Say Hi to Jesus For Me, children with cancer, chemotherapy, tumors

"Say Hi to Jesus For Me": Chapter 8

"We have run out of all the known agents that have any effect in cases like Todd’s. But we do have one drug left that we’d like to try. It has been used for leukemia, but never with solid tumors. It has the advantage of being in tablet form, so we wouldn’t have to inject it into the bloodstream."

We decided to try it. The doctor told us to give Todd three tablets each morning. But when we had the prescription filled, the instructions read: "One tablet in the morning." We thought we had misunderstood the doctor. So for a week, Todd forced one pill down every morning.

But at our next clinic visit the X rays harbored bad news. The tumors in his lungs had spread a great deal. He had one large one and four or more small ones. The large one was about the size of a fist. They were growing at a fast rate.

Dr. Nelson told us there was no more hope. Obviously the drug had not worked, and there were no more to try. He suggested we take Todd home and keep him as comfortable as we could.

Later we learned that Dr. Nelson was crying as he left us.

The news was devastating - - - yet all I could think was, "Praise God from whom all blessings flow".

We had met some parents who had taken their little daughter home to die. The mother had learned to give injections. I wanted to learn to give injections so we could keep Todd at home to the end. I thought it might be nicer that way, but Dutch didn’t: "I can’t think of anything nice about it!"

Then we discovered the mistaken dosage. Dr. Nelson thought we should try again, using the correct dosage, just so we would never look back and say, "What if _ _?"

Our friends at church organized a 24-hour prayer vigil. On September 28, people stopped during the day and got up at all hours of the night to join in prayer for Todd. We felt enfolded by the love of God that day, and we were comforted, knowing someone was praying every moment.

A letter to Dutch’s parents tells what happened:

It’s hard to put into words all of what we are learning and experiencing. When they prayed for Todd that whole day, it completely changed the congregation. One woman told me today that the Lord is drawing everyone together, using Todd as the link. When we walk down the aisle now on Sundays, it’s as if we had come to a family thanksgiving gathering. You can feel the lover of the people, not only for us, but for each other.

I know the Lord is using Todd for his glory. Many people have re-evaluated their lives and their relationship to God because of what we are going through. Everyone woke up; they have been touched where they hurt too and they can see firsthand how the Lord gives us strength. If Todd’s suffering will result in just one person drawn to the Lord and helped, it will be worth it.

I’ve been talking to Todd about completely turning his life over to Jesus and following his leading. He wants to know if many other people have done that and if we’re going to do it. I told him that when he is ready all he has to do is pray about it the same way he did when he asked Jesus into his heart. He thinks about death and going to heaven a lot - - not with fear, but with confidence. He is just curious what it is going to be like.

On Sunday after Dr. Nelson had told us to take Todd home, Pastor Roufs anointed Todd with oil during both serviced and the congregation joined with us again in prayer for Todd according to the admonition in James 5:14-15.

Our faith was very small that day. "O God, I believe, help thou my unbelief." But the people of the church joined their faith to ours. We felt the love of God through His body, the church. They felt compassion and they opened their hearts and prayed for us.

It was as if we could reach out and touch the love that was flowing to us from the people. They were crying for us and with us, praying for us and giving of their inner selves. We were no longer strangers. Now we were one family, one body. One member of the body hurt, and the other members rushed to its aid.

If Todd could walk, he was in church. We heard that his being there was an inspiration to other children. They said, "If Todd can make it to church, then so can I". Todd listened to the sermons and turned to the songs, singing along when he could. As the tumors grew in his lungs, he no longer had breath enough to sing.

Going up to the altar with us when we received communion, the children were blessed by the laying on of hands. This was an act of worship for Todd. Sometimes he would stand next to the pastor after the service and shake hands with people as they left.

At Todd’s first clinic visit since we’d corrected the dosage of his medicine, we went through the usual routine. First came the blood test at the lab. By now the technicians had come to know Todd. They were good at their jobs and seemed to be able to find veins even better than the doctors. Todd fought them at first, but gradually he learned to trust them. He wouldn’t scream and kick, but he played endless games and tricks on them before finally settling down for the procedure.

After the blood test, came a visit to the X-ray department so the doctors could check the rate of growth of the tumors. The X-rays didn’t hurt, so Todd relaxed. Here he had friends, and when he felt good he would joke and giggle with the nurses.

Next we usually went to the cafeteria for lunch or stopped by the hospital to say hi to the nurses and doctors and to the other kids and their parents. My standard questions to the nurses were: "Who is here? How is _ _?"

At 12:45 we would sign up in the clinic and wait for the nurse to call Todd into the prep room to take his temperature and weigh and measure him. The wait then continued until the doctors arrived. That was the routine.

So it was that day. We were still waiting for a room. Todd was running around the halls, giggling and laughing and playing tricks on the nurses. At one point he crawled under a nurse’s cart to hide.

The doctors arrived, took one look at Todd, and left again.

Later they told us that when they saw Todd running around they knew something must have happened and they wanted to see the X-rays. So they hurried back down to the X-ray department before even seeing Todd.

The tumors had shrunk considerably! It was a miracle!

The next week the doctor told us that another doctor from radiology had called him and asked what treatment they were using, because he had never seen anything like it. "Whatever you’re doing, don’t quit!" We were elated.

The tumors steadily receded. When we got home Monday evenings after clinic, the phone would start ringing, with people asking, "How much did the tumors go down?" The answer was better each time: 50%, 60%---then 90%!

One day the doctor from radiology asked to see me urgently. He banged the X-rays into the visor to show me the "before and after". At least five tumors had been reduced to one-tenth of their original size. Praise God!

And we were praising God. I seemed to have a compulsion to proclaim the miracle. I felt I was denying Him if I let any occasion go by without telling what God had done for us.

One day, when I was on the phone, telling for the umpteenth time how much the tumors had shrunk and that the doctors said it was a miracle, Dutch said, "You’re going to scream if you have to tell it one more time. Let it be."

"What do you mean? God performed a miracle! We have to tell!"

But then I realized how weary I was. Satan had turned our joy into a burden. After that I relaxed. My compulsion to tell was replaced with quietness. I knew God would provide the opportunity when He wanted the story told.

Todd, too had been busy proclaiming his miracle. He called in to a Christian radio station and a program host spoke with him on the air. Here is part of their conversation:

Host: Todd here---he was a pretty sick boy. He had tumors all through his insides. His grandmother wrote me over here at the radio station about six months ago and mentioned about Todd and sent a picture along, and we began to pray for him and a lot of the people listening I’m sure were praying. And I think we got a phone call one day, too, and we realized that you were in the hospital there. And I decided to come over and see you and there you were. And we’ve been good friends ever since then. Right, Todd?

Todd: Right.

Host: And can you tell the people some of the things that happened since then? You’re not so sick anymore. Right?

Todd: No.

Host: What Happened?

Todd: It started out with a tumor wrapped around one of my kidneys. And we took that kidney out. And then there was some wrapped around my spine. That was the second surgery I had.

Host: Aha. And so they took some of those tumors out, right?

Todd: Right.

Host: What happened to the rest of them?

Todd: The rest? One of them went all the way down and one is almost gone and we don’t know about the rest.

Host: But some of these tumors are going away. And nobody’s operated on them or anything?

Todd: No.

Host: That’s fantastic. And I know you’re pretty happy about it. `Cause you’ve been going to school since then, haven’t you?

Todd: Yeah.

Host: What grade are you in?

Todd: Second.

Host: Second. That’s really good. Hey, I want to ask you this.

Todd: Yeah?

Host: Do you love Jesus?

Todd: Yeah.

Host: Why?

Todd: Because He healed me and He gave us everything.

Host: Are you looking forward to seeing Jesus pretty soon?

Todd: Yeah.

Host: Hey, Todd, I appreciate your sharing a little bit with us today of what’s happened to you. And we’re just going to keep on praying that the Lord continues to do this healing process. You want to say anything for the people?

Todd: Since you helped pray for me, just call me and I’ll pray for you.

Host: Sounds fair enough. Thanks, Todd. God bless you.

At the hospital, when we described our miracle to other parents, I sensed a wall go up between us. We had seen that wall in different stages of construction in front of most parents at the hospital. We were even busy erecting one ourselves. It was made up of: "You don’t understand! You’re not going through what I’m going through. Where do you come off giving me advice? You don’t hurt like I hurt. My cross is heavier than yours".

Some did rejoice with us over Todd’s apparent recovery, but I could see the pain the others felt over their own loss. It seemed that while Todd was getting worse I could speak with authority to other mothers about God’s help in trouble. I knew what they were going through. But when Todd was better, there was that wall.

One of Todd’s friends at the hospital was close to death. We stopped in often to ask how he was.

We had bought a series of colorful pictures showing Jesus during His ministry. The one that impressed Todd most showed Lazarus as he walked from his tomb. Todd wrote alongside the picture: "This is when God changed His mind". He delivered the picture to his friend’s mother to encourage her that God might change His mind about taking her son.

Then one day the nurses told me the boy had died. I didn’t tell Todd. He had prayed that Jesus would change His mind, and now I didn’t know what to say to him.

Then following Friday he had to go in for a blood test. My brother took him, and afterward they went visiting. Todd didn’t talk much all day, but that night he asked, "Mom, did Gregg die?"

"Yes, son, he did."

"I thought so," he said. "When I was up there today someone else was in his room _ _ _ Mom, if you leave your body here when you go to heaven, how do people know that you’re gone? Do you take your bones with you? How about your heart?" He giggled. "If you get a new body in heaven and you take your old heart, then you would have two hearts---one for Jesus to come into and one for God to come into." He thought that was neat. "Mom, if you don’t take your eyes with you to heaven, then how are you going to see Jesus?"

We had many more talks about heaven. He felt that my mother should come with him. "Hold up your hands next to mine," he said to her. "Let me see if they got any smaller yet. You’re going to have to hurry up and shrink if you’re going to go to heaven with me."

In his Bible was a picture of Jesus and some children playing near water. "Goody! There’s going to be a beach in heaven!"

Todd loved to go to Forest Lawn Cemetery, to see all the statues and to watch the presentation of the crucifixion and resurrection paintings. My mother took the kids as often as she could. They would start off by the little lake with ducks, then go to Babyland and embrace the statue of a baby with outstretched arms. They would look up to the statue of Christ in awe.

More and more I started wondering about the time "after"---if Todd was going to die. Even though we never talked about it, I assumed he would be buried at Forest Lawn. The cemetery is situated on a hill, visible from all over our area. I wondered how I would be able to stand the sight of it, knowing my son was buried there.

On our next clinic visit, the nurse and psychiatrist called me out of the waiting room into an office. I half expected them to question me about Todd’s healing. But the little conference was not about our miracle. They told me our beloved Dr. Nelson had suffered a stroke. He had not regained consciousness, and the situation looked grave. I was so sorry, but I had no doubt that he would recover. It seemed ironic that the last time I talked to him he was crying because he thought Todd only had two weeks left to live.

I knew from previous talks with other parents that a change in physician posed a great threat to them. They placed all their trust in a person: the doctor. Now, even if Dr. Nelson recovered, it would be some time before he would be seeing patients again, so we had to be assigned to a new doctor. But we had placed Todd in God’s hands, not the doctor’s. Dr. Nelson was one of the best. But just as we would pray for wisdom for Dr. Nelson, so we would pray for wisdom for whatever doctor the assigned to us. Todd took the news quite well and started praying for Dr. Nelson.

The news spread through the hospital. "Did you hear about Dr. Nelson?" There was shock. Everyone was confronted with the fact that doctors get sick and die too. We had built them up almost as gods.

A few days later Dr. Nelson passed away. Only 42 years old, he had been one of the pioneers of chemotherapy. He was our ally in the battle against cancer, and our friend.

I thought we had become quite callused against death and dying. We were confronted with it so much that it had become part of our lives. But we grieved for the loss of Dr. Nelson, and gratefully remembered the times of fellowship we’d had with him.