June 5, 2001: the Joys and Perils of the In-Between

Vol. 7.3

Hi Friends.

I've 8 days before I begin round #3 of chemo, so I thought I'd drop you a note and let you know how things are along the journey towards recovery.

The short story is that, along with adjusting to being bald, I'm learning to be patient with my body's rhythms as it copes with the poison that is chemotherapy, and i'm resigning myself to not being as active or as effective or as creative as i want/need to be in the next few months. It is quite hard for me to embrace that--but i'm finding that i have no choice. I'm tired, period, whether i wish i wasn't or not. But at least the fatigue and the sickness are allegedly serving a purpose (kicking the crap out of the cancer, right?), so I have to make my peace with it. Or at least try.

Needless to say i'll be glad when this season is over.... It's a very wierd place, a little hard to get your head around some days. Just the numbers can be overwhelming--I've got @ 80% chance of some kind of recovery/remission, but that means at least 20% of people like me don't get better.

Sometimes that just hits like a tonne of bricks--I'll just be minding my own business and all of a sudden it occurs to me that I might never be "normal" again, that this might be the best it gets, I might never get on the trip to Ireland or play golf again, or throw dice in Vegas, or see the changes I dream/envision for this ministry, etc. It happened just a few days ago while reading a golf magazine (that's about as thoughtful as I can get most days, I'm afraid)--all of sudden it came over me like a wave that I might never get to swing the sticks again, and I lost it.

Now, I know that many of you think that never playing golf again might be a good thing, and I concede it is the most bourgeois of my vices. Still, it was this striking sense of how frail things are--how fleeting "normal" is. When that happens, I usually have a good cry, try to pray, try to read (or at least remember) the Scriptures, and then I talk to Sheri and it passes.

I don't tell you this to evoke any sense of sympathy--only to give you a sense of the range of emotions that this process is bringing on. Because, to be honest, for every overwhelming low there have been equally exhilerating highs. Mostly I've been amazed by the lack of anxiety I feel about the 'big' issues. I've truly been overwhelmed by the peace--and the love--that I've experienced since all of this happened.

People have been genuinely gracious to Sheri and me. And even better (truly, i can say that) has been the extent to which people have embraced the challenge to pray for/remember the unloved, the voiceless and the powerless when they remember me in prayer. I've had at least a dozen notes from folks who've said "it's changing my entire life." One friend I respect immensly wrote and said "I've just prayed to God for everyone who has never been prayed for before." That's pretty cool. I can tell you I had a good cry about that, but not because i was sad or sick. For the exact opposite reasons.

But enough about my tortured inner life.... Tomorrow, God willing and my body cooperating, I'm heading to Canada for a few days. The important part of that trip is a two-day crusade/ conference in Windsor, ON, where Tony Campolo is preaching to the throngs and I'm giving a seminar to 100 or so folks doing urban ministry. It will be the first time speaking since I've been sick, and might be a real challenge--I'm pretty raw these days anyway, so it might not take much to set me off. We'll see if I can moderate my teary sentimentality with a hearty dose of (highly spiritual) cynicism... whatever works, right?

The other good part of my trip will be a quick visit with family and a dinner with my three bestest friends in Canada--Bob, Mark and Chris. That will count as a bit of "personal" time for me--frankly, I need it badly. My time away will be a much needed break for Sheri, too. I learned of my possible diagnosis the day that Sher returned from a huge, grueling week-long conference at the end of March--a conference that was the culmination of two months of equally guelling preparation--so you can only imagine that she's a little tired too, as the last two months have been anything but easy for her. Hopefully being sans Dwight (and sans looking after Dwight) will give her a chance to catch up on things like calls to her friends--and sleep.

When I return on Sunday, I have a couple of days in the office, the chance to see U2 on Monday, and then on Wednesday I go back into the hospital for round#3 of chemo.

During this round the oncologists will be running a series of tests to determine how effective the treatments have been--and then will decide on the next steps. My own very selfish prayer is that they will determine that the chemo has done its job NOW and this one will be it, and we'll move on to the next (bone marrow transplant) phase. Of course, I'll do what they tell me to do, but, like I said, I'd like you to pray for me in that way... and of course, please pray that the side effects will be minimal. Because, as we all now know, chemotherapy officially sucks.

Anyway, thanks for your prayers and calls and cards and notes.

you are loved....

Dwight

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