New Years 2006

I’ve sat long thinking how to write a letter of this sort this year. It’s hard to know where to begin. I guess that part should be easy. A cancer diagnosis isn’t a bad place to start. The hard part is figuring out how to tell the story that comes after. The hard part is guessing how that story ends.

But it is a simple beginning. Seven months ago, our lives changed. I was found to have a cancerous tumor the size of a softball lodged just beneath my sternum, growing quickly, and threatening my life within weeks. The kind of cancer with which I was diagnosed was an odd pick for a guy my age. Only 3% of adult cases of Lymphoma end up being what I had: T-Cell Fast Growth Lymphoblastic Lymphoma. Anyway, medical jargon aside, odd as it was, it wasn’t a bad pick. The cure rate is good: 90% of diagnosed patients achieve total remission. We’ve little reason to believe that I won’t be among those that do! However, the cancer falls into the same category as a type of Leukemia for which the chemotherapy required to attain the cure is classified intense. So while the prognosis has been good all along, the journey to its end has been long and hard.

My battle began mid May at Regions hospital in St. Paul. Chemo started immediately and within a month the tumor was gone. Round I of five, which was expected to be the most difficult of the ordeal, passed quite nicely, and I was home within three weeks. All subsequent therapy was then intended to deep clean my entire body, eradicating the slightest microscopic trace of cancer from the smallest branch of my DNA. That hasn’t been so easy.

In the few weeks between Rounds one and two I managed to produce a short worship album born out of the experience of those first months. The day after I began Round II Jen & I boarded a plane for a national youth conference in Colorado where I was to speak the next morning. We were excited to do this, as it seemed God was giving us opportunity to share the wealth of the mine. Perhaps we hadn’t gone deep enough yet. The only sharing I did that week was via a videotaped greeting recorded in our hotel room seven miles from the airport. I was so sick upon arrival at DIA we ended up crashing at a Holiday Inn for our few days there, and flying (miserably) home and directly to the hospital upon our return.

Since then, things have gotten worse, and then better, and then worse again. I’ve spent three of the last seven months in a hospital bed. Many more at home in my own. I’ve lost 30 to 40 pounds, gained 5 to 10 back and then lost them again more times than I can count. I’ve developed back problems. My hair’s fallen out twice. And grown back once. I’ve been poked and bled and given transfusions and had my head zapped with radiation. I give myself shots now. I’ve known weeks of fevers, months of nausea with no strength, and long days of the perpetual struggle for hope.

Things look different in the dark. Most notably, you don’t see much. Not nearly as much as you do otherwise, anyway. But there are things. There haven’t been the rushing waters of revelation, or days on end of inspired writing, but there have been just enough promises whispered to us through the Bible and our mess of experiences to keep us hoping. We still trust that God is doing what He set out to do, regardless of how wrong I was about my part in the matter. It’s His story in the end, anyhow. Not mine.

Amidst the creative grace God has seen to write into our story has been the birth of our second son. Eli was born to us early in the morning December 10th healthy and happy. He’s been home with us since. The obvious goodness in this is the fact that our chances of having more children after all this cancer business are slimmed significantly. God snuck this little guy in on us of His own accord, and we’re all in agreement here (Aedan included) that he was a necessary (& timely) addition to our little home.

Emmaus has been a church family like no other this past year. While most of my responsibilities as youth director there were delegated within the first few months, they’ve continued to keep me on payroll. Jen is still employed there as well, and the help she’s received during this time has been a consistent encouragement to us both. Add to that the weekly meals, childcare, letters, and a late September benefit event for our family, and we’ve been given a glimmering example of what the church can be for her own in their time of need. Our gratitude for the whole bunch runs deep. At communion this last Sunday, it was a privilege and a wonderful reminder to partake of the sacraments with the larger body, young and old alike: we learn to do life there together.

And then there’s been the larger community of friends and family who’ve surprised us with innumerable gestures of charity. From folks and family in my hometown to congregations across the country, we’ve been surrounded by an encouraging presence of people eager to see us succeed in this trial. As you might imagine, we’ve been thoroughly unable to express adequate gratitude to as many as we’d like, but are hopeful for the days to come in which we might live a life of gratitude on display for all once this is through. And Lord willing, those days are nearer now than ever.

In the waning hours of 2005, I began Round IV. This is supposed to be the last intense phase of my therapy. In fact, they call it Late Intensification Period. It’s a two-month course, the first of which is expected to be easier than the second. If I can avoid infections while my blood counts dip these first weeks, I should be able to remain out of the hospital until week five. Then I’ll be admitted to Regions for the final onslaught of chemo drugs, watched there while I crash and recover, then sent home to begin the rebuilding phase of Round V.

Round V is maintenance therapy that will last for a year and a half. It should be manageable. It’s only one IV a month with a rack full of pills I’ll take at home. I’ll be allowed to start seeing a physical trainer and therapist to begin rebuilding my body. I should be able to begin putting in time at work and with ministry. It’s a season we’ve been anticipating for quite some time.

Cancer is really hard. Chemotherapy may be arguably harder. But suffering in general is nasty and unfortunate, and it comes in so many forms. It is hard for me sometimes to think about life on the other side of this, when my suffering subsides and someone else’s begins, or doesn’t end. I can understand how suffering can make people cold, bitter, or indifferent to the sorrow once it’s gone. I can’t fathom how my heart could endure the whole of this experience without the work of the Christ in me, however hidden and mysterious His hand seems at times. This has been one of those long seasons of mystery. But we have been sustained. Most significantly by the promise that the fruit of all this comes after the suffering (I Peter 5:10, Hebrews 12).

Therefore it is with profound humility and a deep sense of awe that we are able to say yet again this year that, by His mercies, we are

Still His,

Jeremy, Jenny, Aedan, & Eli Erickson

Happy New Year!