Update on Dennis Gibson's Good Health

My oncologist walked into my examination room today, smiled big, and shook my hand. He told me that my latest scans showed no growth of my cancer in the past three months. So, it has been dormant since I started into this clinical trial with Rituxan and Torisel nine months ago. And I have had so few and mild side effects that I cannot tell I am getting cancer treatment. Now that is a marvelous kind of breakthrough!

Now I face what to do after I complete the twelve months of this trial. I prefer to be allowed to continue receiving these two medications under a category called "compassionate use," or "off-label treatment." That means getting special permission to use these drugs that are approved by the FDA for treatment of other conditions, but not yet for use on my mantle cell lymphoma. So, here is a treatment shown to be keeping me from dying, but which the FDA may take years to decide is OK for me to use. I am among thousands of cancer patients who face denial of treatments that can save their lives, simply because of an unnecessarily slow, bureaucratic process operating within the FDA.

The Life Extension Foundation has an energetic and creative initiative that I have used to contact my representatives in Congress by e-mail to modernize FDA policies toward greater flexibility with emerging new technologies. Any of you readers who are inclined to join such a grass roots petition can do so easily by going to this web site: http://www.lef.org/lac . And thank you for the spiritual energy that you pump into me by your good praying.

Close Call

At 1:35 pm yesterday, I sped my car across our busy road toward my driveway. A routine maneuver. I first checked to my left and saw a van beginning a right turn just to the left of me. Reassured that there was no more traffic coming from my left, I looked to the right. Finding that direction clear I gunned my car from the stop sign across toward my driveway. A car that was hidden from my view in the inside lane behind the van on my left nearly smashed into my driver’s side door at 40 mph. I swerved hard right. He swerved hard left. No crash. No damage to either of us. Not even any slowdown in either of our journeys. In a second it was all over and we continued our lives as planned.

How fragile our plans! It could so easily have been a totally different story, that changed my life forever. I could have been lying paralyzed on my back in the street, looking up into the faces of paramedics. Or looking down at the dead body of the other driver. I have focused on the threat of cancer to my life over the past four years. Now the near crash was a wake-up call to slow me down from rushing, to renew my vigilance when driving, to live with that deliberate sweetness that goes with continual appreciation of moments.

The cancer that I thought would forever end my short-term mission trips actually became the vehicle for eight days of ministry in Quito in January. Of twelve public presentations I made, eight were to audiences of cancer patients and their caregivers. God delights to bring good out of evil. I now continue growing in stamina and overall health with no detectable cancer. Much of this improvement comes from the twice weekly intravenous infusions of fifty grams of vitamin C I get at home, under supervision from a medical facility in Wichita, Kansas: www.brightspot.org.

Lesson: continue my health diligence, yes. But remember my ordinary mortality and guard it with unhurried alertness.

Dennis Sings 'How Great Thou Art' Above Tin Cup Pass, Colorado

Three years after chemo, July 16, 2005, above Tin Cup Pass, Colorado.

Psalm 16 in a CT Scan

I lay on my back in a Computerized Tomography scanning machine in a cancer hospital. The technician commanded over a speaker from another room, "Hold your breath. Do not move." To help myself comply with this command, I thought of the words contained in Psalm 16, which I had recently memorized: "Because the Lord is at my right hand, I will not be moved." Having a secret internal joke like that helps me to get through the anxiety of these daunting procedures.

Later that day I looked back over Psalm 16 and noticed that it contains two references to right hands. One has God at my right hand; the other has me at His. I pondered what kind of posture that is -- two persons engaged right hand to right hand. You know what it is? A High Five! Or, it could be a hand shake, or arm wrestling. God welcomes us in all three of those modes of relating to Him.

Imposters

In his inspirational poem, "If," Rudyard Kipling uses these words: "If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster, and treat those two imposters just the same...you'll be a man, my son." In my week at MD Anderson, late March, 2005, I met with the imposter called "Disaster" in the form of being told that I would live less than twelve months. Later, I met with the imposter, "Triumph," when I was told that my biopsy showed dead tissue, no cancer, and therefore the twelve-month death sentence was cancelled.

I realized that we all have a human tendency to call news of short life "bad news," and news of longer life "good news." It dawned on me why these two are imposters: they distract us from the real issue, which is not length, but quality of life. By quality I mean the kind of character we are cultivating inside us.

When we speak of "quality of life," we commonly embrace a third imposter. We usually refer to how comfortable we feel, or how many experiences we are getting that we enjoy. We want to be sure we take in as much as we can before we die and lose what life on Earth has to offer us. But the issue before us that really counts is what kind of sunshine we are giving out from our innermost being.

God has used the on and off death sentences my two cancers have given me to repeatedly refocus me on a passion for what kind of person I am becoming. I want more urgently than ever to cultivate within myself a quality of character consistent with being a citizen of Heaven, on temporary diplomatic assignment to a foreign country called Earth -- where I am to serve.

Texas Children's Hospital

Walking back from M D Anderson Cancer Center to my hotel at sunset, I passed through one of the happiest spots I have ever found on Earth. It was an outdoor place between sleekly designed buildings. It is well-lighted and carefully landscaped. In some dense trees a couple hundred birds gather at sunset each evening to sing and chirp to each other and to their admiring human audiences. The whole atmosphere is filled with light and happiness and harmony. Tears came to my eyes as I looked up past the tree with the most birds in it, to the lighted sign on the building beyond it, which read "Texas Children's Hospital."

What a splendid place for life and light and harmony and vitality and happiness to meet -- at the Children's Hospital!

And Jesus said, "Allow the little ones to come to Me, and do not hinder them, for of such is the kingdom of heaven."

There is within the medical complex in Houston, Texas, a three-quarter acre spot where you can sample an hors d'oeuvre of heaven. Arrive a little before sunset.

Lymph Node Biopsy

Laparoscopic surgery went smoothly this morning. Ruth and I got home late afternoon. Not even much pain or weakness. Surgeon took half of the enlarged lymph node, which itself was about the size of half a ping-pong ball. I am still frustrated with the uncertainty of having to wait for Pathology to report what it is. But by its appearance, two doctors said they are pretty sure it is my lymphoma recurring. I have a plane ticket to Texas for this Sunday to get a new perspective on how to go after whatever I am fighting.

You know, the cancer experience I have had over the past three years has been so good for me, that I am now better prepared to either die or live than I have ever been before. I am doing more effective counseling than ever before, with increased compassion and insight. I intend to continue doing my professional work. I think Jesus had a word for this excellent level of living I have come into. His word was "Blessed," and He applied it to those who hunger and thirst for righteousness -- which I do, ravenously!