32. Cancer
Today is 8 days from the first anniversary of Dad’s passing. I’ve committed to writing 40 stories about him as that day approaches. Forty Steady Stories.
What follows this paragraph is quite a story, but it is what happened. It’s also the reason I’m writing about Dad’s life in 2021 instead of 16 years ago. If you’re wondering how I know all these dates and details below, it’s because I have a PowerPoint presentation in front of me that my dad created when he spoke at his church in 2005. I just found it on his old hard drive a week ago. Pretty amazing timing. :)
Cancer. In a 3-month period of 2004, Dad found out he had 2 different kinds.
In March he found out he had prostate cancer — the very thing his own dad (my grandad) passed away from, and surgery was scheduled for June 22 — right after we got back our summer family trip to Hilton Head.
He was packing his bags and car on Saturday, June 12 when he was rushed to the Emergency Room for pain in his mid-section. The rest of us — my brothers, our wives, and all our kids — were already en route to HHI. Three days later he was in surgery, and they removed 3 feet of his intestines and 5 lymph nodes.
On June 17, while the rest of us were down at HHI very unaware of the seriousness, he and Mom found out that the problem was a very aggressive carcinoid tumor that was metastasized in 3 of the 5 lymph nodes. Then the doctors told them there was no treatment and no cure for this kind of cancer-like tumor and that Dad had “months to live.”
June 17, 2004: No treatment. No cure. Months to live.
Keep in mind, this was just 7 years after his pituitary tumor and the multiple surgeries for that, as well as multiple joint replacements. Dad now had prostate cancer and the untreatable incurable carcinoid tumor. He sensed he was going to die and “threw in the towel.”
All of us left Hilton Head the next morning as soon as we heard this news. We visited with Dad and Mom, and all shed a lot of tears on June 18.
The next day, June 19, was Father’s Day.
Once we all grasped this new reality, I got online and began tracking down the three best known carcinoid specialists on the planet. I talked to each of them and sent them Dad’s records, but there were no conclusive answers or directions. We were desperate to find an answer — other than no treatment, no cure, and months to live. We talked as a family. We prayed as a family, “Lord, show us what to do.”
Dad and Mom decided to pursue a second surgery with the Charlotte surgeon. He told them, “I can’t get it all, but I’ll get everything I can without killing you.” On August 9, they took seven more feet of his intestine and colon, his gall bladder, 20 more lymph nodes, and part of his stomach.
Two days later while Dad still recovering in the hospital, the surgeon called with the news. It wasn’t what any of us expected. He said,
“Steady, there is no sign of cancer anywhere!”
WHAT?!
A month later, in a completely medically-unrelated event, Dad’s PSA had dropped to 0.1 and the prostate cancer was also gone. Doctors were scratching their heads, because a medical explanation for all this was not to be found.
So, what in the world happened here?
Well, I could go into a lot of details here about all the people who were praying for Dad’s healing. I could tell you the conversation between Dad and Herb Mirly on the same day as the diagnosis (June 17) — a conversation that gave Dad new hope. I could tell you how I began to see Dad’s faith grow in the midst of astonishing odds. I could tell you a lot of really cool things that we watched take place.
Or I could simply tell you what I know happened: God healed my dad of both types of cancer. They never came back for the rest of his life. We — and he — received the gift of 16 more years of his life — years I wouldn’t trade for anything, years that provided some healing for our entire family, and years that we were all told he would never have.
Yes, other things came like TBI (traumatic brain injury), dementia, and Parkinson’s — tough things to watch and experience, but we had the privilege of walking that road together as a family and God did some AMAZING things in those years.
Now, I know full-well that not everyone who prays for healing sees it happen in this life. I’ve had many people close to me not see healing, and I’ve walked with countless people through life and ministry who prayed hard but didn’t see it happen. Some of you reading this might be saying, “Well, why didn’t God heal my dad, my son, my spouse, or me?”
I don’t know.
I can’t tell you exactly why God chooses to heal who He heals, but I can tell you this: My dad got healed in 2004, and we spent 16 more years with him because of something extraordinary that God did in his life.
Dad would be the first to say that he didn’t deserve the extra years. Dad got a gift. We got a gift. For the next 16 years — and the last several were TOUGH, I can tell you this: all the way to the last tear rolling down his cheek and his last breath in this life, Dad never stopped giving God the full credit for his extraordinary story.
