Coming In From the Cold

What were you doing two years ago (Jan 2024)? Let me help you remember: if you were in Alberta and doing something outside, you were cold; many schools were closed; furnaces were failing and pipes were freezing; the power grid was stressed by all the block heaters and other electrical loads; the words "polar vortex" cemented themselves in your vocabulary so that you could mumble and curse the weather by name. Now do you remember Jan 2024?

I avoided the cold temperatures back then. I did that by checking into the Tom Baker Cancer Centre in Calgary and then not stepping outside for the next six days. During those six days staff did some testing and began the ramp-up dosing of a new cutting edge drug.  

I avoided the cold outside that January but that didn't mean my own personal polar vortex wasn't going on. Checking into a hospital after yet another relapse brought an icy chill of its own. The lack of other options and of real-world evidence of this drugs' efficacy made me uncertain I should venture into the cold. Two previous treatment protocols had only chillingly short term effectiveness. Even the fact that in order to get the new drug I needed a pharmaceutical company's "compassionate access program" seemed like a biting wind on an already bitter winter day. As I looked out of my fifth floor hospital window towards downtown Calgary I felt like the people I could see out there. I too was struggling in an ice fog.

It always takes a little while for cold spells like that to end, but both mine and the one endured by those outside the hospital did end 6 days later--discharge day. I experienced no major issues tolerating the drug and as a result was given the hope of 10 to 12 months of holding the myeloma at bay. The weather outside was warmER, (not warm!) and quite bearable. My cold, uncertain feelings slowly thawed and as we drove home, Kathy and I began  to reflect again on the God-With-Us life that we live.

Twenty four months later we continue in the warmth of God's mercy and love. All signs are still pointing to a continuing remission . We are humbled and deeply #thankful. We pray that when the freeze returns we don't forget that God always wants us to come in from the cold.