Cancer Coach Inspirational

Update on Dennis Gibson's Good Health

2007-09-20T16:28:00.000-05:00

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

2006-08-09T08:34:00.000-05:00

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

2005-07-16T09:38:00.000-05:00

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

Psalm 16 in a CT Scan

2005-05-29T09:30:00.000-05:00

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

2005-04-28T14:25:00.000-05:00

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

2005-03-31T12:25:00.000-06:00

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

2005-03-23T10:41:00.000-06:00

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!

Ten Years and Counting

2005-03-02T18:33:00.000-06:00

Ten years ago today I first heard the chilling words, "You have cancer." That prostate cancer remains undetectable. So does the mantle cell lymphoma for which I was treated almost three years ago. I have built up my energy and my resistance to respiratory infections, so that I am in good shape to fight off a recurrence.

I take the view that probably neither of these cancers has been totally eliminated from my body. But, the good medical treatments I have had have reduced the population of cancer cells to a level low enough that healthy habits can keep them under control. The information I study about nutritional supplements, like green tea extract, curcumin and resveratrol, leads me to view them as mild chemotherapies. They function by interfering with signals that cancer cells send to each other, like "Let's get together and recruit some blood vessels to feed us, so we can become a big, invincible tumor."

One central challenge to us from the Bible is to bring good out of evil. I am doing that with my cancer experiences by extending my professional services as a psychologist into cancer coaching by phone. You can let people know about my website www.ACancerCoach.com. Thank you for praying for me. God be with you!

Oil Change

2003-07-11T22:01:00.000-05:00

Exactly one year ago today, the first drops of Cytoxan entered my bloodstream, as I began chemotherapy for mantle cell lymphoma. Today my latest news is that tests performed July 8 were not able to detect any signs of cancer. Thank You, God, for this expression of Your mercy to me.

Second-to-latest news is that a week ago I had my car's oil changed. During the ten-minute process, I sat outside in the sunshine of a lovely early summer day. I cherished this day's freedom compared with the dark days of a deadly cancer flourishing in my abdomen one year ago.

I could not escape the similarity between my body and my car. Old, contaminated oil was drained out of my car, and replaced by fresh, clean oil and a new filter. My car was ready to surge ahead toward future miles of productive service to its owner.

My body also has been flushed clean from cancer and the poisons that killed it. It is a clean machine, ready to surge forward to serve my Owner, the Living God, who created me and then also bought me with a price when I became a hostage to the enemy of my soul.

I think I peeled my tires in my eagerness to leave the lube shop and move ahead with my great new life. I love the way the Apostle Paul said it for me:

"... one thing I do, it is my one aspiration: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the supreme and heavenly prize to which God in Christ Jesus is calling us upward."

Energy Levels & Cell Phones

2003-05-30T07:14:00.000-05:00

Ruth and I spent last week in Winter Park, Colorado. We helped our son, Dave Gibson, get Young Life's Crooked Creek Ranch ready to host 500 high school kids per week all summer. This is this fourth year in a row that we have participated in this annual Work Week. We joined 350 other adults, most of them from Kansas and Texas. Dave is Guest Services Director there. His wife, Brenda, runs the excellent camp store. This trip gave us time with four of our seven grandchildren, too.

I did not get sick! That breaks a string of sicknesses during the past two years there. Last year I was weak and dizzy most of the time with what we learned three weeks later was lymphoma. In 2001, I was knocked out by altitude sickness as if by flu. This year I loved the ability to do physical work daily at 9000 feet altitude with endurance like I had three years ago. That was a great measure of my recovery from cancer, and chemo, and pneumonia. I learned something about the gift of life.

I experienced the basic gift of life when I was sleeping most of March and April with pneumonia. As I began to bounce back from that, I discovered the second gift of life, which is the ability to reflect on being alive. Consciousness does not automatically go with life. It is a marvelous bonus from the hand of a Creator who desires us to follow in His footsteps of living creatively and with delight in sheer existence. The third gift of life is the amazing ability to move around. Until this past year I always thought the energy to stand on my feet and go where I wanted to was a birthright. Now I recognize it as an astounding extra that we do not easily come by. I rejoiced last week in carrying heavy loads uphill for hundreds of yards. I could not do that in March. Our God is an awesome God, who gives us good things that we only come to appreciate when we lose them for a while. God be with you.

A Stunt

2003-04-30T15:23:00.000-05:00

My latest good news is that three tests on April 1 could detect no trace of cancer. That's six months in complete remission. Only four and a half years more and they will call me "cured!"

Back during Round Four of my chemotherapy, I decided to do a playful thing one evening -- at risk of being whisked off to the Psych Ward. At 8 pm each day the nursing staff shifts changed. I had with me a compact disk player and a CD of Scottish bagpipe music. This was to cheer me up. I thought I would see how many other patients and staff I could cheer up with my stunt.

I taped the player and two speakers onto the tall, rolling stand from which hung a bag of methotrexate dripping into my veins. To simulate a bagpipe, I clutched to my bosom a bed pillow with a soda straw sticking out of it into my mouth. Thus accoutered, I stepped out of Room 1310 and clicked the player onto Track #1, a rousing version of "Amazing Grace."

As it played, I approached the twenty or so staff gathered around the nursing station. They all smiled, laughed and applauded as I rhythmically pumped the pillow and puffed into the soda straw -- to the immortal strains of the beloved hymn.

This initial success emboldened me to take my show on the road. I visited each of the twenty-nine rooms housing a cancer patient on my floor. Many welcomed me with smiles and laughs like the staff had. These were refreshing signs of life and hope and joy in the midst of life-threatening illness. I pronounced a blessing to each room, something like, "May the amazing grace of the living God visit and remain in this room."

About half of the rooms gave me this kind of cheerful welcome. The other half either closed their doors, or looked away from me, even as I beamed my words of blessing to them. Some met my steady, smiling gaze with their own steady, sullen gaze. These refused to be cheered, or encouraged, or amazed by grace. Theirs was the face of hopelessness, and the look of death.

"Half and half," I pondered. I wondered if this is what God sees as He clowns His friendly invitation into each human being's awareness. He beckons, "Can we be friends in a special way I have in mind for us?" Some answer, "Sure, I am amazed that You offer anything to me at all." Others answer, "Leave me alone. I'll call the shots in my life."

The willingness to be amazed and amused is childlike. It tingles with the promise of long life embodied in childhood vigor. Thus we have it from Jesus, "You must become like little children to enter the kingdom of heaven."

Train Ride

2003-03-26T10:44:00.000-06:00

During my chemotherapy treatments in downtown Chicago, I was able to travel conveniently on the Metra train. I generally enjoyed the relaxed time for reading.

One day, returning from downtown, I was one of the first onto an empty train that would pull out of the station twenty minutes later. I picked a seat for myself, and heaped my belongings conspicuously next to me. I did not want any other passenger sitting next to me and interrupting my reading time.

Seconds before the train left, the last passenger entered and eyed the last seat -- the one next to me. Breathlessly, he asked to sit there and I made room for him. He collapsed into the seat and thrust his cane into the space between us. He asked if I knew what stops the train would make. I certainly did from having ridden so often. So, I rattled them off, thinking that I would probably not read but have a conversation on this trip.

When I mentioned my companion's destination, he told me that's where he would be getting off. I asked what prompted his trip to the city. He said that he would rather not talk. I assured him that was fine with me, and I shifted my identity back again from conversationalist to reader.

But I could not concentrate on my reading. My attention was on my suffering seatmate. The book I had was Hearing God, by Dallas Willard. I pondered what it meant for me to be hearing God right at the moment on the train. I was not comfortable with either ignoring my companion, or intruding into his life. I sat there silently praying for him, and listening for any kind of whisper or inner nudge that might come from God.

It came instead from my comrade. He apologized for cutting me off when he knew I meant well. Things were going rather badly for him with the degenerative disease that necessitated the cane. On top of that, this was the week that his wife was divorcing him. So, he had wanted to be alone with his thoughts. I said that his situation grieved me especially because I am a marriage counselor who has a passion to help couples make it work. We talked some more. He cried a little. I asked if I could pray for him right then. He said yes, so I implored God aloud on behalf of my new friend's peace of mind, bodily healing, and harmony with his wife. As he rose to get off at his stop, he asked for my business card. He said maybe he would give me a call.

Lesson: As long as I was isolating myself in my seat in order to read about hearing God, my mind was too noisy to hear God. Only when I gave up trying to force my reading did I start to quiet the noise. My mind instead became a silent caring about the man next to me. Just the caring, the yearning for his life to be better, evidently communicated itself to him as some kind of availability on my part without strings or judgment attached. That was enough warmth for God to use to create a delivery room in which a remarkable conversation was born between us two men. "Be still and know that I am God" -- now there's a thought.

Gouda!

2003-02-24T14:52:00.000-06:00

On rare days during my chemotherapy, I got to leave my room and go downstairs for lunch to the Spice of Life Cafe. One day they had an elegant spread of different cheeses. One of them I sampled was Gouda. Here's why.

Maybe twenty years ago I was with my whole family at a gathering where we were enjoying appetizers. Among the tidbits was Gouda cheese. Upon seeing it, one of my brothers called out, "Gooo-dah!" His enthusiastic endorsement planted itself in my mind.

Several times since then I have been in cheese shops, pondering over what to buy. And several times my eyes have fallen upon round chunks of Gouda cheese covered with red wax. Immediately my brother's voice has echoed in my mind, "Gooo-dah!" Every time I have acted on this prompt and bought some Gouda, I have not liked it as well as other varieties of cheese. Nevertheless, I tend to keep trying it from time to time over the years. The day I tried it in Spice of Life Cafe, I didn't like it either.

What a lesson here! My brother's voice, vivid with expression, has more influence on me than does my own experience. And that influence has extended over two decades.

Truly our ability to form words, and to deliver them with memorable non-verbal flavor, is a most powerful endowment. We exercise it for better or for worse. The ancient wisdom within the Bible speaks of this responsibility:

"Let no unwholesome word come out of your mouth, but only what is good for building others up, according to their needs."
"...men will have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken."
"Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O God."