Grace in the Dark

by  Roger Fredrikson

My learning experience began Wednesday, January 29, 1996, when Dianne, Dr. Braithwaite’s nurse, called. “The doctor wants to see you at 4:30 today.” I knew then this would not be an ordinary visit. Ruth and I sat facing an internist and heard him say quietly, “I have some bad news for you. The cat scan doesn’t show anything unusual, but your blood work looks serious. The white count is well over 100,000, which is ten times normal. I’m 98 percent certain it’s leukemia. Hopefully it’s chronic and not acute.”

A quiet terror gripped my innards as I struggled to appear outwardly calm. Over the years I had ministered to many parishioners after they had been given similar “bad news.” Forty- three years earlier my father had succumbed to cancer; my sister struggled for twenty years with it; a cousin’s son had died of leukemia. Surely this couldn’t be happening to me.

Frankly, if I had heard some pious talk about “God’s grace” at that time I might have walked out. It was in the days that followed, as I struggled with a sense of helplessness and fear, I began to experience anew the reality and power of God’s grace. That was a journey no one else could take for me. And it started with learning to trust that internist, Tom Braithwaite, who gave me the “bad news.

He went on to say, “You can certainly get a second opinion or have a checkup at the Mayo Clinic.” “No, Tom, I’ll stay with you. You’ve been a great help to me over the years. Let me know what I’m to do and I’ll try to be a good patient.” He may never know what his answer meant. “I’ll help any way I can. We’re in this together.”

Together

I had come to see Tom ten years earlier. Just home from a church gathering in Amman, Jordan, feeling listless and achy, with a low-grade fever.

He was the only doctor “available.” The “better known” internists in his group weren’t taking any new patients. “But Dr. Braithwaite can see you,” said the receptionist. So I had come to him somewhat reluctantly, thinking, “He’s so young. Only a few years ago he was playing his guitar and singing those songs of the sixties at The Firehouse, the coffee house sponsored by our church.”

I shared my misgivings with him when I came for that first visit. “Why, you’re even younger than our children.” He came right back, “Your children know more than you realize, and so do I. Now, let’s get on with the exam.” I liked his gutsy approach. But I laid all my feelings on the table. “Tom, if you became my ‘regular’ physician, you could be around when I die. Are you afraid of death? Over the years I have seen a doctor now and then take off when a patient was breathing his last, as if he couldn’t handle what seemed to be a failure.” He hesitated a moment, then answered, “I don’t think so.” I liked his honesty. He diagnosed my situation correctly — it was “something I had eaten” in Jordan — and put me on the proper medication, which cleared things up. Then some months later he had gotten me through an angioplasty procedure. He had become my trusted physician and friend.

All this flashed through my mind as I wondered out loud, “With this kind of leukemia, do you have any idea how much time I might have?” His answer was a great help. “In spite of all the generalizations about how much time people might have with this illness, I make no predictions. Your time is yours and not someone else’s, and my time is my time.” How true. “All our times are in God’s hands.”

This had all slipped up so unobtrusively. There had been the day I stepped on the scale and wondered why I had lost eleven pounds in about four weeks. Could it be the regular meals we were getting at Trail Ridge, where we now lived? I also seemed to feel a pain in my abdominal region from time to time. But when I wondered about this, I pushed the thought aside. Perhaps it was all psychological. Two dear friends, Monsignor John McEneaney and Mark Jerstad, remarkable Christian leaders in our community, were both receiving treatment after serious cancer surgery. We had prayed for them by name in church the preceding Sunday. Perhaps this was gnawing at my subconscious.

But it wouldn’t hurt to at least check things out. So with Ruth’s encouragement I had called Dr. Braithwaite’s office. He was able to work me in on short notice. The 2:30 p.m. appointment is scrawled in our calendar. The blood test I was given told the story. A day later a bone marrow biopsy confirmed it. Another dear friend, Wes Putnam, a meticulous pathologist, did the biopsy. We had come to know each other intimately on a mission trip through Southeast Asia in 1975. Wes is not an emotionally demonstrative person, but as I was leaving the lab that day he reached out and embraced me, speaking a word of assurance. We both wept.

Our telephone visits that evening with our three children and their families were a mixture of wondering and heavy silences and unsuccessful attempts to hold back tears. We could only share what little we knew. Leukemia was such an unknown and frightening reality to us. These were times of deepening family ties, assurances of loving support and prayers.

Helpless

But that night the darkness, which had been brewing across my emotional landscape, moved in like a dense, suffocating fog. I was helpless, dealing with forces over which I had no control. I had always been an active, healthy person, usually able to do whatever I set out to accomplish. But what now? I was overcome with doubts and fears. “How long did I have?” “What would the end be like?” “Would whatever treatment I was given incapacitate me?” But deeper, “Where is the Lord now?” “Could I be forgiven for the wrongs, the unkindnesses, the dishonesties, the faithlessness committed over the years?” So I lay through the night, sleepless, making confession, struggling to offer myself anew to the Lord.

The next day I had to deal with my schedule. What should I do about a longstanding double commitment the following week in Champaign, Illinois – a renewal conference at the First Baptist Church followed by a three-day retreat with Disciples of Christ pastors who asked that I deal, interestingly, with “The Inner Spiritual Life of the Pastor.”

New Seeds

I had entered into these so-called “retirement years” ten years earlier with some misgivings. Ruth had been eager to move into this “new” time in our lives. But would I be able to handle this “quiet chapter” after thirty-three demanding, active years serving three congregations? But this had turned out to be one of God’s surprises – anything but “retirement,” a label which can be misleading. Shortly after moving back to Sioux Falls, invitations had come from churches here and there. Could we come and help this or that church catch a fresh vision of God’s agenda, inviting the people to move from maintenance to mission in the power of the Holy Spirit? The concluding words of a song written by our son Joel had certainly proven true – “And now it’s time for new seeds to be sown.” So these years had turned out to be quite an adventure. And in some places new life had broken forth. The seed had borne fruit.

Throughout this strenuous, exhilarating weekend I had been given a vitality and strength for which there is no human explanation. As the service concluded, Randy asked if he might share a word about my health situation. Nothing had been said during the weekend that might be a distraction. Once again I was surrounded by a loving circle of prayer.

During these days I found myself responding to the friendliness of John Schmale, a retired oncologist. He had been among the first to move forward in renewed commitment. Now as I was leaving he spoke words of assurance. “I’ve dealt with people who have your kind of leukemia for forty years. You’re going to have some inconveniences, but you’ve got some years of good living ahead of you.” Words that confirmed the renewal ministry into which I had been called. I left for home tired, but blessed, rejoicing in the Lord. And was deeply touched when John called me a week later simply to ask how I was getting along.

I was surprised when Dr. Keppen asked if I would join him in meeting with the first-year medical students at the University of South Dakota. This would be a session helping these students understand first-hand the importance of the relationship between physician and patient. Dr. Keppen would speak about how the physician can give a patient the “bad news” and I would deal with how a patient receives this news. Yes, I would give it a try, although this was a little “out of my league.”

That afternoon turned out to be a growing, learning experience. We met with fifty very open, responsive students who had been selected by the Medical School out of several hundred applicants. I was surprised that twenty-four of them were women. Dr. Keppen later said, “This will eventually change the face of medicine.”

After each of us had shared a few remarks, the session was opened for comments. Their questions were very direct and quite personal. About giving the patient the whole truth. How soon and under what circumstances. How can the physician be a source of emotional strength. About the deep, inner feelings of the patient reaching out for what help might be available.

One student wept openly as she spoke of her father dying of cancer a few months earlier. As she said, “I don’t feel our doctors were completely above board in letting our family know that Dad was terminally ill. He died a few days after we had visited with them.” When Dr. Keppen admitted some doctors have a hard time facing the family with painful facts, I couldn’t resist pointing out that, sad to say, there are also pastors who cannot speak the truth when it hurts.

At one point I confessed that death need not be an admission of failure. For all of us this final experience is the mark of our mortality. A doctor or pastor being available at that time can be an act of grace and encouragement. For the believer, death is the door into God’s next great adventure. I rejoiced in the spirit of honesty throughout our conversation with these students.

Driving home I realized this opportunity had been given me only because I was living with leukemia. Another one of God’s surprises. How patiently he was teaching me “new dance steps of grace.”

Roger Fredrikson is a pastor in Sioux Falls, SD, and a former board member of FAW. His new book is available through the University of Sioux Falls Bookstore (605/331-6610) for $15.95.