My Journey, My Testimony

Originally posted on Facebook on 6-11-19 facebook.com/kenhorn1a I have needed to post a health update for some time. Below is a far more detailed report than I had planned, but I have something to publicly thank God for, and I want you to know what He has done for me. If you want to cut through the verbosity, just scroll down and start reading near the end. (It was really my intent to write one short paragraph, but the following just flowed out.) Anyone who has seen me recently or who even has talked to me on the phone knows I am making a comeback. From my first failed surgery in Oct. 2015 and two following surgical attempts to correct it, which also failed in significant measure, I was left physically hampered, emotionally drained, and on full-time major pain management. Then my wife found me passed out on the couch one afternoon, laptop on my lap. She was unable to wake me. An ambulance ride I do not remember began a period of months of tests to find out why certain of my systemic indicators had gone ballistic. No answers came until about half a year into this, cancer was discovered in my bone marrow. I was diagnosed with a rare type of non-Hodgkin lymphoma known as WM (I won’t trouble you with the lengthy, hard-to-pronounce name)—an incurable disease (according to medical science) only 6 in every million people contract. So it has not been studied much. Soon I needed far more pain management, including more frequent injections, for the increasing—and often crippling—bone pain. After I began on the specified chemo treatment, I had significant side effects, but it wasn’t clear if it was from chemo or the cancer. My oncologist was reading up on it, and I was getting a second opinion from a reliable source. My ability to eat normal food was compromised. My weight plummeted. I lost most of my muscle. For some strange reason, in the midst of all this, but before I was diagnosed with cancer, I filled in at a church in Springfield as interim pastor and was stunned a few months later when Grace Assembly asked Peggy and me to take the church as permanent pastor. (I have long suspected that every church that ever voted me in as pastor—4 of them in three states—did so because of Peggy. She is the consummate pastor’s wife—makes me look good, cleans up my messes, brings joy wherever she goes. I am under no illusion here. I think I am able to preach a decent expository or topical message, but my real redeeming value has been that Peggy comes in the package with me.) I missed services sporadically even before cancer treatment began, then I missed weeks at a time. When I did preach I often had to sit to make it through it. I often had to be helped to my car after services. After a Sunday morning of ministry, it was difficult for me to make it back for an evening service (yes, some churches still have those). Frequently I had to get last-minute fill-ins to preach. We were always open with our congregation and discussed with them a number of times the need for us to leave so they could have a stronger, more engaged pastor. The church would not let us go. We felt bad each time we relented, but something remarkable happened. People in the church stepped up in a big way. God sent a wonderful couple to teach Weds. nights. I took two lengthy leaves of absence for intravenous treatments … and they still wanted me back. Each time I came back, everything seemed to be running better than when I had left. People talked about our example in walking through difficulty but continuing to minister. But I felt nothing like a giant of faith. Peggy knew my struggles and the difficulty it was for me to get ready for each service. And she saw me go through deep, dark, lengthy depression … and minister between—or during—those dark times. I guess I hadn’t realized how much of the old me had been sucked out over time. Not until recently, when I started bouncing back. If God could use me in the shape I was in, I believe he could use anybody, no matter how beat up, torn down, depressed or on the edge of giving up. There have been people fighting for me in prayer throughout this ordeal. Oh, what it means to know there are people who are willing to help bear your burden (Gal. 6:2). That’s what it means to be a believer in Christ … it’s “the law of Christ.” I wouldn’t have gotten this far without all the folks, some who don’t even know me personally, who have lifted my burden on their knees. So what happened? Have I been healed? No … not completely … yet. In early April I had my last surgery. I had to go off of my oral chemo for a couple of weeks before and after the surgery. When it was time for me to start taking it again, I held it in my hand, and just couldn’t take it. The longer I stayed off it, the better I felt. But my key numbers were heading in the wrong direction. Still, I couldn’t bring myself to go back on the oral chemo. There was faith involved, but I confess, I mostly figured it was worth the trade-off. As I felt better physically, I worried about those climbing numbers. Then two things happened: God opened a door and adjusted the course of nature. The open door. I got in to see one of the very few experts in WM in the nation, head of his department at Siteman Cancer Center in St. Louis (Barnes Jewish Hospital), professor at Washington U. School of Medicine, involved in research to find new treatments for lymphoma patients. This came out of nowhere, a surprise when I got in to see him, then he offered to take on my primary cancer care. Yes, he’s a doctor, and God can heal without doctors. But He can also use them. God opened this door to the oncologist most qualified for my case. Then there came the more extraordinary occurrence. Waiting for my next test reading. It had been climbing the whole time I had kept myself off of chemo. My new doc was poised and ready to begin a newer, promising form of intravenous chemo. We were nervous to get my number, knowing that it could hit the point where he would want to begin this process right away—6 months in all. Then a memorable night. I suddenly heard Peggy shouting at the top of her lungs, “Praise the Lord! Thank you, Jesus! Hallelujah!” She had been regularly checking my online cancer records chart, because results appear there before your doctor gives them to you. The only question we had been waiting to have answered was, how high did that number climb? Then Peggy told me, “It went down! It went down!” Not supposed to do that. So why do I keep feeling better every day? Because my doctor put me on watch and wait. That’s right. I’m not taking anything for my WM. He says my body is detoxing. I’m becoming the old me again (which is not 100% a good thing, but mostly). I can feel myself coming out of the fog. I am able to do more—cautiously. Peggy is here to remind me of that. IF the time comes, I will trust God through the next step of chemo. We have confidence in the doc he gave me. But we are also prepared for that to never happen. I hope, if you have read this far, you know that I have made no attempt to paint myself a spiritual giant. I crumbled often in the midst of this. All the glory goes to God. He has held me together—it feels like with duct-tape and bailing wire—for the three-and-a-half years of this journey. As have the great folks of Grace Assembly, many friends, many Facebook friends and prayer warriors who don’t know me. Many of you reading this played a role in getting me this far. (There have been so many, I have intentionally not listed any names here.) God is strengthening me a little more each day, Peggy is watching me to make sure I don’t try to do too much. And I have a doc (provided by God) with whom we have immense confidence. All glory to my wonderful, precious Savior. As Peggy said that memorable night, and I quote, “Thank you, Jesus!”