Dad was home from the hospital last night. The decision was made to send him back for another round of radiation with Dr. Pinover, 10 visits, aimed at the new tumor. Though this area was radiated awhile back, the doctors believe it can take more. It seems there's really no alternative, since they believe that--on account of previous radiation--the tissues in this area wouldn't be able to heal were they to perform surgery to remove the tumor. In the meantime, the fear is that Dad could sustain neurological damage on account of the tumor's location on Dad's spine. During the hospital stay, the doctors were frequently coming around to test Dad's reflexes from head to toe; the good news is that he's been spared any paralysis or other loss of function due to this growth thus far. And while further radiation carries a small risk, ironically, of nerve damage, the risk of leaving this tumor to grow unchecked is obviously far greater.

So: Dad starts radiation at Abington right away, today, and in two weeks will go back to Penn to see Stadtmauer, who has two different possible chemo regimens in mind for him. If the tumors respond to the radiation, the hope is that chemo can then once again slow or halt the attack of the myeloma.

Mom and Dad thank all of you for your prayers and encouragement, and are sorry not to be able to communicate with each of you individually. Dad said that during this hospital visit he felt sustained by the many prayers being sent up on his behalf. Please continue to pray that both he and Mom would have the physical and emotional resources to keep on keeping on through what has become a grueling phase in this battle. Pray that the one-two combination of radiation and chemo will knock the cancer back before it reaches that truly critical phase when the protein levels shoot up and the blood levels--hemoglobin, platelet, red and white blood cell counts--start to really drop. Pray that Dad would be clear-eyed and courageous, as well as sensitive and open to the good that God has for him in this.

I was thinking about all this this morning, and remembered this passage from Philippians. Paul's chains are not only literal: to live at all on earth is to be chained, to be manacled to a body that inevitably suffers and decays. To know Christ is to be subject to a complicated double longing: one is the desire to endure chains, to live, for the benefit of others and so that "in every way...Christ is preached"; the other is to have the chains loosed, to be free of the body and be with Jesus, which is "better by far."

"Yes, and I will continue to rejoice, for I know that through your prayers and the help given by the Spirit of Jesus Christ, what has happened to me will turn out for my deliverance. I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. Yet what shall I choose? I do not know! I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far; but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body. Convinced of this, I know that I will remain, and I will continue with all of you for your progress and joy in the faith, so that through my being with you again your joy in Christ Jesus will overflow on account of me."

I know that so much of what is keeping Dad here, enchained to a dying body, is his love for Mom, and his mother, brothers, sister, children and grandchildren. But of course the timing isn't his to determine, and our prayer is that he will be ready and joyful when the time comes, ready to relinquish the one love, and its labors, and to embrace the other, better by far.