Category: attitude

Nov 12

“I just felt really called into loving people with cancer”

When Tom Wilkinson* was diagnosed in 2008 with stage 4 head and neck cancer, he never imagined that God soon would use him to encourage his oldest daughter on her own cancer journey.

“He’s my hero,” says Joanna Dennstaedt, second in a family of six born to Tom and Dee Wilkinson.  “He was the voice of reason and wisdom for me through it all.”

Joanna–“Jo” to her friends–was devastated in 2014 to get the diagnosis of stage 3 melanoma at the age of 34. Her four children were only 7, 5, 3, and 15 months. Two surgeries, including a complete groin lymph node dissection knocked her off her feet before she even started chemo.

The scheduled treatment was a year-long, weekly immunotherapy drug called Interferon, which had such tough side effects patients were normally hospitalized for the infusions and few could tolerate it for 12 months.

“I made it almost 10 months before it was killing me,” Jo recalls. “My liver was shot, my thyroid was shot and I started panicking.

“I was probably rock bottom and I kept thinking ‘I’m not going to get to raise my kids”,” she adds.

Me speaking at the 2024 Radiant Hope banquet

About that time she met a woman named Ivelisse Page who through her nonprofit Believe Big https://www.believebig.org/ helped Jo find a naturopathic doctor and get complementary treatments to help heal her body. She also gave her a copy of my book 50 Days of Hope.

And then one day a beautiful “sunshine” package showed up from an anonymous person in another state, who had been reading Jo’s blog.  The enclosed note explained that the sender and her co-workers “put this box together and prayed for you.”

That’s when Jo knew.

“Why am I not doing this for others?” she asked herself. “I knew I needed to get outside of Jo.”

And the vision for Radiant Hope was birthed–months after Jo’s dad encouraged her not to “waste” her cancer and instead believe God could use “all the good and the hard.”

God confirmed Jo’s idea while at the cancer center one day He spoke to her heart: “You’re not here for you; you’re here for Me.”

“I just felt really called into loving people with cancer,” Jo explains.

And that she has.

In the nine years since the nonprofit https://www.radianthope.com/ was established in Mechanicsburg, PA, it has:

  • Served more than 7,000 people in 387 Pennsylvania counties
  • Given away 5,000+ “HOPE” boxes, which include a copy of 50 Days of Hope
  • Handed out 2,000+ water bottles at cancer treatment centers
  • Provided respite care, scholarships, holiday gifts, one-on-one mentoring, celebrations, family photos and a cancer support group

“I never really wanted to start a nonprofit,” Jo admits. “I didn’t take a single business class in college, so I was wondering what was God calling me into?”

But now she realizes that “cancer has prepared me well to serve others.”

“Radiant Hope started out of my healing journey,” Jo explains. “All I did was say ‘yes’ and God did all the rest.”

“Cancer itself is not a gift, but there are so many little gifts that come out of it along the way,” Jo says. “I thought when my Dad had cancer that it was going to be the worst thing ever, but instead we could walk through my cancer journey together.

“Now I walk with others and encourage them just like he did for me.”

*(If you missed Tom’s story, read my last blog on 10-29.)
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Open in your browser to hear “Wings”  (based on Psalm 91) by Lauren Daigle.

Oct 29

Not Your Average Survivor

It’s no exaggeration to say that Tom Wilkinson is not your average survivor.

For one thing, he’s a 16-year survivor of stage 4 head and neck cancer. And secondly, he believes he knows exactly how and why he received that diagnosis.

Rewind to 2008 when Tom, then a 56-year-old brewers grains company vice-president was plagued with earaches and a sore throat.

“The antibiotics would knock it out for a while and then it was back,” he recalls.

In August of that year, Tom was ready to lead a team of mostly young people to Germany where they would minister to the locals through a “sports and English camp.” But the day before  departure, Tom’s  new Ear, Nose and Throat specialist called with his imaging results.

“He said I needed to come in the morning for a biopsy, because he saw a tumor and I probably had cancer,” Tom remembers.

But Tom was a man on a mission–literally–and told the ENT he would get the biopsy when he returned. Ten days later he arrived for the procedure, but while he was away, a lump appeared on his neck and grew to golf-ball size.  A biopsy confirmed stage 4 tonsil cancer.

The first surgeon Tom and his wife Dee saw was pretty discouraging, so they sought out a doctor-acquaintance at their church–even though they had no idea what kind of physician he was.

The doctor said Tom “absolutely” should get a second opinion and offered to get him an appointment ASAP at the hospital where he just happened to be head of the ENT department!

An evaluation led to intra-oral surgery, a technique which uses a laser to cut through soft tissues without the usual scalpel trauma. It took 18 painstaking hours to remove his tonsils,  resect both sides of his neck and extract 43 lymph nodes.

Tom spent nearly three weeks in the hospital, followed by radiation and chemo which left him “pretty spent.” He lost 30 pounds in a month, but never needed a feeding tube thanks to Dee’s excellent management of his liquid nutrition.

At Tom’s 5-year appointment in 2013, his doctor pronounced him cured.

Like other cancer survivors, Tom is extremely grateful for “extra” time to have seen all six of his children married, 15 grandchildren born and celebrated 47 years of marriage.

Doctors said Tom’s cancer was a sexually transmitted one caused by high-risk HPV (human papilloma virus). Nearly all people are infected with HPV soon after becoming sexually active, but most infections are cleared by the body’s immune system. Studies show that multiple sexual partners increases the risk of HPV-related cancers.

“I had been wild and crazy in college (at Virginia Tech) before I came to know the Lord a few years later,” Tom acknowledges. “I had many years of indiscretions as a young man and it came back to haunt me.

“So I never struggled over why I had this: I knew why I had it,” Tom explains. “It was a consequence of my sin. I don’t believe it’s a punishment; it’s just a consequence,”

When I asked Tom what got him through the treatments and recovery, he quickly mentioned Psalm 145.

“Three or four people shared that psalm with us and it became our mantra,” he says. “I memorized it and still recite the first ten verses every day.”

I will exalt you, my God and King,
    and praise your name forever and ever.
 I will praise you every day;
    yes, I will praise you forever.
 Great is the Lord! He is most worthy of praise!
    No one can measure his greatness.
Let each generation tell its children of your mighty acts;
    let them proclaim your power.
Psalm 145:1-4

Perhaps not the average way to start the day…but then, Tom Wilkinson is not your average survivor.

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Open in your browser  and click on  the “Watch on YouTube” arrow  to hear “Praise the Lord (Psalm 145)” by Bishop Jos Tharakan.

 

Oct 08

A Real-Life Hero

Andrew Sone has met many interesting people–some good, others very bad–in his years as a parole officer, a Megan’s Law predator unit member, a clinical social worker and finally a therapist.  But there’s only one person he calls his hero.

“If anyone asks who’s my hero, I always say ‘my wife’,” explains 54-year-old Andrew, who has been married to Jennifer for 22 years.

To be clear, Jennifer was his hero even before she was diagnosed with cancer last summer, but her cancer journey “has just solidified it.”

Jennifer, 49, doesn’t feel like a hero. She’s physically weak, has trouble concentrating, and still misses her long hair.

Last year, she knew something wasn’t right health- wise, but it took a few months to finally get to the correct medical specialist, who could order the proper tests.

“I was crying when I first saw my scan results (online) and my initial words were: ‘I can’t believe I’m dying’,” Jennifer recalls.  “Then a few weeks later when the doctor sat me down and told me it was stage 4, I lost it again.”

Jennifer’s diagnosis of ovarian cancer spread to the lining of the lung, liver and diaphragm “was surreal,” Andrew recalls. “It’s something you never think would happen; cancer applies to someone else.”

Jennifer (before cancer) & her dog Kapua

In the fall of last year, Jennifer had chemo and surgery to shrink the 10-cm ovarian mass. That was followed by HIPEC, an aggressive surgical technique which bathes the abdominal cavity in a heated, concentrated chemo solution designed to kill residual cancer cells. Then she started  “maintenance” chemo and a PARP-inhibitor (targeted therapy that helps cells repair damaged DNA)–a regimen scheduled to be  every three weeks for two years.

Follow-up scans and blood work continue to deliver good news:  NED (No Evidence of Disease).

Andrew credits his hero-wife’s “passionate love affair with God” for guiding her through these difficult months, including her beloved dog passing away.

“Jen’s walk with the Lord is unwavering.”

“God really sustains me,” Jennifer  explains. “I just can’t believe all He’s gotten me through. We are all 100-percent in need of God all the time, but (Andrew and I) were just so helpless after my diagnosis, we really felt how much we needed Him.”

Andrew agrees and says it seemed like “the wind was knocked out of me and my faith was redefined to truly understand ‘dependency’.

“Some of the most powerful prayers I prayed contained just one word: Jesus. That one word said ‘I am completely dependent on You’.”

Jennifer acknowledges her share of “crying spells,” but says she always finds strength in Isaiah 41:10:

The couple recently started a “Praying thru Cancer” support group in their hometown of Myrtle Beach in hopes of encouraging others on difficult cancer journeys. They also regularly give away copies of 50 Days of Hope, the book a co-worker gave Jen and which led her to contact me.

Through our correspondence, I discovered that for many years the Sones lived in Pennsylvania and that her parents still live just a few miles from my home. So when the couple came this summer to visit family, we made plans to meet for breakfast.

I’m not sure who was more excited: Jennifer or me!

“I told everyone this is my Make-a-Wish to meet you,” she said with tears in her eyes.

But with tears in my eyes, I knew I had the gift of hugging a real-life hero of the faith.

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Please open in your browser to hear “I Will Fear No More” by The Afters.

 

 

 

 

Jun 18

Good news (and some not-so-good): My oncologist has cancer Part 12

For those of us who know and care about Dr. Marc Hirsh, we can exhale once more.

His 9-month check up last week at Hershey Medical was good news again! Blood work and a CT scan confirmed that the very rare neuroendocrine tumor of thymine origin has not changed. The 5X3 cm mass still is in front of Marc’s heart and there are cardiac issues from the high-dose radiation, but four years after multiple doctors gave him only a few weeks to live, he is alive, well, and enjoying life.

“When I was diagnosed, I figured I could only have a few weeks left–I was very short of breath and a had a lot of symptoms,” he recalled. “This cancer is normally aggressive and the prognosis from all the experts was not good.

“But I no longer expect it has to come back, and now that it’s four years, I’m actually entertaining the possibility I may be cured.”

Meanwhile, Marc is thoroughly enjoying re-learning the classical piano music he played proficiently in elementary school and “finds music very spiritually uplifting.”

And now that he is retired, Marc has found more time to read in areas of interest such as theology, philosophy and science.

“Science is just learning about God’s creation,” he noted. “And I definitely have been feeling very good about life: relationships, family, opportunities to help people.”

Pink Out cancer patient fundraiser!

But even in the midst of good news, Marc and Elizabeth have experienced a new challenge, as she recently was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease.

“It’s the first time in my life someone has told me that I have something that I can’t get over,” Elizabeth says. “That’s the hard part.”

Parkinson’s is a chronic disorder of the central nervous system that affects a person’s movements.

Not surprisingly, Elizabeth, my dear friend and prayer-partner for 30+ years is undaunted.

“I knew something was wrong for awhile, but all the tests eliminated everything else, so I was grateful it wasn’t more serious,” she said.

“It’s something I can live with,” she added, noting that she’s ” still functioning at a pretty high level and enjoying life” despite her non-dominant side being affected with weakness and tremors. Her regular self-care routine includes walking, swimming, stretching, good nutrition and small weights for strengthening.

And how has this chronic illness  affected Elizabeth’s faith?

“I like to be in touch with the Lord all the time, but especially during a trial of any kind, I always feel closer to Him,”  she says. “I realize He’s right there with me and it brings a smile and a peace.”

Elizabeth also adds that Marc–her husband of 44 years–“has been very good to me” assisting with activities that normally need two steady hands.

Marc’s perspective on the subject is this: “Maybe God’s keeping me alive to take care of Elizabeth.”

Whatever the reason, Marc, we rejoice in your healing, and in God’s faithfulness to you both.

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Open in your browser to hear the  inspiring song “Bound to Come Some Trouble” by Rich Mullins, Marc and Elizabeth’s favorite Christian artist. I think it perfectly sums up their faith, and I pray it encourages you today.

May 21

All Shall Be Well

Like most of us, Kevin Cross’s life has been full of unexpected twists and turns–many of them wonderful, at least one terrifying. And as soon as I heard his “full-circle” story, I knew I wanted to share it.

The Cross home on the Tred Avon River

His life dream started very young.

“When I was little, I used to play at being a priest,” Kevin, 72, recalls. “I gave my sisters Necco (candy) wafers for communion!”

In college Kevin continued his dream of becoming a Jesuit priest…until he attended a Catholic retreat and met a young blonde named Barbara.

The two quickly fell in love and “that kind of ended that career choice!” Kevin says with a laugh.

They married in 1974 and after earning a Master’s in psychiatric social work, he worked in counseling and human resources for the next three decades.

Then came another unexpected turn when he and Barbara attended a retreat in 2003.

“When we got there, I found out it was a 3-day silent retreat, which didn’t sound that great,” Kevin recalls. “But afterwards as soon as I got back in the car, I started hearing in my head  ‘I want you to be a priest’.”

He wrestled with such a momentous change, but finally decided to go to seminary and become an Episcopal priest.

“Father Cross” has been his calling  ever since.

Volunteer chaplain at the National Cathedral

For the past 14 years he’s been rector at Church of the Holy Trinity, Oxford, MD, on the Eastern shore of the Chesapeake Bay. (Known as “The Village Vicar” in this community of only 600.)

The most difficult path Kevin’s been forced to take began in 2019 when he insisted his family doctor do some cardiac screening because  he was 67 and “so many of my parishioners were having strokes and heart attacks.”

The coronary calcium scan which looks for plaque in the arteries scored him a perfect zero. But the x-ray images of his heart showed something else.

“You’ve got a spot on your right lung that looks suspicious,” the doctor reported and prescribed an antibiotic in hopes it was merely an infection.

But a few months later the answer came: “It’s grown and you need to have it out.”

Kevin’s right lower lobe lung was removed and the pathology identified melanoma, which meant it was stage 4. (The primary skin site never was found.)

“This whole thing was just a shocker,” Kevin acknowledges. “There were times when I was really frightened and petrified, but my faith is what really got me through–my faith, my family and my friends.”

He began a bi-weekly infusion of immunotherapy to boost his immune system, stopping six months shy of the recommended two years because of adverse kidney effects.

Especially comforting to Kevin have been the words of 14th century mystic Julian of Norwich, who withdrew into solitude for most of her life and wrote Revelations of Divine Love (the oldest surviving book in English by a woman). Her village was filled with poverty, famine and the bubonic plague, prompting suffering folks to come to her cell  for spiritual counsel. 

It was a vision in May 1373 when Julian said she heard Jesus speak the words for which she is most well-known:

“‘All shall be well’ became my mantra,” Kevin remembers. “I obviously wanted to be healed, but I knew if I wasn’t, all will be well.”

Scans every three months continue to show No Evidence of Disease for Kevin.

“It’s always on your mind that it could recur,” he explains. “I can forget about it for a while, but it helps me remember the finiteness of life and appreciate it more.”

Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.
—John 16:33

Yes, in Him, all shall be well.
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For more on the life of Julian of Norwich https://julianofnorwich.org/pages/who-is-julian-of-norwich For more of her quotes https://quotefancy.com/julian-of-norwich-quotes

Open in your browser to hear this short, beautiful arrangement of “All Shall Be Well” by an unnamed guitarist (originally composed by folk-singer Sydney Bertram Carter, best known for “Lord of the Dance”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8c3-GMOs10 )