the good bad news

yesterday hollie and i went for the results of my last bone marrow test, six months plus a day after my diagnosis. for reasons i don't get, i didn't get the result of remission that i had hoped for & 1000s have prayed for...not yet, at least :-)

dr. leber, my hematologist walked in the room with his nurse, sat down, touched my shoulder & said, "we have mixed news for you today---'good' bad news."

bad news was all i heard at first.

he went on to explain that the leukemia cells are still showing 1:10,000 after running a complex test with a fancy machine that shows cells not visible in any of the other tests they ran on my sample. in fact, 5 years ago he said he would have been walking in the room & declaring me to be in remission based on just a couple of tests that are run with the bone marrow & blood sample. however, due to medical advancements & the development of new & intricate technology, cancer cells not previously able to be seen can now be detected. 5 years ago, i would have walked out of the room 'in remission,' but eventually the cells would have reproduced to the point where they were again visible in the only tests available at the time. maybe it would have taken 6 months, maybe 2 years...but eventually--because there were so many of them--they would be visible in the way they are today in much smaller numbers with this fancy machine & test...unless, of course, i got a miracle making the cells invisible forever :-)

dr. leber went on to explain that the good news is that when i first presented 6 months ago, my cancer cells were the size of a volleyball in terms of volume. in fact, i pretty much had more cancer cells in my body than i had good cells at the time. now, after 4 rounds of chemo, the cancer cells are the size of the tip of a ballpoint pen. he told me that the leukemia is 'manageable' but that his preference would be to proceed to a transplant since the small percentage persists & could reproduce rapidly or gradually. he said it's like the cancer cells have a hard shell on them that the chemo couldn't penetrate or break down. by 'managing' the leukemia we could keep the counts under control but i would still have cancer in my body. this isn't the option he's interested in pursuing for obvious reasons. me either, actually :-)

next, dr. leber explained that it's good news that i have a full sibling. his transplant coordinator will be calling my sister, directing her where to go to give a sample to determine if she's my molecular match. there's a 1 in 4 chance she will be since we are full siblings. the sample will be sent here where it will be tested by dr. leber's team. this will take 2-3 weeks. there are 10 criteria needed for a perfect match; 9 can be worked with. if my sister isn't a 9 or greater, dr. leber will then go to the worldwide bank, where there are millions & millions of donors. my odds of there being a match are good since i'm caucasian, but hopefully my sister will be the one who best matches me. our mom used to have matching dresses made for my sister & me; now we are praying that God made us with the matching blood :-)

there's a great deal i don't know about the whole transplant process because dr. leber says it will be 2-3 months before the transplant, but possibly sooner if my sister is a match. he assured me that we will talk about it all, & there's lots to talk about in terms of the process that will all get addressed. i do know from the literature i was given early on that a transplant means receiving healthy blood cells from a donor, and is more likely to prevent relapse & cure leukemia than just chemotherapy. so far, while i have done very well, there's more work to do. & i believe the work is still going on inside of me. it's also taking place outside of me, as a donor is searched for & my healthcare team collects all the pieces & puts them in place for my transplant. that's the good news. i will get my miracle yet, even if God decides to use medicine & treatment.

i have decided to not stress about the details because this is not my problem. & i don't mean that in a nonchalant or cavalier way, or in a way that i won't acknowledge that i need to make wise choices in terms of what i feed body & the care i take to look after myself, even though with my type of leukemia i didn't do anything to get it & i couldn't have done anything to prevent it. i still acknowledge that there's more i can do to encourage better health. but when i say this isn't my problem, i mean that i am once again reminding myself of God's ability in all of this. do i get it? not at all. but He does. He designed me & He knows what He's doing in me. the psalmist put it this way: "You shaped me first inside, then out; You formed me in my mother's womb. i thank you, God...body & soul, i am marvelously made!...You know me inside & out, you know every bone in my body; You know exactly how i was made, bit by bit, how i was sculpted from nothing into something. like an open book, You watched me grow from conception to birth; all the stages of my life were spread before You, the days of my life all prepared before i'd even lived one day."

bottom line, God knows every bone in my body. therefore, He knows what's going on in my marrow & in my blood. & either with or without science & medicine, He's healing me. one cell at a time. in the way He knows is best for me & my future.

so, good bad news. that's better than bad good news. & it's certainly better than just bad news, even if it's not as great as only good news. but the good news is that God's got this. no matter what. has He healed me in the way i want? not yet. will He? i don't know, but i do know that doesn't mean He doesn't know what He's doing in my body & throughout this process. & really, the news was only bad yesterday because my miracle hasn't quite happened the way we all imagined. but that doesn't mean it's not happening. not for one second. every cell is accounted for, even if they're not all visible to dr. leber & his team :-)

so celebrate with me despite yesterday's 'bad' news, because the good news is that my remission is in God's capable Hand, & that's a blog entry for another time!!! :-)