The T-cells taken from my body the last day of May were shipped to a drug company who is trying to perfect CAR-T cell therapy. These cells, a part of my immune system, were super-charged to fight the myeloma cancer.
July 9, I received the treated cells in my 9th floor hospital room and basically was told to wait. The doctor explained, “Immediately after the cells entered your blood stream they started multiplying as normal cells do. Then, like a military invasion, they mobilize to search and destroy the cancer.”
A few hours after receiving the cells I started running fevers. Days two and three, chills and fevers were constant. The fourth and fifth nights were the worst then the fevers finally broke. The doctor kept telling us these were good signs as a war was raging within my body. I was not so sure.
The cancer in my blood is measured by testing something called Free Lambda. The counts for a healthy person range from 5.7 – 26.3. Elevated counts mean the cancer is active. On April 4 my count was 102.1. On May 1 it was 203.2; on May 23 it was 384.5; and on July 3 the count had risen to 918.6. Last week blood was drawn to find the effect of the treatment. My Free Lambda count dropped to 1.3. We are praising God and thanking our friends at Emory.
On the very day this test was done, my friend Barry Garner passed away after a courageous fight with the worst type of brain tumor. Barry encouraged me and many, many others to trust in God through the good times and bad. He fearlessly walked through “the valley of the shadow” knowing God was with him. He is now in the presence of His Savior, the perfect place. The pain and sorrow on earth is softened by the hope Barry constantly proclaimed about the love of God.
What do you do with such opposite reports? Is it possible to celebrate good news and mourn the loss of a friend at the same time? Jesus teaches us to think with a kingdom mind… where life and death, joy and suffering, and victory and defeat are in the hands of the Father. Does not the cross of Christ reveal how God’s ways are different from the world’s? Jesus’ death led to our life. ‘For the joy set before Him’ Jesus suffered… and now He sits at the right hand of the Father. And what everyone thought was sure defeat ended up being the greatest victory in the history of the world.
Please pray for Barry’s wife and kids in a difficult time. Thank you for all the prayers for me and my family. May our message be one that causes people to think about eternity and find true life in the Son of God.
“No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:37-39