Disappointments That Became Blessings: Trusting God in the Unexpected

When we first found out I had metastasized, stage four bone cancer in my bones, liver, and lungs, we cried for much of the next two days. The elders of our church anointed me with oil (James 5:14-15) and we prayed and trusted the Lord, but it was still a shock. Months later they diagnosed the cancer as one with no known cure. Since there was no chemo or immunotherapy that could treat it, my medical oncologist wanted to get me into a clinical trial. I signed the paperwork but tests revealed that my heart’s ejection fraction was too low to qualify for me to enter it.  

I was sad and Jean was hurting. The cardiologist changed my heart meds and we waited about a year for my heart to get almost to normal. But almost wasn’t good enough to be in a clinical trial. Again, we were disappointed.  

Cedars-Sinai ablated the cancer in my pelvis and radiated the tumors in my liver. My orthopedic oncologist was concerned about the cancer in my spine, which they couldn’t safely treat. He told us that I needed a special type of radiation called proton-beam therapy (this requires a nuclear accelerator so it’s offered at only two locations in Southern California, both a long way from our home). I received insurance approval to have it done in San Diego, but when we got there the radiologist told us she wouldn’t treat me because I wasn’t in any pain (I’m still pain-free). The oncologist who referred us told us that he disagreed with her. Shouldn’t they treat it before it causes pain? We were again disappointed but continued to pray and thank God. 

Then something surprising happened: MRIs revealed that my cancer wasn’t growing—it was stable—there was literally nothing threatening that needed to be treated at that time. Six months later, another set of MRIs revealed the same thing—the cancer wasn’t growing—there was nothing threatening to be treated. 

If I had qualified for clinical trials, I would have probably been in three different clinical trials in the last three years. These would have been extremely time consuming: driving to Cedars-Sinai (a three-hour round trip when traffic is good) to get injections or pills, scans, and blood draws, and to see doctors (once we waited over two hours to talk to my medical oncologist). They all carried risks. 

Then an oncologist who is an expert in my type of cancer (he was formerly the co-director of my rare cancer at Mass General while he was teaching at Harvard but he is now at Cedars-Sinai) told us that my “immune system seems to be keeping my cancer at bay” and warned me not to get into a clinical trial as it would be “harmful.” To that he added that those who were administering the clinical trial would conclude “that the clinical trial was working.” He also told us that proton beam therapy wasn’t the right radiation for my cancer. There’s a different kind of powerful radiation, but I shouldn’t get that until I’m in pain because that radiation is so powerful it can’t be administered more than once or twice. 

Praise God! What appeared to be sad news turned out to be a gracious gift from God in response to the continual prayers of many! We thank God that He kept me from having my body pumped full of experimental drugs that proved ineffective and might have harmed me. We’re thankful we didn’t drive 150 miles a day for forty days to get the wrong kind of radiation. What appeared a disappointment, God used for good. 

This said, if my cancer starts growing again, then, if God so allows, I will probably join a clinical trial and get radiation—which is available at a hospital only three miles from our house. Meanwhile, we’ve seen that what might disappoint us can be a gift from God. Every day we learn to better trust Him. Again and again we see that He really does work every hard thing out for our good (Romans 8:28). Every hard thing for our good.