Celebrating a Major Milestone and God's Grace

Today we achieved a major milestone in Daniel's chemotherapy schedule. This afternoon, Andrea and Daniel went into Riley to receive the last 3 intramuscular injections of the last drug of the last division of the last intensive phase of chemotherapy.  We're a long way from being completely done with the chemo, but from here on out we'll be in what's called the "Maintenance" phase which, other than a few oral drugs, amounts to only one clinic visit a month.  All the really intensive stuff is now OVER!!!!  YIPPPEEEEEEE!!!!  :-D :-D :-D

Don't misunderstand me here, what remains is still not going to be easy.  We're in for more than 2-1/2 years of monthly visits, each one of which will include a spinal tap, a couple of IV chemo drugs, and ongoing oral meds including many rounds of steroids.  We're not out of the woods, but we do feel like we've just emerged from a very long, dark tunnel deep underground.  For that, we are VERY, very thankful!

Over the past couple of weeks, I've been trying to figure out how best to celebrate this major event.  I consider it to be the 2nd most important milestone of the whole chemo course (the 1st of course being the end of it all - which will probably be Monday 4/27/2015 Lord willing).  Unfortunately, most of what I came up with hasn't really worked out ... at least not yet.  Over the coming days & weeks we'll still likely include a few more activities and a gift or two in celebration of his achievement.  But for tonight, our celebration amounted to a (very) nice dinner for the 3 of us and a short awards ceremony.  I'd intended to have a nice gift for him, but as it turns out, he probably didn't really want what I was going to get him anyway (thank you Lord that they weren't in stock today!)

I told Daniel he could pick any restaurant he wanted tonight - "the sky's the limit".  Well he came pretty close to hitting that limit, but we thoroughly enjoyed the nice meal downtown.  We wandered around the mall for a bit and then came home and I was frantically trying to put together an award (that I spaced doing earlier) before he got too tired.  I didn't make it.  By the time I had it ready, Andrea informed me he'd just gone up to bed.  I had to actually drag him back downstairs to do my little ceremony.  He wasn't very happy with that, but he did enjoy what I did for him.

Because of his new-found love of military things, I chose to award him with a genuine Purple Heart medal.  Now before all the vets jump on me about this, let me state a few things up front.  First of all, yes it's legal, I checked.  Second, this is in NO WAY intended to detract from or in any way even compare to those who have earned this honor in service to our country. You have our undying respect and gratitude and IMO the possession of a chunk of medal is not what grants one entrance to the true Order Of The Purple Heart.  Because I knew (and explained it anyway) that Daniel would understand these things, and because he has most legitimately also been wounded (countless times in countless ways) in a very real battle for his own life, and because of his own love for military things, I chose this honor as most befitting what he has been through. I know that it will be cherished and respected for what it really means as well as what it means to him personally and, for me, I believe it's a fitting gift.

What it's really meant to illustrate is that this has very definitely been a war ... a war no 10 year old should ever have to fight ... yet here we are and so we must be victorious.  The enemy may be firing bullets, mortars, and artillery rounds at us, but there are SEVERAL very real enemies with every real weapons, and they are just as lethal to my son's life.  Our enemies are both physical (cancer), emotional (fear, depression, defeat) and spiritual (Satan and his host) and any one of them could (and have attempted to) take our son's life on several occasions.  He bears the scars in his body (surgeries, broken bones, no hair, more needle pricks than you can count), in his emotions, and in his spirit, but he continues to press on.  Sometimes I've literally had to carry him back from the "front lines", other times, he's pushed forward in his own strength and courage, but the battles have been relentless and multi-fronted for over 9 months now.

I've believed for a long time, that this war was not really about cancer. In fact, crazy as it may sound, I actually believe he was healed back in January when we went to visit Solomon Wickey (check the blog history if you missed that story back at the beginning).  But for whatever reason, God did not give me the all-clear to stop the chemotherapy at that time, nor has He since.  We've been in this for the long-haul, not for the cure (I believe we've already received that directly from the Lord), but for the scars.  As crazy as that may sound, we need the scars - we all do.  We don't learn, grow, toughen up, gain patience, endurance, or experience, by having an easy life.  No athlete wins the prize after spending years sitting on the couch.  It takes years of discipline, self-sacrifice, "pummeling" the body into submission (as Paul put it), and enough difficulty to build a drive to want to win.  Likewise, no soldier wins the battle without months of training, discipline, and having his "comforts" stripped away until he is molded into a fighting machine that follows orders without hesitation and reacts to danger with courage, training, a fighting spirit.

Am I saying I think God caused these events to come into our lives? Absolutely not.  Bad things happen for lots of reasons - all of which can be traced back to the presence of sin and evil in the creation at some point, but not because God made it that way.  So we never blame God for bad things.  But yes, God does allow "bad" things to come into our lives, within certain boundaries (e.g. 1 Cor 10:13), and always in accordance with a plan for both our and His greater good and glory (Rom 8:28) IF and only IF we have trusted our lives into His hands (no such promises exist for those who have not given their lives to Christ).

So without going any deeper into the theology lesson (my theology class at the Bible college begins in January! lol :), the point here is that we know we're here for the lessons God wants to teach us.  I personally believe that the outcome is assured - thought that is not to say God isn't still in charge or can't change things around if we're not "getting it".  But we're trying hard to learn / absorb / be molded by all that He brings our way.  The greatest tragedy for a Christian going through a trial is NOT that we had to go through it - but if we go through it and don't learn anything ... don't allow God to shape us and teach us, and build our character through the midst of it.

If Hannaniah, Azariah, and Mishael (more commonly known as Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego) had simply obeyed king Nebuchadnezzar, they could have avoided an absolutely awful trial. But then there would not have been a Daniel chapter 3 for us to read 2600 years later either. (Well OK, there would still be a 3rd chapter, but it would be about something else).  

So we continue to pray as best we can, and ask our prayer partners to join us this way also, not to pray for the trials to end before God's timing, but that we might get the most benefit out of them.  How awful it would be to go through all this and miss the lessons they were intended to teach us!!!

Ever so slowly, we are being changed in all this. We are learning to trust God; we are learning to "not sweat the small stuff", we are learning to trust that God really is in control of all things, at all times, in all ways. 

Our "near miss" this past Friday when Daniel & Andrea were in an auto accident was a good example of this.  They were driving north on our road and about to turn right into our drive way coming home from Daniel's chemo clinic appointment.  As she slowed (brake lights and turn signals all working and on), the driver behind her was both talking on the phone, and (he says) fishing for something in his pocket ... i.e. not watching the road.  By the time he looked up, Andrea was nearly stopped in front of him.  He swerved to the right shoulder and off the road narrowly avoiding rear-ending our car.  He'd have gone completely around her if she hadn't been turning into the driveway.  But as the car turned, he hit the right, front fender - just a couple feet in front of Daniel's door!  Damage was minor, no one was hurt, the car is still driveable, and it was clearly his fault.  I was really fearful that this would freak out Daniel - who always seems to be just a heartbeat away from succumbing to the constant stress in his life anyway.  But quite to the contrary, as Andrea wrote in her earlier entry, Daniel thought it was "really cool" to have been in "his first accident".  Really?  REALLY?!  Well, thank you Lord - I can't imagine any other source of that kind of reaction.  He enjoyed even more that the police officer that showed up was a K-9 unit and Daniel got to say hi to the dog and check out the SUV cruiser for awhile.

Further demonstrating that this was in God's hands from beginning to end, as they were pulling into the driveway in the first place, she was having to navigate around a delivery truck parked there.  For a week or two prior, my cousin in Tennessee had been emailing with me to arrange a gift to get to Daniel from a woman in her prayer group that had been praying for Daniel for some time.  She'd felt led to get Daniel a gift and we'd been going through the logistics of what kind of gift, shipping, timing, all that.  And both these completely unrelated chains of events came together in such a way that, one of the nicest gifts Daniel has ever received was there waiting for him to take his mind off this situation that COULD HAVE BEEN really bad within only split-second differences in timing or locations.  By the time I got home from work, they'd both forgotten completely about the accident and it's just been a non-issue for us entirely.  What an incredible "coincidence"! :-)  Of course not - God knew and has always known exactly what He was doing it and His timing is perfect in all things.  The more and the faster we all come to rely on that understanding, the better off and the better disciples we will be.

As always, thank you all for your continued prayers, thoughts, notes, comments, and gifts.  

I added a couple pictures to the CaringBridge album - one of the damage to the car, and the other of Daniel receiving his purple heart. For more pics of each, visit our Facebook Album at the links below.

Grace and Peace,

- Tim -

Accident damage Pics:  https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151256007479913.517334.665739912&type=1&l=71b484b088

Purple Heart Award Pics: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151256015774913.517335.665739912&type=1&l=12e373849b 

Follow us on CaringBridge at http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/danieljmiller

Remembering September 11, 2001

On Sept 11, 2001, I was on a business trip to Patuxent River Naval Air Station near Washington DC. We'd flown into DC and driven the 50-60 miles south to PAX with several team members in 2 cars. We were well into the day's meetings when the highest ranking officers (Navy captains) were called out of the meetings briefly after the first plane hit.  There were a few whispers about what had happened but we didn't hear much.  We were shocked at the tragedy of what was being circulated, but didn't think too much about it.  I remember being instantly reminded of the B-25 that hit the Empire State Building in heavy fog in the 40s, but this was a perfectly clear day.  Very strange.  The meeting continued.  Then there was a bigger commotion and the officers were pulled out again.  The meeting was halted for 15 minutes, and we all gathered around an officer with a laptop and internet connection to see what CNN had to say.  Reports were sketchy and conflicting, but the 2nd plane had hit the 2nd tower.  Someone had captured the event on video and they it was being played over and over and over and over ...

I walked outside and made a cell phone call back to the guys at the office to see if they had any more / better news as to what was happening.  They were gathered in the conference room watching it on TV, but didn't know any more than we did.  Then I tried calling Andrea ... too late.  Seems everyone had the same idea and suddenly the cellular system was maxed out and nobody was getting any calls through.  I tried for quite awhile, but no-go.  I felt terrible that my first call hadn't been to her and of course she's never let me forget it!!

At some point in all this caos - (memory's getting a bit foggy on the particulars), the 3rd plane hit the Pentagon.  It's difficult to describe the atmosphere and the cascade of events that occurred at that point, but I can say that it was a pretty awesome thing to be on a Navy Base the moment our nation realized we'd been attacked and were now at war.  All hell broke loose around the base.  The meetings ended abruptly and we were given a phone number to call in the morning that would inform us as to whether the meetings would continue the following day.  Then the entire base went on security lock-down.  There were Marines with machine guns everywhere and I was really thankful that our meeting had actually been off-base across the street from the main entrance.  Nobody was getting on or off the base without a full search of their car (dogs, mirrors, everything) and the line was already enormous with people coming an going.

Within our own little group, it quickly became apparent that our own leadership wasn't handling the crisis well and wasn't going to be providing leadership anytime soon.  I was sharing a rental car with another person and so we got together to decide what we were going to do.  My first instinct was to go fill the rental car with gas and buy some non-perishable food items from the local grocery store having no idea what would happen over the next few days.  All flights had been grounded within minutes of the Pentagon attack and the airports were shut down indefinitely.  It was pretty clear we weren't going to be flying back any time soon.  I called the rental agency and was informed that they had waived the usual "one-way" fees and we could drop the cars off anywhere in the country due to the circumstances.

Andrea was around 4 mos pregnant with Daniel at the time and was in an absolute panic back home. She knew only that I was on a trip to DC for a military program meeting. She wasn't even sure whether I was in the Pentagon when it was hit, and now all the lines were locked up well into the late afternoon.  Eventually though, I was finally able to get a land-line call though and she was more than a little relieved.  We spent the evening glued to the TV in our hotel rooms.  It's difficult to describe the boiling mix of uncertainty, fear, frustration, and helplessness we all were feeling ... indeed the entire country was feeling.  You could sense it, see it, hear it everywhere.  It seemed like EVERYTHING came to a halt and people just clung to their TVs & radios for news.  Unfortunately, there wasn't much of it.  I felt somewhat sorry for the news anchors who clearly had no script, no new news, and no clue what was happening.  So they just kept restating what everyone already knew.  Eventually they all started speculating - which was extremely unhelpful - but probably unavoidable too.  Later the reports and pictures of all 4 crashes were coming in - eyewitness accounts, amateur videos & pictures, and then even 1st person accounts from downtown New York and Virginia.

Then, as the entire nation watched on TV ... live in many cases ... the first tower collapsed.  It just started at near the top, and like a deflating airbag, just rolled down on itself from top to bottom spewing an enormous pile of brown dust and ash.  People screamed and ran, and soon most cameras were blotted out by the dust cloud. You could no longer see anything except from extreme long shots where the top of only one tower remained poking above the huge, billowing cloud of dust.  We couldn't believe what we were seeing. It was just gone.  Were there still people in there?  Yes.  Lots.  Only moments before, we'd been watching video of them jumping out of windows to their deaths because they were trapped by the fire.  I'm sure I wasn't the only one trying to, and trying not to, imagine what they must have gone through in those last moments.  How many were there?

Suddenly, the news crews came alive again screaming, expressing their shock, replaying, going for eye-witnesses.  People were speculating and worrying about whether the fall, shock, debris, etc. from the first tower might have weakened the second tower.  They were discussing whether to evacuate emergency crews and how to get engineers there to assess the damage to the other tower ... and then it went as well.  Like an instant replay, it went in nearly identical fashion to the first.  Again, the dust boiled, the cloud thickened, and the streets of Manhattan went dark beneath the cloud.  The live news feeds showed men and women in business suits that were shredded, some covered in blood, all caked in dust and trying to breathe through shirts or jackets to filter the choking dust.  Emergency crews were few and far between being unimaginably overloaded with the magnitude of what was happening, the lack of communication (much less coordination) and now, the loss of huge numbers of their own crews.  Firefighters, emergency crews, and rescue workers were on their way from neighboring towns, counties, and even from most of the rest of the United States, but it would be hours, days, even weeks before any kind of organization could be brought to the huge numbers of people that began pouring in to help.

It was late into the evening before I could bring myself to turn off the TV, wipe the tears away, and try to get some rest.  Tomorrow would be a long day.  But I did sleep ... a little.

Brenda (my rental-car buddy) and I left the next morning after breakfast with our team.  I happened to have a laptop with a map program and a GPS with me that we used to navigate the rental car all the way back to Indiana.   I chose a route through the deep backwoods of West Virginia to avoid having to go back through the DC area fearing horrible traffic. (It turned out it wouldn't have been that bad, but accurate information about ANYTHING was extremely scarce at the time and we didn't want to get anywhere near D.C.).

We were home surprisingly early and traffic wasn't nearly as bad as we'd worried about.  Andrea and my family was extremely relieved and all wanted to hear the tales of our adventure.  The entire nation was in shock for weeks / months and we all stayed glued to the TV as events & information unfolded.

Almost immediately an enormous ground swell of both patriotism and crying out to God took place that swept the nation and was apparent EVERYWHERE.  Flags were hung from overpasses and flown from vehicles, prayer meetings were being held everywhere, and even newscasters were using the word "GOD" in public (of all things) - covering church services and prayer meetings. It was an amazing and, in some ways, wonderful time in that regard.  The liberal, anti-Christian yahoos were strangely silent.  They probably felt they would be putting their lives in danger to attempt to speak out about the public displays of Christianity. (And I'm pretty sure they were right!)  The nation was crying out to God, showing a completely non-partisan unity, and the most amazing display of patriotism I've seen apart from how the history books depict what things were like during WW-II.  Americans took pride in being Americans, again and as the shock and horror turned to resolve, they wanted to know who was responsible.  And about 40 million rednecks with guns were ready to go to war on a moment's notice if anyone would have just said, "jump"!  And it was wonderful!  The daily displays of patriotism, Christianity, and unity were nothing short of amazing.  Yet over all of it hung the shock and dark heaviness of what had happened ... and the uncertainty of what would be happening next.

Over the next few weeks, reports were solidifying about how many people were actually lost ... thousands. How could that be possible?!  How were the towers not evacuated - at least below the fires - in all that time?  But it would be months, even years for all those details to be sorted out.  The event was compared to Pearl Harbor early on, but no one thought it could have been THAT bad (in terms of casualties).  But soon it was realized ... it was worse.  But the worse the news got, the more the country pulled together.  Certain images began to circulate that brought people together.  The "cross" that appeared in the rubble formed by girders; the 3 firefighters raising the flag over what came to be known as "ground zero"; and of course the skyline with the towers still standing.

Despite the way most people seem to want to remember President G. W. Bush, this was his shining moment. He stepped up to the plate, demonstrated true leadership, and spoke some great words during those dark days.  He and New York Major Rudy Giulianni were instantly on-the-ground and in the middle of what was going on.  They were THERE. They brought leadership, hope, strength, courage, resolve, and FAITH to the nation and the nation responded in unity and strength to the president's leadership.

I shudder to think how different it would have been if our current administration had been in power at the time.  Bush did a great job in an impossible situation and the nation LOVED him for it ... for quite awhile. It's a shame how quickly most have forgotten that.  And it's shameful how the subsequent administration has failed to recognize those achievements and the context in which many decisions that have since become unpopular were made.  The public in general has always been fickle and fame, as they say, is fleeting.  But I remember when Bush was at his most popular - and in my opinion, he deserved every moment of it.  Not many men, much less presidents, are handed such a moment ... such a test of character ... when nothing artificial will do - when the whole WORLD looks to you - some out of desperation, some for organization, some just to see what you're made of.  The white-hot, penetrating, soul-revealing glare of the eye's of the entire world turning to you and waiting to see what you'll do and what you'll say.  THAT's when everyone finds out what you're made of - and no amount of politics, or slick speech writing, or posturing, or blame-shifting will cover for a lack of actual character in that man to whom everyone looks for what they need in that moment.  And George W. Bush came through.  That is what I remember most about his presidency. And whether that is your most memorable thought about him or not, it is something that you should not forget.  His leadership brought loyalty from his citizens, respect from his allies, and fear from his enemies during that time.  And that is impressive no matter how you cut it.

Air travel was grounded for a LONG time (don't recall exactly), and it was extremely hard on the nation and really has never recovered.  The impact to the airline industry was horrendous and several major airlines went under - even after "government bail out" attempts.  The restrictions, procedures, and new regulations that flooded into the air travel industry were extreme and, in my opinion, largely ridiculous ... still are.  Up to that point, I'd been flying for business about twice a month and really loved it.  I've never enjoyed flying commercial airlines again since.  The airline industry could certainly have handled the necessary changes to prevent similar tragedies in the future, but the "take over" by the newly created "Office of Homeland Security" - which I personally consider to be president Bush's greatest (though also most understandable) mistake - has left nothing but scars, failed businesses, overburdensome regulations, and massive unnecessary expenses in its wake.  But I digress.

Eleven Years has seen a lot of water go over the dam. And our nation today seems to be to have made it to the complete opposite end of the spectrum during that brief time.  We are more divided than I ever remember, we are less patriotic, more skeptical of our place in the world, and certainly more anti-God and anti-Christian than at any time I've even read about much less experienced.  We've lost our way, lost our resolve, and lost our respect for God.  I attribute this almost entirely to a complete lack of leadership or, worse, leadership in the wrong direction.  What a difference a decade can make.  If you'd have described to me the state of our nation in 2012 from back in 2002, I'd have never believed it.

I hope this day, September 11, 2012, we all will remember what it was like ten years ago when we were proud to be Americans, proud to state that we were a nation UNDER GOD, and proud of our leadership, and that it will provide us with some guidance - at least a vision - of where and what we can be again.  Americans have always been at their best when responding to a challenge.  I wouldn't wish for crisis / tragedy / challenges to come upon our country, but boy could we use one about now.

- Tim -

A Second Battle for the Same Town

Mirror post at: http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/danieljmiller/journal

In World War-II, my Uncle Bob Slater was a member of the 94th Infantry Division, 302d, of Gen. George Patton's 3rd Army.  Shortly after the Battle of the Bulge ended, they were fighting hard in an area known as the Siegfied Line and every town was a really tough fight.  One town in particular I'm especially familiar with for reasons I'll come to later. It was the tiny town of Sinz near the German, France, Luxembourg borders.  It was a terrible battle and many men were killed, many more wounded during the fight.  But they took the town.

Within hours, they were informed that the armored company that had supported them was being detached (pulled out) for another engagement.  They knew they could not hold the town without the armor and had to retreat only to be faced with taking the exact same town again later ... at the expense of more lives of course.  They did take the town again and continued to push forward into Germany until the war was won only 4 months later.

Why do I go into all this on Daniel's page?  Because tomorrow (Wed 9/4/12) it feels like we're going into battle to take the same town for the second time.  Last week, we thought it would be the biggest of the battles we faced during this last intensive phase of his chemotherapy.  Unfortunately, because Daniel forgot he wasn't supposed to eat after midnight the night before, and his parents didn't realize the mistake, we had to postpone the worst part of the scheduled treatments ... the spinal tap.  Rather than pushing it back to late afternoon the same day, they just postponed the spinal a week since we were due to be back in the clinic anyway.  Even more unfortunately, this put the spinal on the same day as the first round of his shots piling up two of Daniel's most dreaded treatments.

If you've followed us through the beginning of this phase, you may recall that he had to endure six different treatments of 3 injections each, spaced 2 days apart.  I won't go back through the "whys" here, but suffice it to say, with Daniel's hatred of needles, he had a really tough time dealing with this treatment.  His other arch-nemesis is the spinal tap.  He has to be put under for this and recent experiences have left him much more nauseated and with a sore back than they did originally.  So while he was quite happy to postpone the spinal last week, here we are again staring at the same battle for the second time.  Only this time, we're also got a regular chemo IV plus the dreaded leg injections all piled together.  It's like taking the same town again, but this time they know we're coming!

He started struggling with anxiety on Sunday and had it even worse last night.  So far, some discussions about courage, spiritual armor, God's peace, and taking our thoughts "captive" have been able to turn things around for him. But I'm not looking forward to tonight as the evening wears on.

Tomorrow, if the battle goes as planned, we'll be through yet another spinal (only 23 more scheduled), another infusion of this drug (24 more scheduled), and the first of 6 sets of injections over the next week and a half (15 more injections).  It'll be a tough battle over the next 24 hours - in some ways, the actual procedures will be easier than the waiting period ahead of time.

I'm reminded of a line from the movie "The Lord Of The Rings" by the Hobbit named Pippin when he said, "I don't want to be in a battle, but waiting on the edge of one I can't escape is even worse."  I'm sure Daniel would agree!

I'm familiar with the first Battle for Sinz, on Jan 26th, 1945 because in it, my uncle Bob was mortally wounded, dying a week later at a field hospital.  It was tragic to learn that all the ground they'd won in the battle that claimed his life was lost again just a day later, yet ultimately I know his sacrifice was not in vain and the war was won. You can read a little bit about the battle here: http://www.angelfire.com/va2/worldwar2family/freddie4.html Scroll down to the entry titled: "SINZ: The Lynchpin". 

So too shall our war be won with Faith, Fortitude, Courage, and Perseverance.  Making advances against the enemy is never entirely in vain - even if we suffer the occasional set back.  It's not the ground we cover, it's the victories we win.  And if we win two victories for every loss on the same ground, we're still winning and still moving forward overall.

Thank you all for your continued prayers, support, and all the wonderful comments.  Rest assured we feel and appreciate every one (both prayers and comments ... but especially the prayers. :)  

For our prayer partners, the above text should provide plenty of prayer requests without my listing them again here.  Again ... THANK YOU. and may God bless each of you.

- Tim, Andrea, & Daniel -

Please also continue to pray for our friends The Kellers and their son Joey.  Read their updates here: http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/joeykeller