Keep The Faith

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 ...

I have written three pieces since my last post on this blog. I have posted zero of them. It's not that the writing is any worse than usual. Nor is it that I have been too busy to do the final revisions. The reason is a classic Good-News/Bad-News story.  I'll start with the good news. I am well! Though we are considerably past the expected efficacy of the current treatment protocol (we are at 21 months versus an expected 11.3 months), I am still in remission and feeling good. We have been blessed with many laughter-filled family times this summer despite the fact that we expected the summer of '25 to be different. Since I am a person who processes this journey in part through writing, less blogging generally means things are good for me. #Thankful. That's the good news. Now for the bad news: the list of people I know or have worked with who have recently begun their cancer journey or who have lost their battle with cancer is getting longer. These are people whose diagnos...

Thomas Merton once said, "You can tell more about a monk from the way he uses a broom than by anything he says." I think Merton was likely commenting on the human propensity to divide life into sacred and secular. Our default position is to hallow some things and to see others as ordinary, secular, even mundane parts of life. I have had a few weeks here of not feeling very well. My body has protested lately and my mind seems to easily migrate to darker places. In that context Thomas Merton caught my attention by reminding me (again!) that words are the easy part. It is easy to be 'sacred" with words. This blog over the years has accumulated a lot of words. They are often brave, keep-the-faith-words. But I don't always feel like I live up to those words.  Merton calls me once again to be honest about how the floor sweeping is going.   So I stand here with this damn broom in my hand. What do I do with it?  Daily life-- treatments, side effects, needing to nap, wear...

There is no sign that my cancer has yet found a way to defeat my current drug. The March 7 PET Scan results were excellent. No “glowing bones” this time! We are, in equal amounts, surprised and #thankful! I wonder what I would have felt if instead I had been told that my bones had lit up like a child’s toy? Keeping the faith is not as hard when the news is good; what kinds of challenges and questions will I have when, once again, the news is bad?   Someone in a recent text thread reminded me I need to think about that again.  This person, who has been in a spiritual wilderness for some time, had been thinking about someone close who had gone through a family tragedy. He said he just wanted to say to the grieving one, “Where is ur [sic] God now…it just ain’t right…. Good people and kids don’t deserve that shit, and ya, how do u explain that?"  He went on and said that he felt the same thing for our cancer journey. " Why?" h e lamented. The idea of a good God in a worl...

I have always had people around me who set the bar pretty high. After all, I belonged to what I consider to be an above average family, thanks to my hard working immigrant parents and my capable siblings. My childhood experiences were way above average, especially when one sees the images coming out of Gaza, South Sudan and other places. I’ve been surrounded by people who excel in their life vocations, whether they be my siblings or my own children.  Listen, this is not a lament: Personally, I’ve lived most of my life solidly in the middle of the pack. Average. The mean.  I was an average student with an average intellect and, to be honest, below-average study habits. Though I won a couple of athletic awards in high school, I was an average athlete. I became an average coach even though I loved what I did. As an educator, a profession I cherish, I was average, with the occasional bright moment. I was/am able to be an average spouse thanks to Kathy who has an above avera...

The word miracle gets thrown around a lot.  “I got the last parking spot in the whole mall parking lot. It was a miracle!”  No, I don’t think so. “The Oilers tied it up with 22 seconds left. A miraculous goal!” Wrong! When we speak of a miracle aren’t we extolling an extraordinary event which is a sign of the supernatural power of God ? As much as some hockey fans would like to believe that God cheers for THEIR team, and some Christmas shoppers might speak of a divine parking attendant, I would beg to differ. Perhaps what I have just written is a rather dubious intro for what comes next. Maybe I too should be lumped in with the happy shoppers and hockey fanatics; I’ll leave the lumping to you. You can decide. A little more than a year ago, as we welcomed 2024, my heart was noisier than the New Year’s Eve fireworks. I was experiencing an aggressive relapse and both my Red Deer doctor and a team at the Cross Cancer Institute were unable to provide a viable treatment moving forw...

  I bought a new coffee mug recently. I know, I know...that's not a very newsworthy event, but stay with me for a few moments.  Printed on the mug is: "It's a good day to have a good day." Normally we would avoid mugs with writing on them, but I was attracted to this mug because the message is just a slightly different version of a weathered sign that hangs along one of my favourite bike rides.  That sign says, "Today is a good day for a good day." And it truly is a good day for a good day. We e-biked to Red Deer to see our oncologist last week and he said something we haven't heard since I relapsed in the winter of 2021, "All clinical indications show that you are in a complete remission." For those of you who know about cancer treatments, you know it IS a fact that remissions become harder to achieve with each treatment protocol. At least it WAS a fact! I have been blessed, in this fourth treatment protocol which I began in January, with co...

Much to our amazement, the radiologists report on the PET scan done at noon today arrived in my Inbox about ten minutes before we arrived home this afternoon! It is detailed and requires a closer look with dictionary in hand, but there is one sentence we really understand: Overall dramatic improvement from previous study [November '23 PET scan] presumed from response to therapy. "Overall dramatic improvement..." We are so #thankful for that result and for your prayerful support. Brian and Kathy

Kathy and I have been forced to do a lot  of thinking over the past 6 years about what it means to trust God. We are thankful for the role so many of you have had in helping us process that journey! Once again, however, I find myself unable to avoid doubt. Kathy sees it written in the wrinkles on my forehead. This week those doubts are the background noise arising from an upcoming scan. Everything about the course of treatment I started in January has been positive. The treatments each week are quick and easy--just a needle in my belly.  The side effects are mild, save for the fact that it leaves me very open to infection. Summer activities are constrained only by the reality that I must get the injection every week. For a fourth line of treatment, this one is not at all harsh. And if that were not enough, my bloodwork has been excellent, to the point that my doctor cautiously uses the word remission. I haven't heard that word since my stem cell transplant! So many prayers hav...

A bone marrow biopsy will confirm it, but we are 95% sure that you have a blood cancer called Multiple Myeloma. This past week we remembered that it has now been six years since we first heard those words from a very compassionate doctor at the Lethbridge hospital. Six years! The months that followed those were, I think, the most difficult of my life.  Heavy grief. Debilitating pain from cancer-crumbled vertebrae and fractured ribs. Long hospitalizations.  Future plans dashed. In those first days, everything we read about aggressive myeloma told us that the chance of survival beyond three years was around 65%, beyond five years less than 35%. If someone had guaranteed us 6 years, we definitely would have considered ourselves blessed. And blessed we are. Research into treatments and possibly a cure have burgeoned in those years. I, by God's grace, seem to be riding the front edge of the advancements of that research. After a disappointingly short 30 month remission from my stem...

Recently, I had the privilege of bringing the message to our former church (Fellowship CRC) in Edmonton. The message, titled Trust the Catcher , was built around Namaan's story in 2 Kings 5 and the parable of the lost son in Luke 15. I also made use of a Henri Nouwen account of his friendship with a group of trapeze acrobats called the Flying Rodleighs. Nouwen asked the leader of the troupe how it all works. These were some answers given: “As a flyer, I must have complete trust in my catcher…” “… the flyer must trust, with outstretched arms, that his catcher will be there for him/[her].” “…Just stretch out yo u r arms and hands and trust, trust, trust.“ Excerpt(s) from April 14 message to Fellowship CRC, Edmonton : …While Namaan’s story reminds us that there is nothing we can do to manipulate God into loving us more, the portion of the lost son parable that we read reminds Kathy and I why we can trust our Catcher-God. There is a line in the younger son’s story that is gripping. V...

Let me be honest. I am not yet the person that you may think I am. Many of you, after reading something I have written here, have messaged me with words of support. I can't tell you how encouraging that is for me. Thank you! Often, though, you will say things like, "Your faith is so strong" or "You are an example to us all." Spoiler alert:  it isn't and I'm not. Honestly. Writing this blog is one of the ways that I can emotionally untangle the threads of the story that I am in. It is an avenue on which I stand tiptoed, straining to catch glimpses that can help me understand all the terrible and beautiful of this tapestry that is daily life. It is in that glimpsing and untangling that God gifts me with aspirations, with hopes. Those graciously given aspirations and hopes along with the unwavering love of the Gift Giver, form the writing that is here. I aspire to trust and have faith. I hope to be thankful for each day. I want to be strong even when I a...

Teach us O Lord to number our days, that we may get a heart of wisdom. Ps 90:12 I've mentioned the idea of numbering our days, several times on this blog. Last week, I found myself numbering my days during a six day hospital stay in Calgary. I mean literally numbering my hospital days. This hospitalization was to get me started on a new course of treatment with a drug that had potentially life-threatening side effects on the first doses*. During that hospital stay you could certainly find me counting down the days I had left in that fifth floor room.  4 more days if all goes well. 3 more days.... 2 more....   Counting down one's days, when it comes to a hospital stay, might work, but for me it is a dangerous strategy for life. This very well could be the last treatment they can find for me. Whether I want to or not, that leads me to speculate how many days I might have left. One night in the hospital I actually found myself thinking, " Well, that's one less day of re...

Abide. That was our plan. Medical stuff was going to go on pause for the Christmas season and we would face the future in the new year. We would wait patiently for what would come. We would hold tight. We would abide. Health care professionals that we are blessed with, didn't wait. On Dec 21 oncologists that reviewed my file saw a concerning relapse-- more than 40 hot spots in my bone marrow.  Mysteriously, that level of activity had not been betrayed by the  protein markers in my blood. It was clear to them that a new treatment protocol would be needed as soon as possible but could not be found in a current clinical trial precisely because of the unusual nature of the relapse. With no viable trial on the horizon I was referred to the Tom Baker Cancer Centre in Calgary. A doctor there has compassionate access to an approved but unfunded newer drug known as a "bispecific." We will be doing a consult on January 8 and will make decisions after that. Now... again...we need to...

We have been praying this week that God will "gentle" our hearts, and unclench our hands. Most of all we have prayed that God, in grace, will help us to trust.  Trust the love he has for us. A recent Positron Emission Tomography (PET) Scan was the subject of this week's doctor visit at the Central Alberta Cancer Centre. It revealed a number of high activity areas in my bone marrow that are likely due to active cancer cells. The scan also revealed that the cancer has done some damage to my left femur making for a higher risk of pathological fracture. It was an exam room, where there was a concerned doctor and a surprised patient. I had read the report, but the level of concern I saw in my doctor was something new. For now, we will continue my current treatment, but the doctor has sent my file to a group of experts at the Cross Cancer Institute in Edmonton for review. He believes that a change in treatment protocol is likely warranted and hopes for a viable clinical trial. ...

I typed that title with just one hand. I held out my other hand so that you could slap my wrist... "Lucky?? Christ followers don't believe in luck!"  SLAP. "People who 'keep the faith' believe in God's good providence!"  SLAP. "You should know better!"  SLAP. I do know better. "Good luck" is a gift given by a loving God.  It is a blessing.  This week I began Cycle 13 of this chemo protocol.  Fifty two weeks. One full year. When I reflect on how fortunate I am to have access to this treatment that continues to work beyond its expected duration and when I think of opportunities that have allowed us to experience so many good times with family and friends, I feel lucky.  I feel blessed. I accept this gift of "good luck" with gratitude!  #Thankful.

 C.S. Lewis once wrote: " God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain: it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world." (C.S. Lewis,  The Problem of Pain , first published 1940)   Many of us know what Lewis means. I do. Cancer has been and continues to be something that shouts to my deaf soul that life is precious and fleeting, that I am not in control and that I need to know right to the centre of my defective bone marrow that God meets me in my broken places with a fierce love that will not let me go. It seems to me that God has done a lot of shouting lately. Many people I know will walk this day, shouldering the weight of grief for someone they've loved and lost. Many others will endure the pain and disappointment in the way their life has turned out. Daily news is filled with more shouts. Senseless wars. Dying migrants. Houseless people. Crushing addictions....The shouting can even be heard as our planet itself groans through drou...

Nothing but #thankful hearts here. Many of you joined us in prayer that my health would get us to a gathering with our kids and grandkids planned for the third week of July. If a picture is indeed worth 1000 words, then below are 12,000 words of thanks for five days of beautiful chaos! (NOTE: None of these pictures show all 19 of us at once. We did have some professional family photos taken, but they have not arrived yet)

One of our devotional readings this week was from Psalm 46. I think you know at least part of that one: “ Be still and know that I am God;” vs 10.   Author, pastor and speaker Skye Jethani* extended my understanding of that verse which I have heard (and sung!) countless times. He seemed to know me when he wrote, "‘Be still’ is often interpreted as a call to simply not panic and trust God.” But he points out that there are other layers in the Hebrew phrase. “The command can also be understood to mean ‘be weak’ or ‘surrender.’The psalmist is inviting us to stop trying to control what is beyond our power and accept that we are too weak to overcome the chaos that is unfolding.... Be still so that you may know I am God." This reminded Kathy and me of our very first visit to the Cross Cancer Institute at the end of May 2018. We were frightened and nervous.  Our first stop was the Admissions Desk.  There on the window was this computer printed sign: It hasn’t been easy for Kat...

A few weeks ago, I wrote wishing that time could slow down a bit. I still want that. I want to recognize each day for the gift it is. Some blood results and a doctor visit last week has me thinking that I just might get some “extra” days to practice getting better at that. Here is the good news update. Protein markers for the cancer are as low as they have been since October '22. This treatment is working! Not only is it working, but further clinical trials on the triplet of drugs I receive each week, reveal that the average time the treatment remains effective (known as “Progression-Free Survival) is longer than initially expected. Months longer. Perhaps, for me, long enough to bridge to the approval and funding of the next wave of new drugs known as bi-specifics. We will pray, with thanksgiving, for that. We will try to treasure each day. Thank you for your prayers.