(This is part five of a series. You can read part one here, two here, three here, four here, and the book that started it here.) While I was in bed with mouth sores, Sarah was one floor up in the hospital’s little family room ministering to families. She met Matthew and learned about his sister. She met Barb, and …
The Seattle Journal 4
(This is part four of a series. You can read part one here, part two here, part three here, and the free book that started it all here.) My first official treatment was the real dose of the experimental procedure. They rolled out the red carpet for it, too. The nurse spent hours readying the room prior to my arrival. …
The Seattle Journal 3
(This is part three of a series. You can read part one here, part two here, and the book that started it all — which is free, by the way — here.) How could I forget to tell you about the tentacular chest dongles? Before we went up to Seattle, I was told that I needed something put in me …
The Seattle Journal 2
Note: This is Part Two of probably a three-part story. You can read Part One here, and the book that started it all here. Not long before we headed up to Seattle, my wife, Sarah and her mother, Pam, organized an emergency family meeting. Our whole lives were about to turn upside down, so they figured we should get everyone …
The Seattle Journal
At the beginning of 2014 I was diagnosed with stage four Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Near the end of January I started chemo therapy, and four months later the cancer was completely gone. However, about four months after that it was back. And that’s where this story begins. (To read more about those initial months, though, be sure to check out my …
In Our Ruins
When I was very young, my grandfather died in a car accident. Well, that’s not entirely true. He actually survived the car accident. But he did not survive the medical care that followed. There was some talk, to my understanding, that there were grounds for a medical malpractice suit. However, I know for a fact there was a great deal …
We Are Reborn
“This must be what it feels like when you begin to die.” That thought hit me one day when I was sitting alone in my room in the hospital. It wasn’t a melancholy thought: it wasn’t despairing. It was more of a stop-breathing, “whoa” moment. Because it was true. I had just finished a week-long stint of a lethal chemo …
A Violent Love
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Joy in the Holding
So here I am, in another chemo treatment. I’ve had an IV hooked up to me for several days now, and one bag of glorified poison trying to take out my bladder for the better part of 24 hours. (It hasn’t succeeded.) The doctors and nurses are once again beside themselves with my attitude, and with the lack of side …
Where We Go From Here
“Hope deferred makes the heart sick.”(1) What a placid way to discuss how the venom of disappointment poisons the soul. Every week I ask God what He wants me to write about on this blog. And every week I get an answer. This week the answer was “disappointment and discouragement.” Sometimes I have experiences after learning the theme that help …