I have good news and a broken bone (Cancer update 18 May)

I have good news and a broken bone. The two are not unrelated.

The good news, in fact great news, is that I had a PET scan yesterday with results delivered at 9 am this morning. The scan was to find out the latest with my various tumours, mainly the multiple metastases in the liver but not isolated to that organ. The report says in part:

There has been a dramatic response [to treatment] in the liver with near complete resolutions of most sites of disease. The previously evident large abnormality in segment 8 superiorly has almost completely resolved and there is mild persistence of activity at this site with SUVmax of 4.1 previously 10.3.

The report's conclusion reads in part:

 There has been a good response to treatment with resolution of almost all sites of disease.

Not bad, eh what? I don't think the language of 'miracle' is exactly fitting to this result, but Prof Clarke my oncologist was happy to agree with me that this result was right up the end of the bell curve. "The right end", he said, which is pretty hard to dispute really. Can we at least say that this is the work of God? I think so.

It is great news and, God willing, means I am well on the road to recovery. Or not; I don't think it's wise or prudent to make quick claims about what the future holds. Yet clearly it is an answer to the prayers of many. It is further evidence that our heavenly Father hears and answers such prayers and works according to his plans and purposes. I'm not yet healed, and treatment continues. But it is an extraordinary result and I hope that you will join me in continuing to pray and thanking God that he is daily at work in both good and evil circumstances.

OK, what about the broken bone, I hear you ask? The other day, actually six weeks ago I did a little jump whilst playing with some kids at church—so little (both the kids and the jump) that I don't think they noticed the jump or even that I was playing. But enough that there would be an 'ouch' moment that I wrote off as almost nothing. Six weeks later I thought hmm not getting better. So what went on?

Here is the answer, it's a part of what the PET scan revealed incidentally whilst the tumours were being checked out. The image below is not really the scan. It's a picture I found that looks similar to my scan, but in mirror image. The red bit in my scan, in mirror image, is the bit that was broken.

Yep, that old inferior pubic ramus up to its typical tricks. My small and scarcely noticeable jump resulted in a break, not unlike what happened to my friend years ago who broke his arm on the golf course executing a mildly average fairway drive. How does that even happen?

I can't speak for my friend's arm, except that there was some underlying weakness in the armbone that led to it snapping like a twig when he teed off. 

In my case, the likely cause of the break seems to have been an absence of cancer. Somehow, a tumour had begun to grow in this area, the right inferior pubic ramus, and eat away at the bone itself. Then, the cancer treatment had begun to do its thing, so destroying the cancer and leaving behind itself a weakened bone structure. Then when I jumped into the air (six weeks ago), that is the exact moment at which some might say 'That's one small step for a man...one giant leap for a man with a weakened inferior pubic ramus, leading to a break that will ultimately cure itself with a bit of care and rest.' Such a saying lacks poetry but it does get across the essential details of what is going on.

So that's where we're up to. Please join me in praising God for working in this way to this point. Please ask that healing would continue. And please be assured of the truth of those wonderful Bible verses, 1 Peter 5:6-7, which read 

Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.  

In the meantime, here is a recent performance of another fabulous Ralph Vaughan Williams anthem, 'Come Down O Love Divine', all about the Holy Spirit's power in our lives. Pray it with me! And enjoy the other music, as led by Ross Cobb.