Dark Night of the Soul

Please don't feel obligated to read these long-winded posts. If you're only interested in praying I've put all the prayer requests in bold so you can quickly identify them and lift them up. By the way, everything in the post below is true. If I didn't live it - I honestly would have never believed it.

I know so many of you are wondering how the first dose of chemo went. I'm struggling for words but I'll start with NIGHTMARE.

After yesterday, the "20 Minutes of Hell" has now been re-named the "20 Minute Walk in the Park". Yesterday was hell. There is no other way I can describe it. However, this time it wasn't for 20 minutes in a car, but for a good 2 hours in the hospital. Kim began her initial chemotherapy treatment with Rituxan (the first medication "R" in "R-CHOP") around 1:30pm yesterday. This med is crucial because it specifically targets the cancerous lymph nodes and everything was going beautifully....until about 90 minutes into it. First came severe nausea and vomiting convulsions. This struggle lasted for about 10 minutes. Then upon leaning forward to dry-vomit, she sat up and her face was ashen-white - her eyes then rolled up towards her forehead and she fell backwards on her bed. It all seemed to be in slow motion to me. I caught her head with my hand and yelled to the two nurses, "We're losing her!" One of them turned and yelled "Code blue!", slapped the emergency button and within 30 seconds there were about 15 people running around the room.

Throughout all of this I'm holding Kim's head saying, "Keep your eyes on me, baby! Keep your eyes on me! Everything's going to be fine!" over and over. She was clearly disoriented and her eyes were glassy. She then said softly, "Why are there so many people in the room?" I don't even now how I was able to get any words out. My heart was so heavy - it had fallen to the very pit of my stomach and I couldn't breathe. A few minutes later she had another bout of severe nausea, followed by chest pain and then a wrenching back pain. They immediately wheeled in a number of large machines and ran a series of tests all the while her vitals were touch and go. The pain grew to such an excruciating level that her head was wobbling and she was simultaneously pushing me away while crying out "Help!".

I have seen my wife birth three children. This pain was unlike any I've seen before - it was surreal. At one point she grabbed the small tub we put in front of her as if she was going to vomit, brought it to her mouth and then just placed it over her head. There are no words. All I could get out of my mouth as I watched in horror was "God...have mercy!"

There is nothing more humbling than seeing the one you love suffer so greatly....and being powerless to stop it.

Nothing.
 
At that point, they whisked her out of the the Oncology floor and to the Intensive Care Unit. I followed her all the way - watching her writhe in pain. When the bed finally stopped in her new room, I grabbed her head, leaned into her ear and began quoting every single Bible verse I could bring into memory. This was the only thing that seemed to have any calming effect. After about 15 minutes (which seemed an eternity), they injected some heavy pain meds and she began to lie still and fall into what seemed like a deep sleep. The nurse told me she had a severe "infusion reaction" to the Rituxan and they had to shut it down.

I stood by her bed leaning next to her head and quoted Scripture, wept, prayed, repented and sang softly into her ear while stroking her hair. She had not taken a shower in over a week and yet her forehead and hair has never smelled so beautiful. I don't know how long this lasted to be honest. I think about an hour? I hadn't even noticed but at some point the nurses had turned off the lights and left the room which had darkened after the setting sun. It was just me and Kim - alone in the quiet darkness of that room. Whenever I opened my eyes I felt a crushing weight of fear and anxiety overwhelm me. "Kim could not even make it past 1/2 the dosage of the first drug - how was she going to survive all 5 drugs? How were we going to beat this?" I thought. There was only one thing that was bringing me any peace - what I was doing with Kim and the prayers of the saints - and so I kept my eyes closed and kept whispering God's promises into her ear. She doesn't remember much of it at all. God in His mercy has erased it largely from her memory. It was my moment. It was for me. It was my dark night of the soul.

After running out of verses to give her. I grabbed my iPad and remembered the comments section from my last blog post. I needed to speak more of God's Word into her. I held her left hand and began going through each of your comments. She was so heavily sedated from the pain meds I wasn't sure if she could hear me. But as I read, when I quoted certain verses or when I mentioned some of your names as I read them, she would rub my hand with her thumb. That was all she could muster. But I know she could hear me because it was always timed with the start of a verse or a specific name. (you know who you are)

Thank you so much for serving us in this way. These are not just Bible verses. This is God's Word, shared by God's children, in each of your God-given furnaces - and they are pure gold! A gold refined by a holy fire which now shines forth His ineffable glory. I hope many of you can read some of these incredible verses and testimonies. Read comments on bottom of here. They are awesome but only because they testify of an awesome God. Kim and I will be committing many of these to memory.

After I read through almost all of these with her - I felt a desperate need to talk to someone. No one else we knew of in the world had witnessed what had just happened. Her parents had left just 20 minutes before this happened. I needed some words of encouragement. I felt so alone. Who would I call on in this darkest of moments? I called my pastor friend in Toronto (whom we had just visited the week before New Years). I have known him since junior high and kept in touch with him through all the years. He has served me as my spiritual mentor/father much of my whole life and even counseled me as I pursued and courted my beautiful bride, Kim. I didn't have the strength to say much to him. I just basically said:

"Sung? Kim isn't doing well. Her body is rejecting the first med."

I asked him to email me something....anything from the Bible that I could share with her. I then asked him to pray for us and then hung up. Within one minute - at 5:47pm - there was an email from him on my blackberry with the words "for a moment" in the subject line. It read:

Isa 54:6 For the LORD has called you Like a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit,
Like a youthful wife when you were refused,” Says your God.7 “ For a mere moment

I have forsaken you, But with great mercies I will gather you. 8 With a little wrath I hid

My face from you for a moment; But with everlasting kindness I will have mercy on you,” Says the LORD, your Redeemer.

Isa 58:11 The LORD will guide you continually, And satisfy your soul in drought,
And strengthen your bones;  You shall be like a watered garden,  And like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail.

we love you Peter...and Kim;  and haven't stopped praying for you both with tears and faith,
sung

I read Kim this entire email and then just laid my head next to hers. Around 6pm the oncologist finally came by. He explained while this type of reaction is extremely rare it's not something he hasn't seen before. His theory is that as they ratcheted up the dosage of Rituxan every half hour her body did not like it one bit. He theorized perhaps the cancer was being attacked and felt threatened and was fighting back since the med was working. She has a large mass (8x5 cm) in her chest. It was not going to leave without a fight.

To my great joy, he said this does not mean we have to scrap the R-CHOP plan which is the gold standard treatment for this lymphoma. We just have to manipulate the plan a bit. He is going to administer the Rituxan drug by breaking it up over two days and giving it a smaller dose and at a slower pace. This will likely start on Monday or Tuesday. They want to allow Kim to recover and get stronger. This particular drug is very important to the chemotherapy because it is the only drug (of the five) that specifically identifies the cancer cells (while all the other drugs indiscriminately kill all cells) and raises the effectiveness of the cure rate from about 50-60% to 80-85%. Please pray that my wife will be able to take the Rituxan med without the same severe reaction she had yesterday.

After finally waking up between 6-7pm last night, Kim felt better. She was up and talking as the pain had subsided. Her family and my bro-in-law Ken came by. She looked so much better. This morning she ate well, and we went for several walks and even did some squats and leg lifts. They decided to start the other 4 drugs today (CHOP) around 2pm since she looked so good and since they are easier on the body (reaction-wise). They think shrinking the mass even a little bit may help ease her reaction on the Rituxan. As you can imagine, I was nervous about introducing any more chemo. It took about 2 hours and she took them all - like a champ!

Around 5pm while Kim was feeling good and listening to her dad tell his life story and I was lying on the couch trying to recover from last night, I suddenly heard Kim scream, "Oh my gosh! What are you doing here!" And guess who walks in? My dear friend Sung. I stood up and all I could say was "What are you doing here?" and then we both hugged and cried in each other's arms. I then told him that when I had called him last night I was so close to just asking him to fly out to Chicago. I needed him right then. The Lord already knew this and had Sung book the flight earlier in the week.

Without telling me, he and his wife Hannah decided on Monday they would fly to Chicago to minister to us in our time of need. Unfortunately, the tickets were well over $1,000 each on Monday. He had to request permission to miss a Sunday with his elder board and they all graciously agreed. Right before then the prices were dropping to about $600 each on Wed with tons of layovers - a supposed 2 hour flight would be a ridiculous 9 hours. Shortly after he got approval from his board in the middle of the week he checked on-line and the tickets had dropped to a rock-bottom $180 each....flying directly from Toronto to Chicago. The good Lord was making a way for my good friend to visit...in his time and He orchestrated everything independent of our knowledge.

Many of Kim's extended family came by tonight including our kids - armed with a ton of food. One of Kim's cousin (Yoon Jae) owns a Japanese restaurant (Kansaku) in Evanston and he treated us to a veritable feast. We spent much of tonight laughing and praising God for what He has done in the last 24 hours. My dark soul of night was indeed - for a moment.

My friend Sung headed back to the hotel room and his wife Hannah is staying with Kim tonight in her room - which has freed me up to share with all of you what the Lord has done. There will be ups and downs but the last 24 hours - I needed to share with you all that ALL OF YOUR PRAYERS FROM AROUND THE WORLD ARE WORKING!!!!

One last thing, I was driving my 3 year old daughter Selah back home from the hospital tonight while my sister-in-law Christina took the boys. It was just daddy/daughter time. As we pulled out of the hospital the first song that came on the radio (90.1 FM) was "Amazing Grace" by Chris Tomlin (watch here). I reflected upon the last 24 hours and thought - how appropriate. His grace is SO AMAZING!! But the second verse is when the Spirit really moved me as it echoed so many of the prayers I whispered into Kim's ear in the dark last night. I started singing along out loud, as I used to lead this song at my old church in worship and knew it by heart:

AMAZING GRACE by Chris Tomlin

2nd Verse
The Lord has promised good to me
His word my hope secures
He will my shield and portion be
As long as life endures

Chorus
My chains are gone
I've been set free
My God, my Savior has ransomed me
And like a flood His mercy rains
Unending love, Amazing grace

As I sang it out loud in the minivan, Selah joined me. She didn't know the words so she was singing nonsense but she was singing loudly and following the melody with me. Tears were streaming down my face as I sat at a stoplight in awe. In complete awe of "His Flood of Mercy, Unending Love, and Amazing Grace". Despite her loud singing, not 10 minutes later when I rolled into my garage she was fast asleep.

As I closed with in my very first blog post on Monday. "We don't know what the future holds. But we know who holds the future. And He is good and His love endures forever. Psalm 118:1." I believe this now more than ever. This battle is far from over. But I hope this little blog post encourages your faith to continue in prayer. We have a long road ahead but know that God is living and He is hearing the prayers of His beloved children.

In the meantime I am giving Mr. Lymphoma a little warning: "Look out, brother! Because me, my God, and an army of prayer warriors are coming to KICK...YOUR...ASS!!!"

We love each and everyone of you so much.

Awed by His Grace,

Peter & Kim