Months
of extreme fatigue, cloudy-mindedness, and feeling lousy take a toll on a
person. Feeling sick when you wake up even after a good night’s sleep is miserable.
Teaching a new course is always demanding because of the unending need to
constantly create. You might be surprised how much work it takes to write quiz
questions on reading assignments, especially if you try to avoid writing
trivial questions. Creating thought-provoking classroom presentations that
incorporate engaging questions, discussion, and graphics that
give insight into cause and effect take a lot of time. Test questions that
require critical thinking and reasoning to get to the correct answers don’t
magically appear out of thin air. Assignments need to be graded. Some are easy,
some are tedious. Oh yeah, and then there are other courses to teach and numerous
things pertaining to coordinating and championing academic programs. Being the
head of the Department of Chemistry and Physics as well as having other
responsibilities requires a lot of time, too. Lest we forget, God called me to
BJU to help these people called students. They drop in needing to talk about
many different kinds of things, some academic and some non-academic. I love these
people. Did I mention that I have a family and responsibilities at church? And
things in the house and vehicles that need to be attended to? The pressure is
unrelenting. These are all valuable and important things, but oh my, it’s so
hard to keep up when you have little energy and can’t focus well. You go home,
collapse on the sofa or easy chair, and just feel lousy. And you don’t keep up.
In
the midst of this perfect storm of events, I’ve thought about retirement a
surprising number of times. I’m only 62, and my goal has been to teach until I’m
70. This semester, though, I’ve often asked myself, “How much longer can I keep
doing this?” People say that you’ll know when it’s time to retire. Is it now?
No, but when feeling really crummy, the only reason to say no is that I
don’t think I can yet afford to do so. When talking with the Lord I’ve said, “I
can’t do this unless you help me.” Of course, this has been true for the last
35 years, but this semester it has been much more obvious to me. “Lord, are you
sure this is what you want me to do?” “I don’t think I can do this anymore.”
Then
there’s the cancer. The statistics about follicular lymphoma show that people
can live a few years or a few decades after being diagnosed with it. I’m pretty
sure I had it for some time before I was diagnosed with it about four and
one-half years ago, during the summer of 2014. Is it the cancer causing these
symptoms? Am I at a point where I’ll have to consider treatment? Should I call
my oncologist’s office, or should I wait awhile longer?
In
a weird way, struggling with the extreme fatigue and other stuff became a new
normal for me. This is not unique to me—people are remarkably resilient and can
adapt. It’s like the proverbial story of the frog. If you put the frog in hot
water it jumps out, but if you put it in lukewarm water and slowly raise the
temperature, then it slowly cooks without jumping out. I don’t know if that’s
true or not, but it does illustrate the idea of becoming accustomed to bad
circumstances.
Three
weeks ago, I decided it was time to make that call. I described my symptoms to
the nurse, she talked with my oncologist, and she called me back. The oncologist
had said that I should get worked up by my regular doctor. Surprisingly, he was
available late that afternoon and I went in. He spent some time discussing
things with me and then ordered a bunch of tests: CBC with differential, creatine
kinase, comprehensive metabolic panel, ferritin, iron +TIBC, vitamin B12, TSH
reflex with FRT4, vitamin D, sedimentation rate, and lactate dehydrogenase. I
came back the next day and I think I gave five or six vials of blood.
Due
to the rapidity with which such tests can now be performed and the convenience
of electronic access, I got the results with an app on my phone late the next
day. Everything was normal except for two things. First, my ferritin level was
just a little high, and that was nothing to be concerned about. Second, my
vitamin D level was low. On the way to campus the next morning I stopped in at
my local Walmart Neighborhood Market and bought some vitamin D3
caplets (they were cheaper than Amazon with Prime, and much faster to get, to
boot). I took some immediately when I got to campus.
I
was surprised that I started feeling somewhat better later in the day. I continued
taking it at a lower dose both morning and evening and—this shocked me—the extreme
fatigue disappeared. A few days later I could feel the fatigue coming back. I
immediately bumped the dose back up, and the fatigue disappeared again. My mind
cleared, and I wasn’t feeling lousy. Oh, what a joy to wake up in the morning
feeling good before getting out of bed! It’s been not quite three weeks yet,
but I’m still feeling good. It’s almost too good to be true, but those symptoms
are gone. I’m no longer thinking
about retirement.
I
only partly understand the interplay between God’s sovereignty, my
responsibility, God’s providential care, and the exercise of my will. Entire
books have been written on this subject. The one
that I’ve read discussed the subject deeply, and one part centered on this verse:
“In him we have obtained
an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who
works all things according to the counsel of his will….”
Ephesians 1:11 (ESV)
Pay
careful attention here: “…According to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of
his will….” People that know Greek have studied this, and the word all means all. I’m having a hard time wrapping my mind around the fact that
even the distasteful things in life are worked out within the scope of His will.
But they are.
