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Catching Up: Much To Tell
The time is flying by lately and it's difficult to
comprehend that we're already a couple days into Spring when Daniel was
"just" diagnosed a week after New Year. My posts have been
getting farther apart as it's been a real challenge for me just to keep up with
everything lately. I may have bitten off more than I could chew ... or at
least right at the limit ... with my Genesis study, but it has also been a
wonderful experience for me and, in many ways, a kind of stress relief (or at
least distraction) of its own. Only 3 weeks left and I'm looking forward
to the end with somewhat mixed emotions. But I really need the breathing room.
This past Sunday was Daniel's Benefit Concert that our good friend Eric Phillippe of "The Worship Encounter" (or is it just "The Encounter"?) put together for us. Eric has been involved in the Christian music scene for many years now, and was able to pull together a free concert, featuring 3 Christian artists / bands at our church's "coffee house" in Daniel's honor. A box for donations was set out, and they raised over $1600 as a gift to our family for Daniel. You could have knocked us over with a feather. To all who gave something to our family in Daniel's honor, please accept our deepest, humblest, and most sincere thanks for your kindness and generosity.
I feel badly that I did not clarify before hand how any such gifts would be used, but please allow me to do so now. The primary purpose of the concert and the collection was always stated as being to help us with our medical bills. And believe me, they're coming in now. It took about a month and a half before we saw anything, but when the first pile arrived in the mail, it was ... sobering. I'd been watching our insurance website and had seen that, in the first month or so, over $100,000 had been submitted to our insurance by all the various doctors, hospitals, clinics, labs, etc. but only $60,000 of it had been paid by insurance. So far, only a relatively small portion of that has filtered through to us and we're waiting to see how it all pans out, but this is what Eric had in mind when he put the benefit together.
After much prayer and consideration, Andrea and I have decided to divide it up this way. 10% goes back to the Lord (of course). Another 10% will go directly toward something fun/ enjoyable for Daniel, and the rest will go directly toward his medical bills. If any of you who made donations to us prefer that your gift be used differently, or exclusively toward something specific (after a tithe of course. :) Please don't hesitate to contact me directly and let me know your preference.
The concert was wonderful.
It’s been a long time since my ears rang that long afterward, but it
took me back to my high school and college days … well … enough about
that! First up was Rick Richardson and
his worship team (including his wife Allison) who came down from Michigan
just to play for us. Rick, as well as
Eric, had both been in my old youth group way back in the day when I was Youth
Pastor for Lawrence United
Methodist Church. It’s been a great pleasure to watch them both
grow in their relationships to God and to use their musical talents for His
glory. It was humbling to have them come
and do this for us. Eric and his band
were next up, and lastly, “Under the Olive Trees” performed for us. The lead singer of the band, Thayne Maguire,
had also been a former student of mine when I taught at the various
incarnations of the Bible college at Horizon.
In fact, he was in my Genesis class, and it was he that invited me to
teach the course I’m doing right now, though in a different context. So there was a lot of memories and
“reunioning” going on Sunday night, and it was such a blessing to see these
guys serving like this. Eric is also putting
together at least one more such concert down in Franklin Indiana as well.
Unfortunately, due to the large crowd, Daniel wasn’t able to
attend. So he and I recorded a video
message that was played at the concert between the first two bands. The video is “public”, but I believe a
Facebook account is required (??)
You can also view some pictures that I took of the event here
(even if you don’t have a Facebook account.)
Daniel has been doing very well recently – physically
anyway. Since his last treatment for
osteoporosis, he’s been “a new kid” with much more energy - more than recently
anyway. He still tires quickly (after
about a year of essentially no exercise, he’s pretty badly out of shape for a
10 year old). But he’s back to building
lots of Legos, dressing in his costumes, and today, he even built a
pillow-fort; something I taught him to do many years ago, but I haven’t seen
him do for nearly a year. So that’s been
very encouraging. There has been a dark
side though in that he’s been struggling more with depression on occasion. It’s grown to the point that I actually
approached the Riley psychology department for help. Those of you who know me might be looking for
headlines about Hell freezing over about now, but rest assured, I’m just being
a good “engineer” (or maybe “battle strategist”) about this, and attacking the
problem from several different angles and looking for what’s most
effective. While I continue to work with
him directly from a more spiritual side, I was looking for more help with the
“practical” side of things – some hands-on type exercises to help him deal with
the stress of hospital visits and the negative thinking in which he gets caught
up. And they seem to be doing pretty
well at that. So I’m planning to give it
some time and see how it works out. If I’m not happy with it, I’ll pull the
plug and move on. I’ve gotten pretty good at that where doctors are concerned,
so you can imagine that any secular psychologist is only a heartbeat away from
being “let go”! Ha ha. Despite all this though, Daniel has been
improving and moving in the right directions I think. We struggle a bit with
getting him to eat enough, but that predates the leukemia. The more frequent bouts with nausea certainly
haven’t helped, but it’s been manageable.
Mom and Dad haven’t been quite so good of late. This past weekend, Andrea came down with some
kind of intestinal issue that has left her in a lot of pain. I won’t go into any more details, but she
could use your prayers. I believe it was
a mild case of food poisoning, but one of the doctors’ nurses thought it may be
a virus that’s been going around.
Doesn’t really matter at a practical level, it’s miserable to go
through. Today she’s been a bit better,
but she (wisely) decided that she shouldn’t take Daniel to his clinic
(chemotherapy) appointment this morning, which of course left me to do it. Now I actually really prefer to go to these
appointments with him anyway. It’s fun to see the doctors avoid me when I’m in
the clinic because they know they’ll be stuck for a half an hour answering
questions. Ha ha. But it’s been a real
struggle to keep up at work recently.
Although I’ve been able to get my full 40hrs in almost every week since
this started, it’s only been by working really long hours on the days I’m
there, and frankly, the exhaustion factor has been taking its toll on my memory
and efficiency. I feel like I’m getting
further behind and I’m NOT liking it. I
had taken the day off on Monday because Andrea was in such bad shape (and I was
feeling really out of it myself after the busy weekend), so I really didn’t
want to take another full day off in the same week. It was a relatively short day at the clinic
though and we were out of there before noon. We stopped at the food court in the downtown
mall (one of Daniel’s favorite places), and were home in another couple
hours. I’d fully intended to head back
to work, but was so tired I thought I’d take a 15 minute “power nap” before
heading in. I woke up 2 hrs later
feeling even more out of it than before.
I poked around on Facebook for awhile hoping I would snap out of it, but
just couldn’t focus. So I gave up and
just relaxed the rest of the afternoon & evening alternating sleeping and
vegetating in front of the computer. I
still feel like I could sleep for two days straight, but hoping the “day of
rest” today will pay off at least for the rest of the week.
Though we all thoroughly enjoyed the visitors and the
benefit concert this weekend – and I wouldn’t trade any of it for the world – I
feel like I haven’t actually had a weekend to myself in over 2 months. Last weekend, Daniel was checked into the
hospital and I spent Thurs, Fri, & Sat nights sleeping on a fold-out chair
in his room and planning my Bible study lessons on my laptop while he played
video games during the day, and so on it goes.
I’m not complaining, mind you! In fact, I’m REALLY grateful that most of
his unplanned hospital stays have occurred over the weekend so that there
hasn’t been as much impact to my work schedule.
I see that as a God-thing for sure.
But it is starting to catch up with me.
So I think we’re all recognizing that God is building character in us
through all this. For we are told:
And not only that, but
we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance;4 and perseverance, character;
and character, hope.5 Now
hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our
hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us. - Rom 5:3-4
So we look forward with eagerness and rejoicing to the eventual
revealing of what God is doing in and through all these things to advance His
kingdom and bring glory to Himself. We
rest daily in His promises, and I will close here with the one that has been the
greatest sea anchor for me in the midst of these storms. (The sailors out there
will know what a “sea anchor” is and why it fits better than a regular anchor
in this context. :)
And we know that all things work
together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according
to His purpose. – Rom 8:28
Grace and peace and many,
many thanks to all
- Tim -
