What’s below is an adaptation of something I wrote in December but shared with a limited audience. I haven’t written much about my illness since my initial post almost a year ago, so I thought I should share some things here on the blog.
After I was discharged from my initial hospital stay last year, I did three more 4-week cycles of chemo treatment, and then I had a bone marrow transplant in the summer. I went home about a month later, and things were looking pretty good.
Exactly two months after I was discharged, though, I got the news that my cancer had returned. In other words, the chemotherapy and transplant had not worked.
Since receiving that news, I have been on more chemo treatment, along with lots of pills. I also had a post-transplant complication with my bladder that presented a lot of difficulties for several months. Thankfully, the bladder issue is resolved, although the treatments left me with some side issues that are going to last a while.
Now I am waiting to hear from my doctors for the date of another procedure. A couple of months after that, the doctors will do some more tests and decide what’s next for me. It could be three months or more until I hear about the “what’s next”. I will try to be patient.
On the bright side, my time in the outpatient clinic has dropped dramatically. A few months ago, it was hours a day, every day. Now I am there only three days a week, and some of my visits are only a couple of hours. It is a huge improvement for my quality of life as I go through this cancer fight.
The past year has not been much fun, though. I’ve been going through lots of treatments and hospital stays. I missed holidays with my family and events in my family’s lives. I was in the hospital for all of them. Obviously, it has been hard on my kids to see their dad go through this. But the heaviest burden throughout has been on my wife, as she has done double and triple duty with all the tasks involved in managing a house, family, and pets, while also spending countless hours at the hospital and outpatient clinics with me.
But earlier I mentioned good memories and blessings. We have enjoyed a lot of those, too.
I have heard from a lot of people who I hadn’t heard from in a long time. In some cases, my friends have simply offered encouraging words and support in the forms of cards, emails, visits, texts, and phone calls; in other instances, they have blessed our family with gifts, gift cards, and with money for groceries, meals, and whatever else we needed. I have received lots of books and puzzles to occupy my time in the hospital and in the clinics. Some of my friends traveled hundreds of miles for visits. In one memorable episode, a crew of men – including one guy I’d never met – showed up at our house on a Saturday morning (on relatively short notice[1]) to unload a storage pod and carry a lot of heavy stuff upstairs. Neighbors have helped with house, car, and yard maintenance, often unprompted. One friend even spent several hours drafting my fantasy baseball team for me so that I could participate in my league last year. And he’s doing the same for me in a couple of weeks.
Recently I went back and read something I wrote more than 15 years ago about some health problems my daughter was having: “[T]here have been hundreds, probably thousands, of people praying” for her.
I picked out that quote because I know that since I got sick, there have probably been thousands of people praying for me and for our family. It has been astounding (and humbling) the number of times I have heard that someone has put me/us on a prayer list for their Bible study group, or for their prayer group, or for their church, or for their social media friends.
But things haven’t been so simple. Despite all of those prayers, I didn’t get better the first time. Instead, I had a doctor telling me that my cancer was back and was growing again. Why?
Ten years ago, I went to see the movie “God’s Not Dead” with my dad and my younger son, who was 8. I wasn’t sure my son would really take anything away from the movie. At some point after the movie – maybe in the car on the way home – I asked him if he learned anything from watching it. His answer? “Sometimes God says, ‘No.’”
Whoa. Talk about nailing it. Sometimes God says, “No.” He is not a wishing well. He is not a genie out of a bottle. He is not Santa Claus. Sometimes his plans are not our plans. He still answers our prayers, but not the way we may want.
So why keep praying? In my view, God hasn’t given me a final “no” yet. Instead, maybe the answer for now is, “Not yet.” Or maybe the answer is, “Wait.” As my oncologist said while discussing my relapse, they have a Plan A, B, and C lined up for me. It is not time for me, or for anyone else, to give up.[2] So we keep praying.
I ask for continued prayers for healing. … But I must acknowledge that the people who faithfully pray those prayers may end up hearing “No” in response.
I’m not trying to be dark or depressing by admitting this cancer could kill me. In fact, as a Christian, I am admitting it as a way of lifting everyone up. My death, whenever it may arrive, will not be the end. I will not be worm food and nothing more.
Why not? Because Jesus, the son of God, conquered death. He was crucified, resurrected, appeared to many people, and then re-joined his Father. A small group of his followers – who had virtually no power or influence in the first-century world – ended up changing the world forever by spreading his message. And when I was in my mid-20s, I accepted Jesus as my savior, and that means after I die an earthly death, at some point I will join him in his eternal kingdom … a kingdom with no pain, with no suffering. So I do not fear death.
But neither do I crave it. I want my cancer to disappear. I want to spend the next 40 years with my wife. I want to see my family grow. And yeah, I want to see what happens in the final season of “Stranger Things.” Anyway, I hope God tells me and everyone else, “Yes.” And if he does, I hope that I will be faithful in honoring him.
Honoring God has been something I’ve tried to focus us on since I got sick. Not that I’ve been preaching nonstop or showing my theological chops at every opportunity – far from it. Instead, I have tried to be friendly, to be nice, to be polite, to show those around me that I am not bitter or scared. I have tried to show that I have a reason to not be bitter, to not be scared … on the contrary, I have a reason to feel secure, to feel loved. It has not always been easy. There have been days where I was discouraged, where I felt like I just couldn’t take any more tests, treatments, or pills, where I resented missing yet another family event, where I wanted to tell a doctor or nurse exactly what I thought of them and their efforts. I have cried in front of a doctor despite my best efforts to put up a strong front. I have cried quite a bit, actually.
But I also know that for as much as I detested most of my time in the hospital, the nurses thought that “Mr. Branson” was one of the nicer patients to deal with. They didn’t dread being assigned to me. They didn’t bat an eye when a doctor allowed my younger children to visit me a few times, even though the policy was no visitors under 18. I hope that my trust in God showed through in my actions and my demeanor and that it will continue to do so.[3]
I have posted on and off to this blog for almost nine years. (“On and off” may be generous, as I didn’t do a single post in 2022.) In looking over many of my posts, I’m not sure that I’ve really shared “my story” – i.e., how I ended up accepting Jesus. I have done it a couple of times in front of people at different churches, but I don’t think I’ve put it into writing.
The short version: I was raised in a Christian home, but for me it was largely an exercise in going through the motions and following certain rules. From the time I was 16 or 17 to my mid-20s, I gradually drifted away from any notion of Christian faith and went through various phases of agnosticism and atheism. I met a pretty lady (who is now my wife) in the summer of 2000, and we argued about faith a lot. I even went to church with her when it was the last thing I wanted to do, and I didn’t budge from my opinions. Finally, during one night early in 2001, even while I was on the phone arguing with her again, I felt something akin to a gut punch that could only have been the Holy Spirit. Even after continuing to disagree with her on the phone, after the call I got down on my knees and really prayed for the first time in a long, long time and accepted Jesus as my savior.
And a funny thing I was thinking about recently: I still had my Bible on my bookshelf the whole time. Although I left it mostly untouched for almost 10 years, I could never bring myself to get rid of it. I remember when I got it: I had gone through the confirmation process in the United Methodist Church (when I was 12, I think), and it was time to upgrade from the kids’ Bible I had used up to that point. My mom took me to a Christian bookstore, and I settled on a Ryrie Study Bible (NIV). I guess it was kind of pricey, because the cashier made an unnecessary comment about how I must be getting ready to do a lot of studying. (You’d think a Christian bookstore would be a judgment-free zone with respect to purchases, but apparently not.) That always stuck in my head, and it was at least part of the reason I always kept that Bible, even when it meant very little to me. Almost 40 years later, it is still the Bible I use. It is always interesting to come across parts I have starred or underlined, or notes I have made, and think about where I was in life or what I was studying when I focused on that particular passage. It is interesting to think that God never abandoned me, even when I had abandoned him. He still kept trying to bring me back into the fold, despite my rejection of his love.
My journey has not been perfect by any means. At times I have fallen into old behaviors or habits and have not been a good witness to those around me. At times I have not felt terribly close to God. But I have always stuck with my faith, and I hope that I am still developing into someone who loves God and loves others.[4] As one of my pastors used to say, “We are people in process.”
The past year has not been a lot of fun. And it can be discouraging to think that I am still dealing with the same cancer I was dealing with 12+ months ago, and remission still eludes me.
But I have been leaning on some things for support. The verse of the day feature on my Bible app has come through with passages that seem more relevant than usual. To pick out a few:
- Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. (Psalms 23:6)
- The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you; the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace. (Numbers 6:24-26 … and just a couple of days after this was on the app, I heard a sermon on this passage.)
- I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits, and in his word I put my hope. (Psalms 130:5)
- Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. (Hebrews 10:23)
- Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you or forsake you. (Deuteronomy 31:6)
I’ve also been leaning on some Christian music. I don’t listen to a lot of it … frankly, I find a lot of it to be not very good, but there are some songs that have been both moving and helpful.
- Man of Sorrows, by Hillsong. It’s an Easter song, but I find a lot of power in it no matter when I listen to it.
- My Story, by Big Daddy Weave. It took me a little bit to realize that people in the video were using the typewriter to write “their stories” and then putting them on the cross. It makes me think a lot about what my story is now, and what it will be in the future.
- So Will I (100 Billion X), by Hillsong. This song really speaks to how ancient and beautiful God’s creation is, and how reminders of his glory are all around us.
- In Jesus Name (God of Possible), by Katy Nichole. My wife sent me this one; it’s a powerful reminder of everyone who has been praying for me.
- Psalm 91, by Victory Boyd. Another one from my wife. A great psalm about God’s love and protection for those who love him.
A lot of people from near and far have asked me what they can do to help. My answer has usually been twofold: (1) please keep praying for healing for me, but just as importantly, (2) please pray for my family – for God’s strength, comfort, and peace. As difficult as this has been for me, I know it has been just as hard for my family. No matter what happens in the coming weeks and months, I pray that my family and I will feel God’s love and will continue to love him back.
[1] The guy who was originally supposed to lead the effort was stuck in Niger because of a coup. You can’t make this stuff up.
[2] Jimmy V Week on ESPN definitely hit me differently this year. Please donate to the V Foundation at http://www.v.org (or to another cancer-focused organization) if you feel moved to do so.
[3] I recently came across a good quote from an American missionary: “Lord, make my way prosperous not that I achieve high station, but that my life be an exhibit to the value of knowing God.”
[4] When Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment was, he answered, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” (Matthew 22:37-39)
Keep Me From The Gallows Pole 