Oncologist's reaction

We went back to the Hematologist this morning for the dreaded time of telling him that Deb would not be doing the stem cell transplant. She told him, and boy, did God answer those prayers! It was NO BIG DEAL.

He simply said, "Okay. Then we will continue to do what we are doing." In addition he was positive and upbeat about her future since she has had a great "response to treatment" (we believe it to be a great response to prayer). He said that the verdict is still out on whether or not the transplant actually is the better route to go due to the great new medicines available and he believes there will be a cure in her lifetime - a drug that a pill a day will keep MM away. He expects her to have a complete remission in the next few months - I gather that that means no sign of the MM in her bone marrow anywhere, and he plans to do another bone marrow biopsy in a few months to verify that. (I believe that complete remission would show up now due to God's intervention in July.) But we will play his game of timing the biopsy. She will move from taking the steroid treatment every three weeks to once a month (four days on, 26 off) starting September 2. We figure that can't hurt her liver too much. We are continuing with modified supplements and diet changes, and are going to work more aggressively on building the bones back, especially her spine.

We went to Tulsa Wednesday and Thursday for me to officiate my cousin's funeral. My parents were so pleased at how well she looked and how wellshe was getting down, because they were down here when she was at her lowest the end of June. Deb really enjoyed getting out on the road and away and she did really well on the ride and all - I think the part she most enjoyed was getting off the diet! ha. The funeral was a celebration of a life well lived, and I opened it up at the end for people to tell what Gary had meant to them and about 8 people did so. It went great! Their vignettes were so powerful and a blessing to the family and friends.

God bless you all,
Duane and Debbie

Decisions and Prayer requests

Decisions

Dear Faith Family,

I have sat on this for a week before copying it to the blog, just to be sure we wanted to share it. From here on I will try to update this blog each Saturday.

We went to Baylor Medical Center in Dallas on August 11 to talk with a transplant physician. He was very personable and of course, knowledgeable. He spent an hour and a half with us explaining all the options transplant wise, and answering all our questions (Tracy and Marcos went too.) For new readers who may not have read what a stem cell transplant is – FYI here is a simple explanation. Stem cells are immature blood cells that can be harvested, frozen until needed and then put back into the body at a later date. After harvesting them one receives a strong dose of chemotherapy to kill the cancer cells in one’s body, however that chemo also kills one’s bone marrow. After chemo, the stem cells are put back into the blood stream, they gravitate to the bone marrow and set up shop making blood cells again.

Here are some facts that we gleaned:

• About 98% of stem cell transplant patients survive the procedure.
• The successful stem cell transplant for Multiple Myeloma (MM) patients will buy them about two or three years before the cancer returns
• About 30% of the time, the MM still returns shortly after the transplant
• Even after a stem cell transplant, most hematologists want to continue a suppressing treatment – in other words, Deb would continue taking the same medication treatments she is currently taking until they no longer had any effect upon suppressing the cancer.
• Then one would try another drug type of treatment (and there are a few to choose from, though by far the most effective is the one she is currently on) to try to suppress the MM and get it under control again for a while.
• They say that the best results from a stem cell transplant occur when it is done during the first 4 – 6 months of treatment and during the first remission. It has decreasing results after each relapse.

We did not hear anything that changed our minds about not doing the transplant to combat MM. At this point in time, we do not plan to ever do a transplant procedure. We don’t expect everyone to agree with us, but we ask you to accept our decision and to support us in it.

The doctors say that MM always comes back. However, I asked the transplant dr. if he knew of any MM patients in whom it appeared that there was some divine intervention. Yes, he knew of a handful of such cases. I asked him if their MM had returned. He said “Not yet.” He has only been doing this for 8 years though. But that is all we needed to hear. We are confident that there was some divine intervention the last week of July - I believe it was the 25^th.

Just as the Israelites trusted in the Lord rather than horses and chariots, we are going to trust in the Lord and the incredible doors He has opened to us. We want God to be glorified through all this. (Phil 1:20-21) We will work hard on our diet and add supplements in an effort to keep her blood ph on the alkaline side rather than the acidic so that the cancer cannot return. (Up until a year ago we knew nothing about this truth. God’s providential timing is perfect). This route gives us the hope of 20+ more years. May the Lord bless those efforts. For the time being, we plan to continue the maintenance therapy with the steroid Dexamethasone four days a month and a daily dose of Thalidomide.

We continue to covet your prayers that the MM stays in remission until it is declared as cured, that her blood stay in a healthy alkaline state, that her back continue to heal the fractures and strengthen all her weakened bones, that her strength return, and that the regular gloom and doom visits with the Hematologist will not dampen our faith with doubts as we maintain a positive outlook. This route also may allow the Hematologist to grow his faith as he sees Deb’s continual improvement in spite of his prognosis.

May our God bless you with an abiding sense of His presence ever being near you until He calls each of us home to be with Him.

Duane and Deb

Praise God! Remission is here!

Remission!!! Yes Remission has already occurred by God's grace and power. Here is the story.

Back on Monday night, July 25th, after an hour of intense prayer over Debbie, Joe and I sensed that something happened. I was banking on a “yes” answer to all the prayers for her healing. This past Wednesday, the 3rd, we got an excited call from Dr. Joe in North Carolina, our long time friend who is helping monitor Deb’s progress and immune system. He said that Deb had made a dramatic improvement from July 22 when he got a drop of blood to read and July 29 when I sent him a slide with another few drops. He said she is in a full scale healing mode, and then sent us copies of the slides via e-mail which shows the obvious difference. I am going to include a couple of paragraphs that he wrote.

Hi Deb (and Duane),…..
When you get the picture I'm sending, it will be visibly obvious even to the untrained eye. In a nutshell, your body has made a dramatic change in a very short period of time. You have shown improvement in the course of a week that I normally look for over a month!
Even in the case of instantaneous healing the body still has to "catchup" with the immediate correction of a diseased state. That is, one moment the body is degenerating, the next moment it is healthy; all the "garbage," (dead, degenerated materials and tissue) must be cleared from the body through normal (i.e., not instantaneous) mechanisms and this takes time. A good analogy might be the result and aftermath of a flood: even with the flood waters recede, the debris the flood brought has to be cleaned up. There is no more flood but there is a lot of cleanup to be done! So it is with the body -- that's the way God made it!
In every case of miraculous healing I've been associated with and have examined (I can name 4 cancer patients right off the top of my head who've had this happen and that I've been blessed to have been working with so that I could actually track them pre- and post-miracle), this has been the pattern. In working with another 200+ who did not have a miraculous remission of their cancer but who have improved dramatically through natural intervention, they too, followed this pattern, though at a slower pace.
(This is the end of Joe’s paragraphs)

Now listen to this confirmation!! We went to see the Hematologist and did more lab work today. He was elated at her progress and admitted that she is several weeks ahead of where he would expect. I asked why he had not tested for the M protein #. He explained that the M Protein # is not a real accurate measure of cancer activity. I was disappointed, but for only a moment as he continued to explain that the real cancer marker or measurer is the imunnoglobulin G number. When Deb was measured for this right before the beginning of treatment her number was a little over 6400! Normal range is 690 up to 1600. She was four times that number. WELL, last Friday’s test on the 29th (it has to be sent off and thus the week delay in getting results) was down to 619. He explained that in her case, if the number dropped just 75% (from 6400+ down to 1600 - high normal range) that is considered a remission. However, in Deb’s case, the number improved by 90%!!!!
That means there was no measurable activity of the cancer. Joe and I believe God killed it on July 25th! Yes, I will admit that she was responding well to treatment, but the hematologist did not expect to see this kind of improvement in the two weeks since seeing him on July 22. Only those of us praying had hoped to see such a dramatic improvement.

NOW THE BAD NEWS. The Hematologist says that Multiple Myeloma always comes back. He just controls it with different treatments. It is not yet curable, he says.(However, he does not know our Great Physician. Secondly, he told Deb that her back pain may not improve any, that the compression fractures do not rebuild, they just heal enough (now that the myeloma is no longer weakening them) to keep any more fractures from happening. He doesn't want her twisting, bending, lifting, etc. Just walk for exercise.

Well, I am elated with the great news. We will keep taking some meds like a good patient, and our herbs, and juicing, and improving our diet, etc. So we thank the Lord God for answering our prayers. The Dr. wants us to go to Dallas soon at Baylor and get a stem cell transplant. We will go talk and learn, but we are not sold on that treatment yet. Pray for us to have wisdom and to discern God's will.

Praise the Lord,
Duane

Mom's Blood Slides & Explanation

If I (Marcos) remember correctly I think this is at somewhere around 100x magnification +/- 50.... ish (haha i hope that spread covers it). Just pointing out the obvious, the two pics on the right are a bit more magnified-zooming in on one "lake." I can tell you with good certainty that in a healthy person, ideally there would be no white "lakes or ponds."

This is the explanation by Dr. Joe Carr that was sent with this picture.

Here is an attempt to explain the significance of the blood test we are looking at (called the HLB Peripheral Blood Smear).

The HLB Peripheral Blood Smear is carried out by extracting capillary blood from the fingertip of a patient, placing it on a microscope slide, letting it dry, and then observing it through a special phase-contrast microscope that allows the definition of all aspects of the cells, their fibrin net, and the characteristic translucent "ROTS (reactive oxygen toxic species) masses."

These ROTS masses have an appearance of a lake or pond. In a healthy individual they are absent; in a health-challenged individual their presence, size, linkage with other "lakes," and the appearance of various bile salts, together with sialic acid within the lakes all define the severity of the challenge.

When a person is deteriorating, these lakes have smooth edges; when a person is improving, the lakes have an appearance similar to a real lake or pond "icing over" in the winter time (ices forms around the perimeter first, then begins to spread out to the center of the pond). The more the lake is covered with "ice," the better the improvement. This is known as a "healing profile."

Your sample on July 22 had the appearance of swiss cheese, being full of large and linked "lakes" with large amounts of "debris" (sialic acid) throughout the lakes. This is a degenerating picture. Your sample on July 29 was remarkably improved. The "lakes" were beginning to "ice over," with a majority of them producing the desired healing profile.

When you get the picture I'm sending, it will be visibly obvious even to the untrained eye. In a nutshell, your body has made a dramatic change in a very short period of time. You have shown improvement in the course of a week that I normally look for over a month!

Even in the case of instantaneous healing the body still has to "catchup" with the immediate correction of a diseased state. That is, one moment the body is degenerating, the next moment it is healthy; all the "garbage," (dead, degenerated materials and tissue) must be cleared from the body through normal (i.e., not instantaneous) mechanisms and this takes time. A good analogy might be the result and aftermath of a flood: even with the flood waters recede, the debris the flood brought has to be cleaned up. There is no more flood but there is a lot of cleanup to be done! So it is with the body -- that's the way God made it!

In every case of miraculous healing I've been associated with and have examined (I can name 4 cancer patients right off the top of my head who've had this happen and that I've been blessed to have been working with so that I could actually track them pre- and post-miracle), this has been the pattern. In working with another 200+ who did not have a miraculous remission of their cancer but who have improved dramatically through natural intervention, they too, followed this pattern, though at a slower pace.

For the more scientifically minded, an indepth thesis on the biochemical mechanisms of the HLB test can be found in the publication Oxidology: The Study of Oxidative Mechanisms in Health and Disease, published 1985 and written by Drs. Robert Bradford and Allen Henry; and in the many works of Dr. Majid Ali of the Capital University of Intergrative Medicine. The works of Oscar Kruesi, M.D. and Neil Speight, M.D. are also quite useful and perhaps more "layman friendly."

I hope this helps! The picture will speak for itself when you see it!

The Lord...heals ALL your diseases...

This morning my Psalm reading was 103. Verses 2-5 jumped out at me.

"Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits- who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's."

First, we are continuing to praise the Lord for his goodness, and now for the remission he has afforded. We want to continue to remember all his benefits, all the good things that he gives us, some of which can be a bit painful at times, but which work good things for those who love him.

Secondly, it says, "HEALS ALL your diseases." MM may be incurable by man's hands and wisdom, but nothing is too hard for the Lord. We believe that divine intervention took place on July 25th that has accelerated her recovery by weeks, as her body works to get rid of all the toxins and garbage left by the cancer. We will work hard to keep her blood Ph on the alkaline side so that MM will not come back. Please keep praying for the two compression fractures in her spine to heal quickly and even more, that divine intervention will restore her spine and other bones to their pre-cancer days in such a way that the Hematologist confesses that Jesus is Lord. Pray for him and his staff to open their eyes and hearts to the Lord.

Thirdly, we feel that Deb's life has been redeemed from the pit of coming death, first on June 26 with 2 units of blood, and now with remission.

Fourth, we have been crowned (though undeservedly, but by His grace) with lots of love and compassion demonstrated thru so many of your hands.

Fifth, we have had a number of our desires satisfied thru this ordeal with good things that we had long prayed for, but never expected them to come by means of illness.

Finally, we pray and trust that her youth will be renewed (healing in her back and bones) so that she can get back to normal pain free movement and living.

God bless,
Duane

Revival Breaks Out

As I mentioned last time, our good friend, Dr. Joe Carr (Joe, I can't believe I actually wrote that title, you are just a regular Joe to me - ha) from N.C. was with us the last part of July. We spent some quality time together in prayer over Deb and over Joe. You see, he was going back home to preach yesterday in his preacher's absence (vacation). No problem, Joe was trained as a minister at Harding Graduate School, on our mission team to Brazil in the 80's, etc. But Joe sensed the Lord challenging him to preach about repentance and Lordship so we prayed for him to be God's instrument in ushering in revival.

Well, God did! At their early service with 55 present, 30 came forward to repent and rededicate their lives to Jesus as Lord. At the late service, with 275 present, well over 100 responded with life changing repentance and confession! I can hardly wait to hear what all God does in the near future and how people will be getting saved as believers start to take their faith seriously as a matter of life and death. Pray that those in love with the status quo will not quench the spirit's fire (I Thess 5:19) in that church, but will rather humble themselves before God and allow Him to work His will in that body of believers.

As for my precious wife, today was a tough day. Nausea returned. Enough said. She even turned me down on going to get some frozen custard! God continues to demosntrate his love for her through words, gifts, cards, flowers and acts of service. We are unworthy of such attention, but we bask in it knowing that it is from the Father by means of His Spirit touching hearts in special ways. Praise be to Him who heals!

Duane