Submitted by Dr. Robert F. Lane on
REMEMBER - start with Blogs 1-74 on the CancerDocTalk.com for practical advise on running your Bell Lap, understanding and making the most out of interaction with doctors, evaluating data and making decisions.
Wendell had something I had never seen before. I might have mistaken it for courage, but it was something else - something that didn't need courage. He was 55, fit and healthy, just a little pale and a little slower on his track workouts
Wendell never saw it coming, but AML, Acute Myelogenous Leukemia, had just arrived which in 1982 was a virtual death sentence.
Distraught for them, I began to describe the catastrophic news of his diagnosis. There were only three medical care options. If he took no treatment, he would probably only survive a few weeks. If he took some relatively non-toxic chemotherapy that could be given in the office, the growth of the leukemia might slow down enough that he might survive an average of three months. Alternatively, there was a third option: he could be admitted to the hospital immediately and started on the best, albeit very toxic, chemotherapy which offered an 80% chance of complete remission (average survival of two years) and a long shot chance of cure.
That treatment would initially involve 4-6 weeks of hospitalization with significant chemotherapy toxicity and about a 10% chance of dying soon in the process. If the treatment was successful at inducing remission, it would be followed by multiple similar hospitalizations for complex cycles of chemotherapy over the course of a year. I told him that despite the arduousness of such treatment, option 3 is exactly what everyone under the age of 70 had always chosen.
Wendell listened closely. For a moment it seemed that all the oxygen sucked out of the room; no one even breathed. Eyes search the corners of the ceiling. Time seemed suspended - but only for a moment-- and then he looked me square in the eye and spoke "I know two things: my life's verse is Philippians 1:6, ‘He who has started a good work in me will complete it by the day of Jesus Christ’. And the cool thing about that is God is not limited by any human timeframe. He just promises to do it. Period. But there is a caveat. For me to claim that promise I need to walk into my God-given calling – give Him a chance to lead, then follow or He will have no opportunity to finish what He has started." Then ....
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