enjoy physical education classes, but there were a few times.  On one beautiful sunny day in eastern Massachusetts, my high school PE teacher told us that we were going to do archery.  Really?!?  There was a long line of targets set up on tripods outside, and I proceeded to demonstrate my prowess as Robin Hood’s protégé.  I did better than many, but we never did it again.  I suppose it might have been because of the potential liability.  Or maybe that the jocks didn’t seem to do very well at it.

My memories of wrestling are also pretty good.  I don’t recall getting clobbered, and I think I actually won a few times.  The Summer Olympics features wrestling, and like boxing it has weight classes.  These range up to 130 kg for men’s Greco-Roman competitions.  That’s almost 287 pounds, and so we’re talking about big, powerful people, and they have to be quick, too.  In the United States we also have this thing called “professional wrestling.”  Describing it is difficult because the athletes do so many outrageous things, but it certainly isn’t serious competition.  This is the activity that over the years has given us tag-team wrestling and the figure-four leg lock, and the participants often wear strange outfits and exhibit bizarre behavior.  Really, if you want to watch some outrageous wrestling, then you ought to see The Three Stooges 1937 short film entitled Grips, Grunts & Groans, in which a sniff of wild hyacinth perfume makes Curly crazy enough to beat the opposition.  I’m pretty sure that most professional wrestlers are big Stooges fans.  During even the weirdest wrestling, though, I’ve never seen someone break out in an aria from Puccini’s opera Tosca.  Why would anybody even want to do so?  Besides, it’s hard to sing while wrestling.

At BJU’s annual Bible Conference we do a lot of singing, and this year was no exception.  During the opening service on Tuesday night we were singing a very good song, but partway through it I stopped.  Recently I had been fatigued, and combined with some other challenges it was turning out to be an uncomfortable week.  I had discovered another lump on my neck a few weeks earlier, and I was scheduled to have CT scans of my neck, chest, and abdomen the next day.  I was wrestling again, but this time it was with myself, and singing was out of the question.

Lymphoma is an interesting cancer.  The lymphatic system, or lymph system for short, circulates a clear fluid through our bodies.  It’s also an integral part of our immune system and incorporates lymph nodes.  When you have lymphoma, cancer cells are constantly circulating through your lymph system, as they are doing in mine right now.  Sometimes these cells begin to accumulate in lymph nodes, and so some of the nodes swell.  Removing the swollen nodes does not eliminate the cancer.  The problem is that my immune system doesn’t recognize the cancer cells as bad guys, and consequently they are allowed to multiply and accumulate.  I’m glad that my lymphoma is a relatively slow-growing type.

This morning I looked at last week’s CT scans with my oncologist.  The new lump on my neck is cancerous.  The radiologist noted in his analysis that there are also swollen lymph nodes in my abdomen that had not shown up in previous scans.  My cancer is progressing somewhat faster than I had expected.

My oncologist again referred to a key long-term clinical study of lymphoma patients with cancer at about the same stage as mine.  Patients that were treated with chemotherapy were compared to those that were not treated, and it was demonstrated that those that were treated did not fare any better in the long run than those that were untreated.  Consequently, it doesn’t make any sense to get chemo at this point in time.  As he said, this cancer is a chronic condition without a cure, it has to be managed, and so we’re managing it.  I’m very thankful that I don’t yet need chemotherapy.

Of course, I’ll continue to keep an eye on myself.  If I begin to consistently see typical lymphoma symptoms, then I won’t wait for my next appointment (about six months from now) to contact my oncologist.  These symptoms include fatigue, difficulty going to the bathroom (due to the pressure exerted by large lymph nodes), unintended weight loss, and some others.  When these things occur consistently, then I’ll be discussing treatment options with him.

What about now?  This situation obviously presents physical challenges, but it also impacts the mind, emotions, and spirit.

On the eve of his betrayal, Jesus “was troubled in his spirit” (John 13:21).  In his Greek lexicon, Joseph Thayer indicates that the word used for “troubled” means “to stir or agitate.”  A.T. Robertson (in Word Pictures) indicates that this is the same kind of agitation Christ experienced when he “groaned in his spirit” as a result of seeing Mary weep over Lazarus’ death (John 11:33).  And then Christ wept, too.  If the Son of God wrestled with things, then it’s no surprise that I do, too.

“The Lord will fulfill his purpose for me;

your steadfast love, O Lord, endures forever.

Do not forsake the work of your hands.”

(Psalm 138:8 ESV)

Through my unexpected journey God has always given me peace, and he will not forsake me now.