Category: faith

Sep 30

Living with Uncertainty: My Oncologist Has Cancer (Part 4)

 

Would you like to hear some GOOD NEWS today?It has been 4.5 months since my oncologist and former employer, Dr. Marc Hirsh (pictured above with me in 1999) was diagnosed with an extremely rare cancer.  It has no known cure nor effective treatment, but Marc finished his self-prescribed regime of 30 days of radiation and chemotherapy a week ago. That in itself–as all of us cancer survivors know–is something to celebrate.

And there’s more GOOD NEWS.

“I’m feeling much better,” he told me in yesterday’s phone interview. “My swallowing is about 80-percent improved. The nausea is gone. I’m not as tired as I was, and my appetite is picking up.

“It feels great not to have to get up and take a treatment,” Marc added. “I felt like I was poisoning myself, but it was something I had to do.”

But there’s even more GOOD NEWS.

Marc’s radiation oncologist, Dr. Michael Watson told him that the tumor has “significantly shrunk.” More imaging will be done in about a month to measure the decrease and check for any new spots, but the early scans are encouraging.

However,  after practicing oncology for 31 years, Marc knows good news quickly can change to bad.

“The tumor is still there and it’s just a question of whether it will act up,” he explained. “I wonder how long this window of remission or ‘holiday’ will last. I have faith and believe that anything is possible and it could go on for years, but it could be only weeks or months.”

Still, given the “dramatic  and weird way” the cancer first presented May 23, Marc is grateful for how much his situation has improved.

“I had this big (12 cm) tumor pressing on my heart, pericarditis (inflammation of the heart lining), chest pain,  constant headaches from pressure on a blood vessel, a collapsed lung with a pleural effusion (excess fluid),  and I was short of breath,” he recalled. “I really thought I probably would die in a few weeks…So it’s amazing how good I feel now.”

When I asked Marc how he deals with the uncertainty his diagnosis/prognosis brings, he responded: “I’m sad and disappointed, but I still feel strong and optimistic.”

“You don’t know when adversity hits how you’re going to do,” he explained. “I’m lucky to have Elizabeth who has been at my side constantly. Not everybody has a partner with her strength and love, and my family has been here for me from the beginning.”

Marc,  a Jew who has believed in Jesus as his Messiah for the past 40 years, said he wondered if his faith would be the source of strength he expected it to be.

“I figured God would show up…and He did,” he said. “It’s been a confirmation of what I already believed.”

I asked Marc about Bible verses which have been especially encouraging during this trial and he immediately mentioned one of my absolute favorite scriptures:

Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away,
yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.
For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us
an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.
So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen,
since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
2 Corinthians 4:15-17

“There’s a lot of uncertainty, but I’m glad I’m not afraid of dying,” Marc added. “And I’m also very happy I’m still alive.”

We are too, Marc…We are, too.

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Be sure to open this blog in your browser to hear the music videos “Be with You” and “The Love of God” by Rich Mullins, Marc and Elizabeth’s favorite Christian artist. I couldn’t make up my mind which song to pick, so you get a double blessing today. This second one is only a little over 2 minutes long and so worth your time.

 

Sep 16

Do You Need to Hear from God?

I hope you have someone who is praying with you during your cancer journey or whatever trial you’re facing—not just for you, but right with you so you can hear your needs lifted to Heaven. Even though I have been privileged to pray with cancer patients and their caregivers for the past 30+ years, I never cease to be amazed when I see God answer. It’s always especially exciting when patients tell me it’s the first time they really heard from God.

Maureen was one of those patients.

It’s easy to remember when I first met Maureen and her husband—the first anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks.

9/11 National Day of Remembrance, September 11, 2001. Vector illustration

What a rotten day to have to start chemo, I thought as I talked with the couple in my office. Maureen was forced to reschedule this first treatment because the week before she had had to go to Nebraska where her mother took ill while visiting relatives.

As I explained my job of offering emotional and spiritual support, I could see that Maureen was especially anxious. She said that she and her husband had gone to church early that morning to pray. I thought perhaps their visit was prompted by the day’s special significance to our country, but she said they made the same visit most mornings before work.

But Maureen admitted that she didn’t feel she heard from God the way other people seemed to hear Him. Her husband concurred that the amazing spiritual moments others described never seemed to happen to them.

I didn’t have any answer to their dilemma but asked if I might pray for them before Maureen’s treatment began. They readily agreed, so we held hands and I prayed a blessing over them.

When I finished, Maureen had a shocked look on her face.

“I can’t believe what you just prayed!” she said.

Oh dear, have I made some theological mistake? I wondered.

“Why? What did I say?” I asked her.

“You prayed that I would have ‘strength, courage, and peace’,” she said. “Those are the three things I have been praying for, in that exact order, every day since I was diagnosed with cancer!”

“So much for not hearing from God!” I responded with a smile. “I don’t think there’s any doubt now that He heard your prayers!”

I was pretty excited at God’s amazingly fast response, but He wasn’t done with them yet that day

Maureen went to the chemo room, and I stopped to talk with a patient named Dee. She said she wanted to give my first book to her next-door neighbor’s daughter who was recently diagnosed with cancer. Dee added some details about how her neighbor had become ill while she was in Nebraska.

“Wait a minute,” I said, stopping her story. “What’s your neighbor’s daughter’s name?”

“Maureen,” she replied.

Within moments introductions were made between the two women who had heard much about each other but never met. The veteran patient, Dee, hugged the novice patient, Maureen, and assured her she had been praying for her.

“I am so excited,” Maureen kept saying. “Things like this never happen to me!”And that’s how Maureen learned for sure that God really did hear her prayers and that His amazing power wasn’t just something that happened to other people.

I don’t know if you hear from God everyday or if feel you’ve never really heard from Him, but I promise you that He wants you to draw close and hear His voice.

Oh, that we might know the Lord! Let us press on to know him.
He will respond to us as surely as the arrival of dawn or the coming of the rains in early spring. Hosea 6:3

You faithfully answer our prayers with awesome deeds, O God our savior.
You are the hope of everyone on earth, even those who sail on distant seas. Psalm 65:5

If you have someone who will pray with you, ask that person to help you hear from God. If you don’t, please allow me that privilege right now: Father God, My friend needs to hear Your voice today. Will You please some how, some way speak to my friend in a way that will show You do faithfully answer our prayers. In the Name of Jesus. Amen.

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Be sure to open in your browser to hear the music video below “My Little Prayer” by David Archuleta.

 

Sep 02

Even a Superhero Can Get Cancer

 

We already knew that cancer is no respecter of people: young/old, rich/poor, athlete/couch potato, doesn’t matter. It can strike whenever and wherever. And a few days ago we learned that even a superhero can get cancer…and die.

Award-winning film actor Chadwick Boseman starred in 42 as Jackie Robinson, the first Black Major League Baseball player, and in Marshall as Thurgood Marshall, the first Black Supreme Court justice. But it was his role in Black Panther as Marvel’s first Black superhero that really catapulted him to global stardom.

And now just two years after the film’s release, its lead actor is gone.

It could have been me.

That’s the first thought I had when I read about Boseman last week. Diagnosed  in 2016 with stage 3 colon cancer at the age of 39. Now dead at 43.

I was diagnosed in 1990 with stage 3 colon cancer at the age of 36. Now alive and turning 67 this month. Why is that?

Is there something I did to “beat” cancer that Boseman failed to do? I doubt it. The very private actor never publicly discussed his diagnosis and reportedly continued to work on several films while undergoing treatments and multiple surgeries. It’s difficult to imagine that someone with his money and connectedness didn’t have excellent care. So why did a superhero not “conquer” cancer, but I did?

I have no idea.

I honestly refuse to give credit for my cure to anything I did or didn’t do. I complied with what the doctors advised (well, most of it), but I felt so nauseated that I ate whatever tasted good rather than what had the best nutritional value. During my treatment months, a short walk was all the exercise I could muster because I was so weak and had too many problems with an allergic reaction to a drug.

I truly don’t know for sure why I survived.  I feel very uncomfortable suggesting that I did something right to survive cancer because that would mean that my dear friends (and people like Chadwick Boseman) must have done something wrong.

I realize God has used me to touch the lives of hundreds of thousands of cancer patients and their families–in person, through speaking engagements and via my books. But I know many people who were serving God mightily when they passed away and I have no reason to doubt would have continued had they lived.

As to why I’m still here and they’re not…I have no adequate explanation. But I do look to Scripture for my hope.

While we live in these earthly bodies, we groan and sigh,
but it’s not that we want to die and get rid of these bodies that clothe us.
Rather, we want to put on our new bodies so that these dying bodies will be swallowed up by life.
God himself has prepared us for this, and as a guarantee he has given us his Holy Spirit.

 So we are always confident, even though we know that as long as we live in these bodies
we are not at home with the Lord. For we live by believing and not by seeing. 2 Corinthians 5:4-7

When life doesn’t make sense–whether because of cancer or some other trial–we can find peace because “The path we walk is charted by faith, not by what we see with our eyes.” (The Voice Bible)

So keep walking, my friend…not seeing, but simply trusting.

P.S. I was so happy to read about Chadwick Boseman’s faith as a baptized Christ-follower. He often spoke of God and quoted scripture including in his 2018 commencement address at his alma mater Howard University. I also recommend Boseman’s 5-minute inspirational speech explaining how “without Denzel Washington there is no Black Panther”  https://www.facebook.com/goalcast/videos/how-did-denzel-washington-save-chadwick-boseman/2698843526994047/

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Be sure to open this blog in your browser to hear the music video below “Walk by Faith’ by Jeremy Camp.

 

Aug 19

Faith & Family: My Oncologist Has Cancer (Part 3)

 

It’s one thing to be given a cancer diagnosis. It’s another matter to be told there is no known cure for that cancer. And it’s a whole other ballgame to learn there’s no recognized effective treatment either.

My oncologist, Dr. Marc Hirsh, has been smacked with this reality in the three months since he was diagnosed with an extremely rare atypical carcinoid of the thymus gland. And like so many facing a life-threatening illness, his world looks a little different.

“I’m learning to appreciate the moment– like when I take a deep breath and it doesn’t hurt and I don’t cough,” Marc told me in a recent phone interview. “And having medicine to control the pain is really great.”

So how does he get through the day without obsessing about his discouraging diagnosis and poor prognosis?

“I’m staying as active as possible–walking around our property everyday,” he said. “I also get a lot of joy in reading and studying.”

Music also brings much happiness to Marc, who has been “playing a lot of keyboard” since his diagnosis. (He also plays piano, guitar, saxophone and harmonica –and does a great Bob Dylan vocal.)

Since 1991 when I started the Cancer Prayer Support Group, Marc has entertained and  inspired his patients and their families at our semi-annual dessert concerts. Whether playing “Go Tell It on the Mountain” with a boogie beat or changing popular song wording to share his testimony (Aretha Franklin’s “You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman” became “You Make Me Feel Like a New Creation”), he brought much happiness to the crowds which eagerly gathered.

But Marc said what gives him the most joy each day is being with his family.

“I feel really fortunate to have my great wife and kids and grandkids here with me,” he said. “And all the cards I get are great, too.”

One of Marc’s favorite Bible passages, which helps him to “focus on living in the moment and not worrying about tomorrow” is found in the Sermon on the Mount.

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?…But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. Matthew 6:25-27, 33-34

Still Marc acknowledged that “living for the moment is easier said than done.” In fact, he hesitated to offer advice on coping with cancer.

“We’re all so unique and God has created each one of us in a unique fashion, so I don’t think there’s a five-step solution,” he explained. “But I think we all need to find some meaning in the midst of the diagnosis. And we need to face our own death and not be in denial.

“I’ve always thought it’s a paradox that God is in control while life is random and chaotic ,” he added. “But whatever happens to my body, I know that my spirit is eternal  and when my body dies, it’s not the final answer.”

“I am the resurrection and the life.
Anyone who believe in me will live, even after dying.
Everyone who lives in me and believes in me will never ever die.”
John 11:25-26

P.S. (If you want to know how Marc, a Jewish physician, met the Great Physician and became a Christ-follower in 1979, I share that story in my first book When God & Cancer Meet.)

FYI Marc has a new blog where he explores medical, theological and philosophical issues related to his cancer journey. To sign-up for a free subscription, go to:  https://marchirshmd.wordpress.com

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Be sure to open in your browser to hear “Bound to Come Some Trouble,” another song by Marc’s favorite Christian artist, Rich Mullins.

Aug 12

Living with Loss: My Oncologist Has Cancer (Part 2)

 

Cancer has a nasty habit of taking things away from people–things like hair and strength and jobs and time. Sometimes it takes them away for a short while and sometimes it takes them away permanently.

Even before my oncologist Dr. Marc Hirsh got an official cancer diagnosis, the disease already was robbing him of things that had been precious to him.

His first loss came without any warning: his health. At 69, Marc was still very active: biking, running, paddle boarding, downhill skiing and even kick boxing a heavy bag. He went to bed Friday, May 22 feeling fine after his daily workout, but awakened in the night with chest pain. Tests at the ER revealed a 12-cm tumor pressing on his heart and partially collapsing a lung. He left the hospital feeling weak, short of breath and with a prescription for narcotic painkillers.

And the loss of his health led immediately to his second loss: his profession.

“I realized right away what would be involved with this tumor–even in the best case scenario–and I knew I couldn’t keep up what I had been doing,” Marc explained in our recent phone interview. “The rigors of private, solo practice without back-up, on call 24/7–I wouldn’t be able to do the job I wanted to. I knew it was the end.”

Patients were quickly informed that they needed to find a new oncologist. The staff of ten–some of whom have worked for Marc for 20 or 30 years–was already in mourning and now patients and their families began grieving the loss of their oncologist’s care. (Photos are Fall 2019 patient party when staff costumed as Where’s Waldo? –the one and only year Marc ever dressed up.) 

On June 8 Marc updated his website to include this message: “I am sorry that I cannot continue as your physician.  I extend to you my prayers for your future health and happiness.  It has been my honor and privilege to be involved with your care.”

“I knew I would stop working someday, but not like this,” Marc told me. “When I finally went into the office and saw everything all boxed up, I just broke down.”

“That loss of my profession was even worse than the cancer,” he added. “I’m no longer that doctor, that oncologist. It kind of hurt.”

But the final loss was his beloved dog, Jake. Rescued some 10 years ago, the lab-hound was practically inseparable from Marc.  Jake even came to the office every day, where he won the hearts of all the dog-loving patients as he visited them in the exam rooms, happily accepting handfuls of doggie treats.

Fourteen-year-old Jake was slowing down and in the last few weeks became very sick. On July 24, the difficult decision was made to end his suffering.

“No, not Jake!” Marc recalled. “I got cancer, I lost my job and now I have to put down my dog? I was a little angry. I can’t even have my therapy dog with me.”

But Marc never thought “it’s not fair.”

“If you’re a follower of Christ, you’re still going to experience struggles, problems,” he explained. “Faith doesn’t prevent (bad) things from happening.

“I don’t blame God (for all the losses) or wonder why,” he added. “I’m 69 and I’m very grateful for all the things I’ve had. My life has been so blessed and very successful that I couldn’t complain.”

He’s even grateful to have started his radiation therapy and oral chemo yesterday after waiting three weeks for all the preliminaries to conclude.

Here’s the scripture prayer Marc posted on his website for all his patients and their families:
The LORD bless you, and keep you;
 The LORD make His face shine upon you, and be gracious to you;
The LORD lift up His countenance on you, and give you peace.
Numbers 6:24-26

NEXT WEEK AUG. 19 Faith & Family: My Oncologist Has Cancer (Part 3)
Please go to my website home page to sign up for my bi-weekly blog.

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Make sure to open in your browser to hear “If I Stand,” one of Marc’s favorite songs by Rich Mullins, who Marc describes as “our No. 1 favorite songwriter–he’s like the Bob Dylan of Christian music.”