I was supposed to have ACL replacement surgery July 8. A high white blood cell count kept me from having that. After two rounds of antibiotics thinking my issue was a sinus infection, the white blood cell count shot UP, instead of going down!
A high white blood cell count is an indicator of leukemia. My doctor wanted me to get blood work to test for this, which I did the second Monday in August. She also wanted to get me into a Hematologist to look everything over, as well as getting some chest X-Rays.
I have to tell you that the week of waiting for those results was one of the longest weeks of my life. I had moved my wife and I up to Delaware – with one of the highest cancer rates in the country – to help build God’s kingdom. The thought of chemotherapy, bone marrow transplants, etc was, in all honesty, a frightening proposition. Yet I was afraid more for my wife than for me.
I was faced that week with the possibility of my own mortality. It was different from seeing someone else dying. It was different than hearing of someone else who had a disease. It was real and personal and a lingering thought for over seven days.
During those seven days, I was reminded of some things:
Life only really matters in the context of Christ. I honestly could not imagine hearing those words, “You may have leukemia� and not immediately being able to turn my head toward heaven and symbolically handing this burden off to Christ. I just can’t imagine not having the comfort of a church praying for me and more important in my mind, praying for my wife.
Time is short. Death puts life into a unique perspective. Little matters when you’re faced with the issue, and what does matter becomes that much more important. The necessity to spend time with my wife grew. The urgency of ministry became much more important. The howling and whining of the few were disregarded in light of the work that was needed to be done to see God’s kingdom grow. There wasn’t time to worry about Aunt Edna’s ingrown toe nail. The kingdom was important and if I were going to endure what I thought I would have to endure to deal with the disease, I wouldn’t have a lot of time. I endeavor to keep that feeling in the back of my heart and mind, to remind me of that urgency.
I was home on Saturday afternoon, August 13, when my doctor called. “Your blood work came back and I don’t think you have leukemia.â€? Whew! It was the greatest relief in my life. I kept that visit to the hematologist, just in case and he confirmed that leukemia was not present. It turns out that for me, a high white blood cell count appears to be normal, and there’s nothing wrong with that. So it’s back on the surgery I go!
I hope I never have to go through that experience again. But I also hope that I never forget the lessons learned. And I hope that it enables me to be a better pastor.
If you found this page useful, consider linking to it. Simply copy and paste the code below into your web site. It will look like this:
Musings of a (Supposedly) Very Sick Man…
