Well, I suppose it is time again for me to check in with the wider world.

Once upon a time these postings were as necessary to me as morning coffee. Not only did they serve as the means by which family and friends came to know how I was while I was sick, but they were the means by which I kept alert to the events of any given day. Blogging kept me alive to the little things, everything potential material for the next post. I miss that sort of alertness – that attentive posture towards life as it happens.

But I haven’t had time for blogging these days. With great effort I’ve managed to focus my writing in a more fruitful pursuit. On the fifth of January, Jenny and I celebrated our seventh wedding anniversary. Seven years – in Old Testament biblical language, that’s one week. On the first day of the new week, Jen spent her first day at home when she normally would’ve worked, and I set about the task of writing my first book. And most days since then I have left the house for four or five hours each afternoon, parking my aching body at a coffee shop not too far from home, managing to peck out a page or two at each pass.

The process feels a bit precarious. Like each day great care must be taken to maintain the delicate illusion that I have something to say – something worth someone else’s time. As long as I’m able to sit down with such presumption, the whole thing moves along rather nicely. But there are other days, weeks even, where the whole affair seems a bit too presumptuous, and my words fail me. Nonetheless, by all accounts I am ahead of pace, or at least in step with it, as, at ninety pages in, I am nearly half way through my material.

The book I’m writing is a casual exposition of the convergence of two realities – suffering and the existence of a loving God – as it is played out in the biblical narrative, and to a certain extent, my life. But it is not autobiographical. That I hope to write after this book is finished. I picture it like this: occasionally I am invited to come share my story at churches here and there. I typically preach a sermon Sunday morning and then give a more informal concert and story time later that evening. The book that I’m working on now is the sermon, the book I’ll come to next is the concert.

For the most part, my hands are doing fine. They hurt and I’m still on pain meds for that and my back, but I got a nifty ergo-keyboard recommended by my friend Barnabas and it serves me well. Additionally, I try to make it to the gym three days a weeks to move my body just enough to make up for all the time I spend hunched over the keyboard. Still, it feels like I’m just a step ahead of entropy. Just a step ahead of the decay implicit in the sedentary life. Occasionally my fingers tingle. And my legs.

But I’m playing guitar again. Not much, but enough to get my calluses back. And while I don’t feel strong enough yet to lead worship from the stage, I am doing what I can to do so from the studio. Getting to know a handful of musicians from Mercy Vineyard in Minneapolis rekindled a fire in my belly to return to a project I started in concept five years ago. It’s called A Lutheran Liturgy.

I’ve taken the sung liturgy I grew up with and made each refrain the chorus for its own song, writing the verses around it and giving each refrain fresh context. When I’m done I’ll have a seven song EP that’s essentially a Lutheran worship service from start to finish, right out of the Concordia or Ambassador hymnal. And my first album in four years. These will be the only art songs I’ve written since the winter of 2002. I’ve written elsewhere of what it’s like when my muse starts to move again – like the river in Lucy’s Narnia when Aslan brings an end to winter – writing the book and producing these songs has been like that. A bit like springtime on the inside after a very long winter.

Speaking of winter, most winters are very hard for me. The spectrum of mood gets a bit heavy on the depressive side. This year depression stayed in the periphery, close enough that I could see it from time to time, but far enough away so as not to cause too much trouble. While medication and therapy has contributed to that, there’s no question we owe part of it to the kindness of a few close friends. Our benefactors, for one, who make it possible to be at least a little less worried about our finances these days (and for Jen to be home with our boys), and our friends Ben and Andrea, who invited us to join them on a week’s vacation in Florida. Having the sunshine to look forward to and enjoy while there cheated winter, denying its usual cold hold on my heart. My mom and dad stayed home with Ade and Eli and Jen and I took Jo Isaac with us to Orlando. Rich memories were made both places for all of us. And for the whole deal we’re ridiculously grateful.

I was given opportunity to speak to the student body at Oak Hills Christian College in February. The whole family came with for that, and our time there was memorable. Real good people. Jen, Jo Isaac, and I will be flying to North Carolina in April where I’ll be speaking at an Awana youth Summit. Prayer as I prepare for that would be appreciated. I’m speaking on service, which is why bringing Jen with is such a necessity, as she knows so much more about serving others than I do. Daily I’m reminded by her giving that I’ve got much to learn. You could thank God for her with me.

And my medical hobby continues, though with less gusto than previous years. Doctor Joel takes care of my back. Doctor Hakala continues work on my jaw (my molars no longer come together in the back – I chew only with the help of a spacer I wear while eating). Doctor Hurley keeps an eye on where the cancer used to be, and is still interested in what seems to be an enlarged thymus. Doctors Albie and Guibord monitor my moods, helping me out when they can. And Doctor Hotvedt handles everything else. The whole ordeal can be exhausting, but we’re managing alright, keeping appointments corralled into one day of the week rather than two or three. Thus keeping most the other days clear for writing.

So it’s official, for the time being anyway – a gentleman poolside in Orlando asked me if I was an academic, and privately, I wanted to laugh a little (I’ve dropped out of more schools than I’ve attended), but I answered him by saying, “No, I’m a writer.”

I’m a writer. At least that’s what I am these days. At least that’s what I do. I travel a little and I speak a little. And in my spare time I make music. Good grief. Read my postings from a year ago and last August and one can’t help but laugh just a little. I’m reminded of the psalmist’s prayer from psalm 90, and our prayer from less than a year ago: “Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us, for as many years as we have seen trouble.” God, it might seem to some, is answering the prayers of his people.

Gratefully, we are…

Still His,
Jeremy

So we prayed for laughter – a change in ourselves or our circumstances that would provoke such gut level jocundity. One such change occurred: A friend of ours has seen success in business in recent years. And he has committed to pay a good portion of our bills every month while he can to afford me the opportunity to write and Jen the freedom to stay home with the boys.

This is what every artist dreams of yet most often knows only in a dream. For us, for now, that dream has become a reality. This fledgling artist has a renaissance benefactor.

Our prayer is that, with Jen home throughout the week, and me not fretting about gainful employment, we may collectively focus our efforts on the writing of a book and the raising of our boys; finding and keeping a weekly rhythm that is conducive to both.

Of course there are abiding obstacles.

My immune system is crippled. I get sick more often and stay sick for longer than I should. I am tired a lot. I sleep ten to fourteen hours a day. My neck, back, and wrists are constantly nagging for my attention. And pain shrinks existence. Pain focuses self on self. It’s hard to fight this some days. And such self-centeredness is pervasive – not limited to the physical. God have mercy.

Good news is that Crohn’s is rather quiet – more or less under control in my body. We’ve figured the source of recent irritations to have been too much magnesium in my supplements, and too much acid in my belly. Easily fixed.

A recent routine scan (once every six-months) for cancer called for further investigation. A follow-up scan revealed a busy thymus. Well, you know what they say: “thymus money.” So for now, my six-month scan cycle will be tightened to one every three months – until they can positively rule out cancerous activity.

A doctor I saw today said it may take years to feel normal again. “Yeah, I know, but it’ll be two years next May.”

“Two?” he said. “For you, try twenty.”

Twenty years to normal.

“This is a very hard word, master. Tell me, how can this be?”

“Ten times the chemo, ten times the recovery.”

So I’ll be fifty before I feel like thirty again?

A hard word indeed.

Still, laughing more than a little, we are

Still here and still His,
Jeremy

P.S. Sample my preaching via the downloadable messages posted on my homepage. If it be a word that would benefit your community, consider sending me an email to request a visit. I’d love to come share my story and testify to God’s might and grace where you are.

Jo Isaac - Joseph Isaac: “May the Lord add Laughter.” We are praying for laughter. Both for a change in circumstance - one that might yield the fruit of laughter - and of disposition - one that might be more prone to laugh.

Those of you who still read this blog know that my months-long silence is a digression from my posting pattern of the previous two years. This has not been for lack of a story to tell. There’ve been other reasons for my silence.

If I could I would tell of a long winter. Of psychotherapy and depression. Of prednisone induced Bipolar II and mood stabilizers. Of 12 months of not writing. I’ve had the wind knocked out of me, in a way. Gut-punched while stepping out of the ring. Things were supposed to get better. But since last summer and the completion of chemotherapy I’ve stopped writing to ease my painful hands. I’ve got weak wrists. Haven’t been able to seriously play guitar for two plus years. Any creativity’s been thereby stifled. Dreams and momentum are doubled over, gasping for air.

In October of last year, Crohn’s disease relapsed in my body. I’ve since had to begin taking 6MP: a mild chemo drug that effects the immune system in such a way that there may be a possible link to the onset of certain types of lymphoma. Like the kind I got the last time I was on 6MP. Though it’s not proven, and it’s hard to be certain, the medical profession admits it is at least a potential instigator/catalyst to cancer. I’ve seen several doctors on this issue. There’s really just no great way of treating Crohn’s in the medical world.

Every treatment comes with a potential catch. And though the cancer connection is as of yet hypothetical, it is nonetheless a mental/emotional blow. Feels a little like we’re starting the cancerous cycle all over again. The sick-boy cycle. Question: “Will I ever be well again?” The answer seems to be given in a Crohn’s relapse and its subsequent treatment: “Forget it, sick boy.”

Clinic visits and doctoring are still a significant part of every week. Weekly schedules revolve around such things. Makes it hard to exist as anything other than “the patient.”

We have been genuinely enjoying the summer. July at least. But the pleasure seems an event, or pocket/exception, in an otherwise stark landscape/era of ambiguous despair. This is either the beginning of better times, or another precursor to hope deferred.

Jo Isaac is a prayer, and perhaps part answer to that prayer. He has been a delight. Sleeps well. Takes a bottle. He has unlocked untapped affections for the other two boys in me. Love and delight has been exponentially multiplied in his presence. I’ve enjoyed being a dad more these days than ever before. We’re praying he is this way a harbinger of better times.

I write now out of that need for prayer. Prayer for direction. Clarity. Strength. Hope. Hope. Hope. While I was on chemotherapy, hope was based at least in part on the fact that chemo would one day be done and I would be healthier than before. That day long ago came and went. Didn’t anticipate chemo leaving quite the mark it did. Fatigue from the fight with cancer and its treatment has been known to last for years. This is made worse by effects of Crohn’s and its treatment. And this chronic, undiagnosable pain and its treatment.

This is the backdrop for the persistent question of vocation and provision. Man’s got to do something. To work. To contribute. While I desire most to be a writer and itinerant speaker (and music would be nice, too), my hands hurt and don’t work well. The same could be said of my heart. Speaking then is also made difficult. I was in ND in March, right at the bottom of a mid-winter sinkhole, my heart was depressed and slow to hope. Speaking that week was very difficult, and I have doubts about how beneficial it is for my audience when I speak out of such a place. And it is a place I’ve found myself in more often than not this year.

Other jobs are made equally difficult, even unattainable, by these persistent ailments. Our current living arrangement is nearly perfect and the least expensive way we could live in the Cities. Still, the sum of my disability check and Jen’s wages renders even this unsustainable. We would soon sink were it not for charity. We float only on the good graces of generous people. And these days, just barely. Family, mostly. And a few good friends. The gratitude weighs heavily on my heart for some reason. The words “thank you” get caught in my throat. The pursuit of wellness for this body has become an expensive venture. And the weight of it is often debilitating. So pray, please. Pray with us. Pray for us.

I would not be writing or posting this if there were not still some faith in me. We are expectant. We are praying and asking others to pray with us that God would provide something, somehow, in such a way that we would laugh. We are considering paths for our future and asking God for discernment, words, and courage. We are praying for new ways of living. Pray with us, please. And rejoice for the prayer, the promise, and the life of our little Jo Isaac.

Thanks for checking in.

Still His,
Jeremy

P.S. I will be speaking/preaching in Illinois and St. Michael, MN three Sundays in August. This also in the midst of yet another Crohn’s flare-up. Again, your prayers are more than appreciated.

So here he is. Sorry for taking a month to get this posted. Things are busier with three already - and this one isn’t moving much yet. He sleeps though, which is great. Jo Isaac, a prayer: “May the Lord add laughter.” Praying our third is the harbinger of better times. Pray with us, please.

June 4. 1:37AM. 7 pounds, 2 ounces. 20 inches.

Perhaps I’ll post a more exhausting - I mean, exhaustive - posting in the days to come. Yell if you’re curious.

Blessed again, and grateful, now five, we are…

Still His,

Jeremy and the rest

How things are.

The boys are healthy. Happy mostly. Jen is bigger. Baby’s good. Due late May. Still shuffling rooms. Trying to make out what life here will look like with three kings ruling roost. Jen’s as beautiful as ever. I’m impressed daily by her ability to manage a mess like this with such a predictable composure. And she works. She has a job and she does it well. It thrills me to be near her.

I’m treating another Crohns episode. Steroids again. Started fresh two weeks back. Less fun this time. The two months between last round and this one were the darkest months I’ve endured in a decade. Intense emotional/psychological unrest in the absence of the drug that synthetically raised me for the holidays. Feeling like a puppet on a string. The puppeteer being whatever drug is in my system. Or not in my system. Hard to trust me when me is jerked around so easily by necessary chemistry.

Began psychotherapy a few weeks back as well. Pray for Bob and Tom and Bryan. They’re a couple of the professionals helping me sort through me. I know two of them to be brothers in the faith. Committed to Christ and the caring practice of psychology/psychiatry. I am hopeful this will be beneficial. Having a hard time with reentry. Not just the physical stressors either - the bad belly, weak wrists, aching back - social/emotional muscles have atrophied as well and as badly. Faith muscle, too, maybe. Hard to tell when medicine’s got the best of you.

Easter came early this year. So early it hardly seemed like Easter. Eggs were hid well beneath six inches of snow. I related to the disciples locked in a room following Good Friday’s not so good goings on. At least from their perspective, things went horribly wrong. No doubt they were grieving big time. No doubt they were asking, “Now what?” They lost their leader to a gruesome death. They watched their friend die. The last three years of their lives hung over and haunted them like an investment poorly made. Frauds and fools each and all.

That’s where I am. I’m in that room right now, too. Or worse, like Thomas, I might be off somewhere else grieving by myself when the Lord stops by for some fish. Everyone else saw him, but I didn’t. Guess he’ll have to catch up with me later.

But I believe the tomb is empty. I believe it with my head, and parts of my heart believe it, too. But there’s a cold corner in there somewhere that needs a shot of Easter. Wish I could say I was one of the women carrying pretty smells to the tomb, or one of the guys with the legs who ran to see, but I’m pretty sure I’m locked up in that room with the rest of them.

And the good news for them is good news for me: locked doors are nothing to our Lord.

Come, Lord Jesus.

Still His,
Jeremy

Greetings friends. Forgive the prolonged silence here. And the unecessarily shocking headline. The illness at present is not nearly as serious as cancer or crohns, but in the present, it is no less taxing. And so I write now merely to ask for prayer, for we are feeling the absence of intercession these days (if only in the details).

There is no doubt much good to say, much news to tell, but I haven’t the energy now nor the clarity of thought to tell it. I did a few weeks ago, during which I spent parts of ten days piecing together a two page update creatively detailing the major stories of these past three months. But then, before I got a chance to post it, I lost it. Stuck in dismay over a good work gone, I haven’t been able to try my hands at it again, until today. Today is just too much.

But first, the few paragraphs I had backed up before my computer crashed…

My heart aches with gratitude. A weight of abundant blessing hangs heavy on my heart. Like an anchor, not a plow. Not a burden, but a mooring, a point of reference. A launch pad, perhaps. Or the bottom end of a kite string, firmly held, so that instead of being blown away, this kite rises higher with each blast of wind.

God, thank you for gratitude. Thank you for nurturing gratitude, for feeding it, for creating the context for it to flourish naturally. Almost effortlessly. How refreshing. How contrary to the gratitude hard won by faith these past years - that posture of praise that is one part reaction and three parts will. How grateful I am for this gratitude you’ve put so deep within me, anchoring the lighter, more visible, wind-catching aspects of my being.

Thank you for the steady hand of gratitude holding the other end of this kite’s string. And because of it, I am not blowing away, but rising again. In this wind.

Christmas this year was pleasant, rich, peaceful… almost enchanting.

It didn’t have to be. Sick kids. Sick us. Has hardly been a day since early December that one of us hasn’t been sick. Head colds. Respiratory infections. Stomach flu. Ear infections. I took my annual trip to ER in an ambulance a few days after Christmas. And spent my first night up on the eighth floor at Regions since January 2006.

And there’s the looming financial uncertainty. In the nation’s economy and our family’s bank account. Shrinking reservoir. The calendar year for our health insurance turned over early December, so we started over on our out of pocket expenses again. One trip to the pharmacy for five medicines cost $600, another $500. Good news is, add that to the trip to ER, and we’ve probably met our deductible for the year.

So Christmas didn’t have to be good, but it was. Like the feasts and festivals the LORD gave the ancient Hebrews. Like the year of Jubilee when debts were cancelled and slaves released. We gave been cared for this Christmas in ways practical and abundant. We were able to buy gifts without impeding budget boundaries. We were able to give generously. I can’t tell you what good that has done for our hearts - for my heart specifically - to be able to turn from a primary function of consumption to contribution. To be able to give.

So that’s the bigger story context for this lament and plea for prayer.

We truly had a wonderful December. Three solid months, actually, of me on steroids. And it was good. Productive. Hopeful. Manageable. It really felt like the beginning of something new, something kind of like me (and Jen and me) before all of this broken body stuff. I was doing stuff, and dreaming, and capably caring for my family. But, little by little, since midnight on the 26th of December (when Jen first got sick, and I dropped into the final descent of my taper off prednisone), the colors began to fade.

The pain has come back. I’m weaker in my hands and wrists than I remember being before. I’m clumsy. I drop stuff. Keyboards hurt. Computer and piano. I’m discouraged, really. A guy has a hard time hoping when he can’t do stuff.

Then I got sick. Then Ade, and Eli, and then Jen again. Right now, all four of us are sick with something, each of us racked with a different variation of a malicious bug. And then really, who takes care of whom? We’re managing, with family nearby (Jen’s dad, Bruce, has been here four days this week), but not well. And the frustration is going deep, as well as the subversion of hope. When will things change? And how?

May, maybe. When baby Erickson number three makes his home here. We learned a month back that the bun in the oven is a boy. Good news in many ways, as we were told we’d unlikely be able to have kids again. So that’s great! But how are we going to do this? Really. I’ve got more questions now than answers. More problems than solutions. And it is such a sharp contrast to the inertia of hope I felt so deeply just weeks ago.

So we’ve got troubles on the outside (being sick, mostly, and in pain), and troubles on the inside (discouraged, depressed maybe?). Those of you who are still checking this blog regularly are probably those of you who pray. I trust you’ll know what to do with this. I’d write more of gratitude and momentum and hope and faith if I could (and there would be much to write), but I can’t. My wrists hurt, and I’m tired. And I think number two just woke from his third nap today.

Unpoetically grateful and hopeful (while shamefully despairing),

I am still…

His,

Jeremy

One beneficial side effect is that my wrists feel a wee bit better, and I may be able to tap out a few words this month. I’m on prednisone again. How about that.

Past few months have been busy for me in the clinical realm. Never fun. Interesting sometimes, but never fun. Rheumatology. Infectious Diseases. Physical Therapy. Chiropractic adjustments. Backaches. Cavities, toothaches, and root canals. An MRI. An EMG. X-Rays. Lab work. Prenatal, and Craniofacial Therapy.

This week I reconnected with my old GI doc: I’m having a Crohn’s flareup again. First time it’s been this bad since I was diagnosed four years ago. I’ve lost near ten pounds in two weeks. Haven’t been feeling so good. Until today, that is. Until I swallowed another 40 mg of the Zone. Never thought I’d do that again. At least now I don’t fall asleep watching the evening news - not like it’s uninteresting.

I was just kidding about the prenatal thing. Guys don’t do prenatal. You knew that.

This afternoon I have my first CT scan since credits rolled on the chemo. I’ll know the results in about a week. It’s a big one. It’s been six months. I’m not nervous really; I just don’t like drinking Radiology’s version of a smoothie. Especially while my belly’s so stinking artsy. Sensitive to the core. I’d prefer Jamba. Or an Orange Julius. And four cups? Even when it’s tasty I can’t drink that much. Do I really look like I could pack that away?

I ended up backing out of a Writer’s Conference this last weekend. I was looking forward to meeting and hearing one of my heroes. And learning a thing or two about writing (and perhaps publishing something other than blogs). Walt Wangerin was at Luther College. I was supposed to be, too. But fatigue and frequent trips to the jiffy rendered me a no-show. Just couldn’t do it. Bummer.

Two weeks hence, I plan to be speaking at a youth retreat in Nodak. Then flying to Chicago for a video shoot with friends at Awana (I get to wear makeup). This would normally be far too ambitious an itinerary, especially with insides neglecting to absorb any good thing, but with corticosteroids jacking my adrenals, it’s actually starting to look like good timing. Funny.

Speaking of timing, Jen hasn’t been feeling so well lately, either. She’s got a nasty cold. And some other stuff. Tired, and a cough that just won’t go away. Now I’ve got it, too. Goes with out saying that when mom’s well, all’s well. And when she’s not well? Well…

Things are at a pretty serious standstill here regarding my employment and things of that sort. I’m still on Social Security Disability - which has been a Godsend for a season (still is, really). When it kicked into effect a year ago they wrote a check that was retroactive back to five months after I got cancer. So for twelve months it was like we were getting twice what we were actually given. Monthly, that is. Now all our reserve is dried up. That retroactive lump sum routinely covered our monthly shortfalls. We had reserve. Now all we have is shortfalls.

I get a check from Social Security. Jen gets a check from Emmaus. And our kids get a little bit from the big G as well (perhaps another kid would actually be an asset…) All told, we’re still leaning hard into whatever help we receive from those who can give it. Life’s expensive. Especially with kids, no job, and a hobby like mine.

And these days, my medical hobby’s looked more like a vocation than an in-your-spare-time thing. And for as much as there is to be made in the medical profession, the pay’s not so great from this end.

So plainly said (gulp), we could use your help.

I’ve done this so many times I think I could accurately display some reflective psychoanalysis here: It is hard for anyone, especially a young husband/father of 2 or 3, to ask other people for his daily bread. Much easier to ask God who says he’ll give before you ask. Then go work your butt off to acquiesce.

It’s much easier to ask if a) you are really, really sick and incapacitated; or b) able to contribute something to society or the church as a whole, even if not directly related to the sustenance for which you are asking, in order to more or less earn your keep.

Well, trouble is, right now I’m only sorta sick (as compared to CALGB 8811 chemotherapy: a.k.a. the last two years) and relatively unable to do the things which I feel amount to my potential contributions to the body (write, perform, travel and speak, etc…).

Point is, asking’s pretty hard. Feels a bit like begging. Feels a bit like raw humility (not the admirable kind). But both desperation and prednisone has put me out here. So here I am. Out here.

I learned today that I need another root canal. Pronto. That’ll be before our insurance calendar year turns over, and will cost approximately a thousand bucks. A legitimate billing black hole with our car insurance people revealed this month that we owe $1800 in back payments. Treatment for TMJ (my painful jaw that limits singing and other things, like chewing food - my molars don’t come together on either side) yields a hefty debt that insurance barely touches. We’ve been working on that for a year, and still owe $1500.

One of our cars is so goofed up my dad’s got it checked into a garage up in Roseau with high hopes of nursing it back to health. Wrenches at Saturn down here in the Twin Cities were scratching their heads (and charging for that) at the myriad of things gone wrong.

So all of this has kind of come now. Right before the holidays. Right before gift shopping and birthdays and Christmas concerts. Right before some gradual, hopeful, and rather monumental changes in our lives, and it’s a bit difficult. This isn’t my sad song. These are just the details. Or some of the details. There’s still more to tell, and much of it is good (I hope to write the proverbial Christmas Letter this month - big news and all), but it is befuddling. For now, I think I’ve said enough.

My apologies for not sharing brighter news. My hope is my meager attempts at humor aptly allude to our joy and held out hope that things will get better, someday. Or at the least, that we, and our faith, will be made strong.

If for nothing else, thank you for being aware of our story. My hunch is there is even more for which I could say thanks, like your prayers. But I’ll save that for another post, when I have the stamina and the words to do it well.

Blessings, friends.

Still His,
Jeremy

P.S. If you are one who is able and would like to put bread in our basket, here are three avenues. The first is simple enough: you could mail it to us at 8121 Fourth Ave. S. Bloomington, MN 55420. The second is like it: there’s a benefit fund in my name at the Citizen’s State Bank in Roseau, PO Box 160, Roseau, MN 56751. The third is a benefit fund set up at Emmaus that actually yields receipts for tax-deductible donations: In this case only make checks payable to The Jeremy Erickson Family Benefit Fund, and send to the same c/o Emmaus Lutheran Church, 8443 Second Ave. S. Bloomington, MN 55420. This last one is a channel specifically for paying medical related bills and monthly living expenses. The first two give us a little more leeway, like birthday gifts and nights out. In either case, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you…

Thank you faithful friends and onlookers. I know you’re out there. I’m still here. There’s much to say, but I’ve been relatively unable to say it. At least on the page. I should maybe start podcasting. Yapping’s just not the same. My wrists have been bad these past months. Haven’t been able to write much more than a few short emails. I do seem to be getting stronger altogether, just not in my wrists. Pain’s not vamoosing either. I snagged iListen for my Mac, but my G4 can’t keep up with it (or me) yet. I speak a sentence three times before I realize it’s working on what I said, then it spits out three different versions of that sentence - none of them making any sense at all. Sometime in the next week or two I hope to post a page. Been busy with clinic visits, rehab, and work on a room in our basement to serve as a music/writing studio for me someday. Yes, someday. Still hoping, trusting I will get that new body. Or at least this one made new. Please check back again soon, and don’t stop praying for us in the meantime. Difficult transitions abound. Struggles in the head, heart, and hands. Pocketbook, too. Have posted a message from a three part series I delivered back in August. The other two I’ll put up once it seems the first has gotten out. The JE myspace (link to it from my homepage) now has two video clips from FLY 2005. Long overdue. But it’s fun now to see the cueball. New photos on this site are also long overdue. I have hair now. And get haircuts. Would be much easier if I could hold a mouse. Someday…

Still here (and His),

Jeremy

Again, there are limitations on the extent to which I can be creative or insightful with this entry. The real good stuff takes time to distill… me sitting at a keyboard, staring at the screen, juggling words and ideas in my head like plastic balls in a bingo machine… until they land on the page where I arrange and rearrange until they make sense… As mentioned before, these days I must ration my words. Rather, I can only sit and stare and type for so long before my joints begin to decay and my muscles grow moss. They go rigid like tree bark, and it gets that much harder for me to move any at all.

And right now I need to be moving. Doctor Joel says movement is life. My physical therapist says my job is to under do it, but to under do it everyday. On this point these two warring factions (physical therapy and chiropractic therapy) agree: a rolling stone gathers no moss - even if it’s rolling, ever so slowly, uphill.

The general trajectory as of late has been pleasantly upward. In spite of some recent setbacks, there seems to be some notable progress in how much energy I have to spend and the things I am able to spend it on. Most significantly, I spent the better part of two days this past weekend alone at home with my boys, who collectively burn more calories in an hour than I burn in a whole day. What’s more, I actually enjoyed it (though I’m recovering from the activity, still).

This is a mark of progress more valued than any medical test might give me. One of the more difficult things these past years has been the extent to which I’ve been unable to be “dad” and “husband” for my busy young family. It’s one thing to be absent and unable, it’s quite another to be here everyday with my hands tied.

And there’s more to say about that, but not right now. There’s too much else. And my hands are only given so many letters.

I spent what letters I had between the last posting and this one on preparations for a talk I gave at the Roseau County Fair grandstand a week back. It’s a neat deal. Apparently forty years ago a guy on the fair board proposed having the fair initiated every year with a grandstand event called “Church Night at the Fair.” Every church in the county is invited. They’ve been doing it ever since.

There were two things particularly special about the evening this year for me, besides the fact that I was the guy speaking. The first was that I shared the stage with lifelong friend Tami Fugleberg (now Osweiler) and her singing group, Sweetwater Revival (her Star Spangled Banner made me cry). The second was that I was speaking to what seemed like half the population of my hometown. More specifically, these folks knew more of my story than most, and many of them had played a part in it at one time or another - most many years ago.

It was a bit difficult deciding which message and which testimony to give for such a crowd. So many things to say, so little time to say them, and the desire, of course, to say them well (add to that chemo brain and it’s really a wonder I made any sense at all).

All said (and there’s always more to say), if it was communicated that suffering and death are really bad; that Jesus did something profoundly great by stepping into it and dying himself; that resurrection is real and really good; that we partake of God’s salvation by humbly asking for and gratefully accepting the help we need (in Christ and through others), and that we participate in God’s salvation by giving the help we can, then… I think I said enough.

I hope it was also clear (as I told so little of my story and touched upon it so briefly when I did) that Jen and I both are genuinely and deeply grateful for the love and support we’ve received from those folks… you folks… thank you.

And I am disappointed we didn’t have the opportunity to chat with as many of you as I had hoped to. Still the few conversations, glances, headnods, hugs, and handshakes that happened were good. Real good. Like the first bite from a box of chocolates: good in itself, but best because there’s so much more to be had.

Speaking of talk and chocolates, there is an application of self-discipline that is new to me these days. Much self-discipline is packaged as an avoidance of something bad for the pursuit of something good (Subway instead of McDonalds). But most self-discipline in my life has been a regulating of good things so as to keep the good things good (eating a bite of chocolate in one sitting is good/eating a box of chocolate in one sitting is bad… too much of a good thing, anybody?).

So it shouldn’t come as a surprise to me that I have to nearly give up writing and reading - even healthy conversation (the eternal kind that makes time irrelevant) - these days if I am ever again to enjoy them at all. It seems my sedentary lifestyle prior to cancer (driving, recording, writing, reading, playing guitar and piano) has teamed up with the inactivity of the past two years and rendered the whole of my body in real bad shape.

Way back when, I may’ve been in no shape for softball, but I could still drive around and play music. Then when I wasn’t fit enough to regularly perform, at least I could sit and write or record. And when that became difficult, at least I could lie in bed and read. Now all these things are difficult - almost impossible - for any significant length of time, without incredible amounts of pain.

Or if they aren’t (topical analgesics and caffeine go a long way), the end result robs me of any justification. It’s hardly worth it.

Last Saturday night the Worship Circle (100 Portraits, et al.) was in Minneapolis doing an outdoor thing at the Fallout. They had hand drums set up all over in front of the stage for anyone who wanted to pound out a rhythm during the show. I stoically refrained for about an hour. Then the spirit moved, I cracked, and whacked a djembe, then a conga. Five minutes maybe. And it hurt like crazy, and it was so much fun. But as soon as it was over, I regretted it. I regretted doing something I so love to do. Like I’ll regret spending the better part of three days typing out this update. This isn’t fun.

Artists in general want to be carried away by whatever it is they’re doing (except whatever it is they’re supposed to be doing). I am no exception to this (I love getting lost in a book, conversation, making music, watching a movie, mowing the lawn… just about anything). Which means that if I am to heal and be strong again, considering the amount of attention I must give to the healing, there can be little else. The fewer potential distractions, the better.

I’ve always preferred physical activity to be a peripheral activity - like the optional add-on at the end of a good day of cerebral busyness. But these days, to be able to do much of anything that requires sitting or standing in one place for a while, I must first spend the better part of every day moving, stretching, swimming, walking, and driving between clinics. Moving, and moving the right way and for the right amount of time (not playing a djembe or chucking suitcases or toddlers), is primary.

If I’m not proactively healing, I’m not only not getting better, I’m getting worse. There’s no such thing as coasting… yet. Like pedaling a bicycle down a dirt road: as long as I’m just crawling along, I can’t stop pushing. But if I keep pumping, I’ll likely pick up enough speed to coast for a while without slowing to a standstill.

And so even writing this is an indulgence, a distraction. But I write now mostly to point out that although I am pedaling uphill, I am picking up speed, nonetheless. And the ride down the other side is bound to be a rush, as long as I keep pedaling.

I think I’ve found a routine - a regimen that works - and as long as I keep all those gears spinning I continue to feel better. Physical therapy, pool therapy, massage therapy, and regular realignments with Doctor Joel, bolstered by consistent sleep habits and decent nutrition (and a cupful of supplements and vitamins everyday) give me the momentum needed to heal. You might imagine how difficult this is to keep at with the blessed interruptions of toddlerhood and the unpredictable impulses of an artist. Whenever I fall out of rhythm, it takes some time to recover, like I’ve got to make up for lost ground.

Our one week trip to the northland was that: the car ride both ways, the time at a computer screen tapping out a message, the standing (or sitting) and yapping with old friends at the fair or in town, and the carefree (if not careless) running around the yard with my boys and their cousin Julia. But it was worth it. It was real good spending time with family at home. And I’m not nearly as shot as I’ve found myself many times after such activity in recent years.

But it’s time to be pedaling again, and it’s a bit difficult hitting stride.

So as much as I’d like to write until I happen upon something clever or profound, it’s more necessary that I hang it up before my hands turn to branches and my hair to leaves.

Being it’s likely I won’t get to this again for another couple of weeks, I’d better briefly mention just a few more things:

1) Uncle (I’ve been uncle-ed three times over this year…). But I mean I give up. I think I’ve been convinced to get one of those voice recognition programs to “write” with (it’ll at least keep the ball rolling). I use an Apple, so the options are limited. iListen is $300. Anybody know of anything cheaper? Write me.

2) I’ll be speaking the first three Sundays in August at Living Hope Church in St. Michael. It’s a series on Suffering and the Sovereignty of God. Pray the prep goes smooth, the truth would be clear and received, and that the record button will work. I’ve given this package three times now, but this is the first time for an entire congregation, and not just the students. I’m really excited about this, but can’t spend as much time at the computer putting it together as I’d like to.

3) I get a root canal tomorrow.

O goody.

Grateful I can still yap. At least when nobody’s got their fingers in my mouth.

Still His,
Jeremy

P.S. I turned 31. I did. Special thanks to Jenn Olson/Spadine for the night at Bandana Square for my Jen and me. And to Erika and Danka for the ridiculously yummy German Chocolate Cake. I just ate the last piece yesterday. It was STILL incredible. How about another root canal…

P.P.S. More rants to come. I haven’t said much yet about Chemo Brain. I will… when I can remember what it was I was going to say.

I apologize again that it’s been so long.

Believe me when I say it grieves me that I cannot write more these days. There is much to tell. For so many people, blogging serves as some sort of therapy. It is no less for me.

As a dude with a poetic bent, writing is almost as primal as breathing. I do it to live.

Regardless of the medium, the act of writing is always a conversation - with myself, an audience, or God. And as such, I always come away with a deeper understanding of something.

These days of limited strength and mobility - especially in my hands - I miss it like a fish might miss the water.

I can only tap out about a sentence or two at a time. It is painful, and it wears me out.

So I cannot take the time to follow this worthy tangent any further. This makes me sad.

This past month has been a hard one. Released from the predictable routine of weekly chemo crashes and monthly prednisone hits, I anticipated a slow but progressive regaining of strength, and a gradual diminishing of the pain.

It has been anything but this.

I began regular trips to the Y therapy pool. I’m not exactly swimming. What I do is more like floating, but it is helpful nonetheless. I’ve been told this is what I need to do to get my joints and muscles working again.

I stretch and I breathe. I do arm circles. I’ve been doing this for an hour a day, four days a week, for three weeks now. Is that over doing it? Is that not enough? It’s really about all I can do if I still want to walk to my car when I’m done. My back is so stiff and swollen. And hot. And it hurts. Did I mention that it hurts?

If this is the pain I must push through to get stronger, to get better, so be it. Like the two weeks of conditioning practice at the beginning of the football season. Coach says it’s good for me, so I do it. Even though it feels like I’m breaking. If this is that, then I’m glad I’m getting better.

But I remember that kind of pain. And sometimes I’m not so sure this is it. This feels more like injury. Like a sunburn in the sun at eleven in the morning, with six hours of UV to go, and no shade or sunscreen in sight.

I have to ration my steps. Like I only have so many per day. One Saturday night we took the boys to the park. We walked too far one way and I barely made it back. Two days later I thought I was going to pull muscles in both ankles walking to the kitchen for Tylenol.

It is very hard doing life right now. I understand the process of healing from the cure can be a long one. My oncologist and friend said it may be August before I begin to feel significantly better. But both he and another doctor I recently saw shrugged their shoulders at the apparent worsening of my pain and the lessening of my strength.

It’s not just my back. It’s my shoulders, wrists, hip, legs, and neck. I get muscle cramps and spasms when I sit or stand for too long. All this while still on 24/7 narcotic pain meds.

So I began seeing a chiropractic doctor last week. Longtime friend and neighbor Joel Fugleberg is a doctor now. He’s got a clinic in Chanhassen and a home here in Bloomtown. I called him up on a Wednesday in a fog of pain, and asked him if he could take a look at my back.

My first adjustments were, plain and simple, out of this world. Two cracks in my neck released a rush of life down through my chest as though blood started flowing to the rest of my body for the first time in two years. Just incredible. And after a week of this, muscles around my spine have ditched some inflammation. I’ll be seeing him regularly now for the next several months, and look forward to describing all this in greater detail when I can.

I am simultaneously seeing a physical therapist who is not frowning upon my chiropractic affair. Rather, she seeks to works with what Joel is doing to rebuild strength, stamina, and proper function in my back and the rest of my body.

As to what exactly is wrong with my back (and subsequently the rest of my body), there is no one thing that can account for it all. We know I have spinal stenosis and several compressed and mildly herniated discs in my lumbar region. I have an abnormal curvature in my spine. A bone spur and several slightly pinched nerves in my neck. There’s an aberration in my left hip joint and minor osteopenia in my bones. And for years now, I’ve had seasonal inflammation around joints all over my body.

Major muscle groups in my trunk and limbs have either atrophied or stopped firing when or in the way that they’re supposed to.

How this is related to the cancer is loosely assumed. Except that I spent much time in bed these past two years. And when I was up and around, chronic fatigue didn’t allow me the liberty to spend extra calories on correct posture, so little muscles along my spine have been working overtime. My medical records show a cumulative height loss of at least half an inch (some as much as three-quarters) since I was initially admitted in May of 2005.

I am shorter now than I was in seventh grade.

So this is what we have to work with. I’ll say this briefly to end this entry on a positive (albeit staccato) final chord: I feel very cared for by the handful of health professionals that are contributing to my recovery right now (Naomi, Joel, Trisha, Randy, Roy, Lucy, etc…).

I am very appreciative of the fact that each of them recognizes and respects the worth of the other, acknowledging the intricate integration of each of their fields (massage, chiropractic, occupational, oncological, cranial-facial, dental). And that they understand collectively that health is multi-faceted and modern science is young.

It may take work on account of the patient to bring both alternative and widely accepted therapies to the same table, but it also takes willingness on the part of the practitioners to work together. I am in the care of such people.

My hands have done too much. This is the work of several days of writing. Again when I can I will post a lament about chemo brain, fatigue, toxins, finances, or the adverse effect of all these things on family life. In the meantime, please be praying for me and mine.

Still His,
Jeremy

PS. Thanks to those of you who let me know you’re out there. Some surprises, to be sure. I wish I had the time and all else to write a little something to each of you in return. I hope that this will suffice. Oddly, there are still at least another thousand regular readers who remain nameless to me. Perhaps this is something I must get used to. Regardless, warm welcome to all of you who find yourselves here from time to time.

PPS. Keep in prayer my good friends Kanoa Boroos and her husband, Jason. Kanoa was diagnosed last week with a brain tumor that is to be treated with 6 weeks of radiation. Her prognosis is good, but radiation is unpleasant, nonetheless. She currently has 35 staples in her skull and a beautiful head of hair. Not to mention a gracious spirit. God bless you, Kanoa.