cancer – Page 27 – CHASE AWAY CANCER

Cancer and Laundry

Two weeks ago now, my third child was diagnosed with a very rare, very aggressive malignant cancer.

Do you know what I spent this morning doing? The same thing I have spent so many mornings doing since he came into this world…tracking Chase, keeping him out of disastrous trouble, and praying silently for control over my impatient frustration that is almost always right under the surface with my high maintenance (but adorable and precious) child.

Real talk.

Teams of doctors literally surround us with prognoses and numbers and yet it’s scarily like every other day…only he has a central line and IV fluids and we are in a hospital, not our home.

How shockingly fast our circumstances become mundane. There is nothing mundane about this situation, and yet, already, I feel my mind and emotions coming around to it in a sort of attempt to deal with our new reality.

Chase and Grandma Russell — Playing with Grandma Judy (the mask is because we left the oncology floor of the hospital)

I guess what I’m trying to get at is this…my moment by moment grace today is in asking the Lord to keep the swift and fleeting nature of our lives in front of me. …never in an overwhelming sense, but rather in the sense that every second is meaningful, precious, and an opportunity to point ourselves and our children to the cross.

Because it is all too easy to consider a terminal illness on one day and be thinking about the laundry on the next. Trust me. I know.

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.” Hebrews 12:1-2 (ESV)

The Other Shoe

What do you do when the thing you most feared is suddenly your reality?

Today we got the results of the pathology report, and it doesn’t look good. Chase has an atypical teratoid/rhabdoid tumor (AT/RT), which is a very rare kind of cancer (rare = about 30 new cases per year). Did we really think that Chase was anything other than rare?

The neurosurgeon noticed, on Chase’s original MRI scan, that there was some light-colored shading on his spinal column, which has now been interpreted as the tumor spreading.

It seems like the most likely course of action will be a 51-54 week regiment of chemotherapy and radiation, during which time he will have a treatment every 3 or so weeks in the hospital.

This is hard news to try to process. Am I ready to watch my child go through this? Do I trust that God is sovereign, even over an aggressive malignant tumor? The words (and melody) of a song by Mark Altrogge has been going through my mind today:

Whatever my God ordains is right
In His love I am abiding
I will be still in all He does
And follow where He is guiding
He is my God, though dark my road
He holds me that I shall not fall
And so to Him I leave it all.

Here’s a clip of the song with this verse:

What this looks like, only God knows, but what we do know is that God IS sovereign, and while the tumor is a tragic physical manifestation of the fallenness of mankind, the child is a beautiful manifestation of the image of God, and in this child we have joy.

Preparing for a Long Haul…

“He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High
Will abide in the shadow of the Almighty.
I will say to the Lord, “My refuge and my fortress,
my God, in whom I trust.” — Psalm 91:1-2

Chase went into his surgery this morning at about 7:45, and the surgery went quickly and well. The surgeon, Dr. Alden, was able to remove all of the tumor that we’d seen on the MRI last night.

However, the initial results of the pathology that was sent in during his surgery showed that the tumor is malignant, which means that it’s an aggressive tumor which gets bigger quicker than a benign tumor, and may spread more quickly. Also, Dr. Alden saw several smaller (“spore-like”) tumors in the sub-arachnoid space of the brain.

baby-brain-side — The sub-arachnoid space of the brain.

Since the pathology report showed that the tumor is malignant, the doctors are also now more concerned about some gray coloring that they’d seen on the MRI on Chase’s spine. They think that the tumor may have spread down into his spinal column.

So, where do we go from here? That’s the big question that’s been on Ellie and my mind.

Well, the next step is the full pathology report. The full report will tell the doctors exactly what kind of tumor it is (there are a bunch of types of malignant tumors), which will tell them how aggressive the tumor is, and what kind of treatment is needed.

What is for certain is that Chase will need to do some kind of chemotherapy for the next four or so months, and then he will probably need to do radiation therapy. This may continue for some time, depending on the type of cancer it is.

This is going to be a long process for Chase. We appreciate all of the prayers for us and for Chase, and all of the phone calls, texts, Facebook messages, and tweets that people have been showering on us. We are so grateful for all of our family and friends that have been so encouraging to us in every way.