Brent's Blog - The Begining

Hello to everyone. I am starting this blog to make it easy for relatives and other friends to keep updated with my health situation; and for creating a forum for prayer requests. I also hope this provides me with a good outlet for creative writing to share my experiences as I go through this journey with cancer. I have always found writing to be therapeutic, more so now than ever before.

This is not really the beginning of my journey with cancer; in fact it has been almost 10 months since my diagnosis. But in many ways, this past week has felt like the beginning of realization that I have this disease. It all started back in late May, 2006, when I felt a large lump in my left hamstring. My family had been living in India for the past 11 years, doing agricultural research to develop improved seed varieties for farmers there. Since our children had gotten older, with more spare time I had been active in jogging distances and just assumed that my lump was a pulled muscle. But over the next 6 weeks it did not get better, and seemed to grow. By early August, it was obviously something concerning and my local doctor who advised to get an MRI in the largest close city (Bombay). The result was shocking; a 12cm x 6 cm tumor which encompassed my mid-left hamstring. We immediately went to Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in NYC for surgery. The surgery was very successful (called "limb saving surgery" - which sounds great) due to the incredible skill of my surgeon. We were then surprised with the pathology report; a children's sarcoma type known as "Rhabdomyo sarcoma". In adults, this type of sarcoma is rare and rapid growing - but is known to respond to chemo and radiation treatments. So we started on a long course of chemotherapy in NYC. We moved the chemo and radiation treatments to my home town cancer center in Urbana, IL, so my wife and I could stay with my parents and be close to all my family. Our sons remained in India; one at an International School in North India and the other stayed with close friends at our home in India. Fortunately, my body handled the chemo / radiation treatments really well, and we even made 3 trips back and forth to India over these past 8 months. My first two chest scans (Sept. and Jan.) were clean, and everything looked great going into the final round of chemo in mid-May. But much to our shock, and disappointment, this last round of chemo was never to occur. We have now found that the cancer has spread into my lungs; in the form of many small nodules and one larger one (over 1 cm). What this means is that the chemo treatments we tried initially were not effective, but there was no way to know this because we had nothing to measure it against. This initial chemo treatment course used 3 drugs that were very old (30 years or more) but known to be effective in children.

So now for the new beginning part. I realize that up to now, I have not accepted having cancer. I only accepted having a tumor which was removed ... a really foolish attitude. Now I have to accept cancer all over again. It is like being told again for the first time. Shock, denial, sadness, fear, regret; not once but twice. We are now in process of getting a biopsy of the new growth, and then setting out on a new treatment options. On the positive side, I really like my doctor here at Carle Cancer Center in Urbana. He is positive and creative, keeping up on research. Carle also has a tie in with Mayo Clinic. Sloan-Kettering in NYC is one of the top cancer institutes in the world, but at this stage it is really difficult to go back and forth to NYC; so we would like to base out of Urbana and go up to Mayo if anything more is needed.

I got inspired to set up this blog, from another blog by Nathan Detweiler and his parents /friends (http://nathanstory.blogspot.com/). Nathan has the same scarcoma type, but it had spread into his lump node system; and in many ways was a more difficult case than mine. I was really inspired to read how his cancer had responded to chemo and how he fought through many obstacles to survive and graduate from Goshen College; including a stem cell transplant procedure. Just reading his experiences over a 2 year period gives hope that something may work out and we must never give up. Another aspect of Nathan's blog which has been especially moving, is how much his experience has brought him closer to God and taught him to rely on God for strength. His faith is inspiring; as is his ability to find joy even in the lowest moments. Following this example, it is time me to more earnestly seek God's guidance and use this experience to grow in faithfulness and trust in Him. I realize that once I achieve this, a calmness will come over me and I will be at peace.

I want to share scripture sent to me by a dear friend upon learning of my cancer recurrence:

PSALM 118 5 - 9 :
"God Answers Prayer"
In my distress I prayed for the Lord and he answered me and rescued me.
He is for me! How can I be afraid? What can mere man do to me?
The Lord is on my side, he will help me. Let those who hate me beware.
It is better to trust the Lord than to put confidence in men.
It is better to take refuge in him than in the mightiest king!

I hope to share my journey with you all, seek your prayers, and gain inspiration and spiritual insight along the way.

BRENT