Twenty Years

When I think about where I was and what I was doing 20 years ago, it doesn't feel like it's me at all. On this day, 20 years ago, I was feeling grateful that my husband had just had a cortisone shot and wasn't in as much pain as he had been for the past two weeks. I was worried that he might have torn his rotator cuff and would have to take some time off of training for surgery and recovery.

Boy, would a torn rotator cuff been good news. Little did I know, but our family was facing a monster of an enemy. Bill's body was eaten up with cancer. It was in his blood. It was in his bones. It was in his bone marrow. It was just about everywhere. He was dying and we had no idea.

In 2003, rituximab had just been approved by the FDA to use in combination with CHOP chemotherapy. The hope was that combining it with aggressive chemo would save him. But we knew most definitely that without it, there was a 98% chance that Bill would die of his lymphoma within five years. Those were some pretty bad odds.

Today, as I write this, my heart is filled with thoughts of war. I am profoundly sad about the people in the Middle East. I pray constantly that they will all know Jesus before it's too late. War is really awful. And it is very unfair too. I keep hearing people on the news talking about how children are being slaughtered. And really it reminds me so much of cancer. Cancer is like a terrorist. Cancer doesn't care if you're a small child. It attacks over 400,000 children every year. And millions of adults too.

Cancer lost its attack on Bill and our family. A lot has happened in the last 20 years. We feel like we are totally different people now. But we both know that cancer shaped us into the people we became. I hate cancer, but I am still very grateful that God allowed us to experience it so that we could do the things He called us to do.

Cheers to 20 years of beating our enemy. Cheers to 20 more. I hope.