Glory Be
I heard Sally Lloyd-Jones interviewed on a podcast. As the author of the beloved Jesus Storybook Bible and dozens of renowned children’s books (including my favorite, Baby Wren and the Great Gift), she said the best thing an author can do is get out of the story’s way. She may not have put it quite like that—it’s been years now, and I can’t even remember which podcast it was—but that sentiment stuck with me.
She told how she taught a preschool class the Bible story about Daniel in the Lion’s Den. The children were on the floor in front of her as she sat and recounted the narrative. She could see a little girl out of the corner of her eye, inching her way closer to the front. The girl listened with wide-eyed wonder as Sally described the account of Daniel. She scooted nearer and nearer as the tale was told.
As you already know, Daniel spends the entire night in a den with hungry lions, but (spoiler alert!) he is very much alive in the morning. The little girl listening clapped her hands over her mouth in amazement.
In the interview, Lloyd-Jones says that this is where she ruined it. She told the children something along the lines of, Well, children; this story teaches us about trusting God and doing what he asks of us, or something along those lines.
She watched the girl deflate. Her body lost wind, her eyes shuffled to the ground, and she slowly slumped away.
Often, a story just needs to be told. The magic and mystery are wrapped up in the story itself. Additional lessons and commentary rob the account of its wonder.
I am about to tell you one such story. I hope you’ll lean in as I share it with you.
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I celebrated my 1-year No Evidence of Disease (NED) anniversary this past October. NED is the modern medical term for what we used to call remission. Inflammatory Breast Cancer is very aggressive—in many ways, it behaves more like Pancreatic cancer than typical breast cancer, and when it recurs, it’s most often in the lungs, liver, bones, or brain. My big marker as an IBC patient is to make it to the five-year NED mark. If I can survive five years without evidence of disease, there is a low chance of it recurring. However, the flip side of that coin is that the probability of it recurring before the five-year mark is high. Every year is worth celebrating.
Just before Christmas, I became ill with an inconsolable cough. By early January, I was very sick. I coughed all day when I was awake, lived in my bathrobe, and slept 12-16 hours a day. I didn’t go to work and rarely left the house. I could hardly eat—I lost 10 pounds in a few weeks. Walking up the stairs left me seriously out of breath, and I felt like I had cobwebs in my lungs.
There was a significant swelling right under my right breast, and my ribs hurt. I thought that perhaps I had broken a rib from coughing so hard.
During one particularly aggressive coughing fit, I couldn’t breathe, and I wondered: Is this what it feels like to suffocate?
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I fly out to MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston every 12 weeks to be scanned for cancer. I was due for my following scan in late January, but I reached out to my medical team there with a list of my symptoms, and they wanted to see me sooner.
If you haven’t yet, this would be a good time to pause and read Do or Die, the entry I posted when we returned from Houston, where you’ll get a more detailed account of that trip, what led up to it, and where my heart was in the aftermath of our news.
In short, our fears were confirmed: the cancer was back. It had metastasized to my lungs, nodes, and liver. Ty and I regarded the results we were shown. There it was in black and white: my lungs were peppered with bright dots, and a glowing tumor took up almost half of my liver. Like a person who has stared at the sun for too long, the image burned into my eyes. I’ll never forget seeing that scan.
I would start a new chemo drug as soon as we got back to Knoxville, but we could see the writing on the wall, or in this case, the computer monitor. In less than two years, I’d be dead.
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Over the last three years, I’ve gone through all the drug and treatment options I can. I’ve had more surgeries than I can count. But at some point, they all stop working.
Life seems normal for a while, and the days are good: Esther and Nell, my teenagers, laugh with me as we watch The Great British Baking Show, or five-year-old Eden rides her bike on her training wheels while we enjoy a sunny day in our neighborhood, or Ty and I take our beloved dog Margie Sparkles on a walk up the street together.
Then it’s a weird little rash, funny feeling bump, or a cough that won’t stop, and cancer is back just like that. Here we were again, and out of potential cures this time.
We can’t beat it; it won’t be beaten. It has to be removed, gone completely.
So, upon our return home, we did the only thing we knew to do. We asked people to pray for a miracle. It was all we had.
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A friend I knew in college contacted me with a PM on Instagram. She’s in the medical field, and part of her message floated on the top of my mind, like steamed milk on a latte:
The pain, disappointment, and heaviness of your news leave so little room for words… The Spirit has wrecked my normally very tidy area of compartmentalized emotions (perfected by years of nursing) and gotten the tears and feisty prayers flowing—for medical breakthroughs, unexplained clinical improvement (medical talk for miracles), for decades of quality life ahead, and for laser focus for you on how to proceed in the meantime.
Those creamy bubbles stayed afloat in my mind, and I deliciously swallowed them down into my heart: “Unexplained Clinical Improvement (medical talk for miracles).”
I wrote back, among other things: I think I’m going to start praying for Unexplained Clinical Improvement. It sounds so much less like religious speak.
It sounded less absurd and… almost possible.
Many people reached out about prayer, specifically.
I’m praying for you every day.
My small group is praying for your family.
You don’t know me, but I’ve followed your story and continue praying for you.
In the Do or Die post, I considered the biblical story of Jairus, whose daughter is deathly ill. He tracks Jesus down and begs him: My little daughter is dying. Please come and lay your hands on her; heal her so she can live.
Friends, family, friends of friends, and strangers wrote to me saying that they were pleading with God on my behalf, beating down the door of heaven: My friend is dying. Please come and lay your hands on her; heal her so she can live.
People laid their hands on me, stood over me, and talked to God, imploring him while I sat under their warm palms. I don’t come from a faith background that includes oil and healing prayers, but when you’re dying, what once seemed weird now becomes worth trying. Why not?
I will not die, but I will live
and proclaim what the Lord has done.
I will not die, but I will live
and proclaim what the Lord has done.
I will not die, but I will live
and proclaim what the Lord has done.
Psalm 118:17
Three times a day, I repeated this verse out loud.
But honestly, dear friends, I didn’t believe it.
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I started chemo. This wasn’t curative therapy; it was management. The treatment plan was that Chemo infusions would be every three weeks for the remainder of my life.
Our next step was to have a liver biopsy. This would confirm that the chemotherapy dose planned for me was the best fit to target this particular disease. But getting this biopsy appointment proved more challenging than expected. Everything was two and three weeks out, and we were quickly approaching my first chemo appointment.
My friend Craig is a doctor at the hospital, so we texted him to ask if he knew anyone in the Interventional Radiology Department that could nudge this along.
He texted back a bit later: Can I call you?
Soon after, he and I were on the phone.
I’m here with Dr. Emmanuel, one of the Interventional Radiologist partners. He was reviewing your scans from MD Anderson when I arrived. He’s already shown it to another radiologist to confirm what he thinks he’s seeing. Sarah. He paused. He disputes that you have cancer in your liver.
I held the phone. My mouth fell open. I closed it. It fell open again. I sat agog with no words. Nothing would come out. The line was silent.
How is this possible? I asked. I saw those scans with my own two eyes. If it’s not cancer, what is it?
Craig is an OBGyn. He delivered two of my babies. I know vaginas and ovaries, he chuckled. I don’t know anything about this, but Dr. Emmanuel says he’s 99 percent sure this is a blood clot, not cancer. He says that the coloration of the brightness doesn’t look quite right for cancer and that the boundary of the mass is fuzzy, not sharp like a tumor. He says it’s vascular, and his partner agrees.
I was stunned. Dr. Emmanuel—that’s right, Dr. “God with Us” (because that’s what Emmanuel means) tells me there isn’t cancer in my liver.
In my inner being—that secret, dark place of fears and uncertainty, of dreams and desires that I won’t even voice aloud because it all seems too risky—a match was struck, and hope flickered to life.
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I started blood thinners and was told that eventually, they’ll dissolve the blood clot in my portal vein (which leads to the liver). An MRI of the liver was scheduled for a few weeks out, and that would confirm whether or not this was indeed a clot. Also, it was decided that the liver biopsy would actually be a lung biopsy.
There’s nothing in your liver to biopsy, said the radiologist. I wouldn’t stick a needle into a vascular mess, anyway. That would be terrible. And to be perfectly honest, this doesn’t change your prognosis. You still have cancer in your lungs, so let’s access those nodules since we’re more certain about cancer there.
With a sinking heart, I picked up what he said: metastatic disease is metastatic disease. This cancer will still kill you, whether in your liver or not.
We did the lung biopsy procedure with a live CT scan at the hospital. I lay on my stomach, perfectly still, while the doctor accessed one of the lung nodules with a needle through my back while looking at my lung through the CT machine as he did it. The whole procedure took about 45 minutes.
My local oncologist, Dr. G, texted me the following day: Are you or Ty at the studio right now?
I’m not, but he is, I replied.
I have something to drop off, he said. I’ll be there in just a bit.
An hour later, he walked into our studio shop. He gave Ty coupons for the blood thinner medications. And then he said, Oh. I got the results from the lung biopsy. It was benign.
Ty looked at him. I’m sorry… what did you say?
The lung biopsy was benign, he repeated.
The sample may have been too small; he went on. We may not have gotten the right tissue. We need to do it again in a different way. This new method is more precise. But yes, the result was benign.
Benign. Benign? Benign!
Ty got in the car, drove home, walked into the house, and told me this news, beaming. Then he laugh-cried in our kitchen, doubled over with tears streaming down his face. We both shook with hearty sobs and joyful laughter as we clung to one another.
Hope burned brighter.
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On a sunny, crisp Thursday morning, I went to my pre-op appointment at a downtown hospital before this new biopsy procedure, scheduled for 6 am the following Monday. A pulmonologist specializing in this technological procedure would send his biopsy equipment down to my lungs through my throat while I was under anesthesia on his surgery table.
The pre-op appointment began with a nurse asking me the typical questions: Are you allergic to latex? Have you had surgery before? Have you ever had any issues with anesthesia? Are you on any blood thinners?
No, no, no. Oh—I stopped short. Yes, I guess I am on a blood thinner. I just started recently.
Where is your clot? She asked.
My liver, I answered.
She put her pen down and looked up at me quizzically. Do you mind me asking what your symptoms were? How did you know you had a clot?
I didn’t, I said. I didn’t have any symptoms. The clot was found when I was scanned for something else.
Huh. There was a pause before she said, That’s really lucky. Her eyes held my face. Usually, blood clots affecting the liver aren’t found until it’s too late and the patient is undergoing liver failure.
Well, imagine that.
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I went on to my chest scan (the last step of my pre-op appointment) and then to brunch, celebrating a friend’s birthday. The next day, Friday, Ty and I drove to Nashville. At this point, my body was starting to feel much better. I was still tired and napped when I could, but I wasn’t coughing nearly as much, and I wasn’t winded—I could walk up the stairs without sitting at the top to catch my breath for a few minutes. Ty and I wondered what it meant. Did that one dose of chemo work so remarkably? My next infusion was scheduled for the following Tuesday morning.
Ty and I had just arrived in Nashville when I got a phone call from the pulmonologist.
Mrs. Pattison, he said, I see that I have you down for my first procedure on Monday morning. I’m calling because I have to cancel that appointment.
Dang. I thought. Dang it all. I’ve been anxiously awaiting this!
He continued. I’m looking at your chest scans that my team took yesterday. Mrs. Pattison, your nodules have shrunk so much since your last scan at MD Anderson in January that I can’t even biopsy these. They’re too small.
I couldn’t believe my ears.
He finished with: This is all looking very good for you. I hope I made your weekend.
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I immediately texted my local oncologist, Dr. G., a smart man, an excellent doctor, and by this time, dare I say, friend. Can you call me?
A few minutes later, my phone rang. What the heck is happening in my body, Dr. G? I blurted.
I don’t know, Sarah. I don’t know. Maybe the nodules were some infection? Perhaps the one round of chemo was amazingly effective. But this puts me in a tricky spot. Do I move forward with your chemo infusion on Tuesday? I don’t want to make you sick and miserable if you don’t need it, but I don’t want to stop the therapy if the chemo gives you this result.
He was quiet on the other end as he contemplated these options.
Dr. G, I asked, what do you think I should do?
If you’re willing, I’d like to stop chemotherapy and wait six weeks or so. Then we’ll scan you again. If the nodules have continued to shrink, then you don’t have cancer. If they’ve grown, we know it’s disease, and we’ll pick back up with the chemo.
And so, we chose to wait. No therapy. No drugs. No chemo.
In the meantime, I had the liver MRI. The results came back: it was confirmed to be a blood clot. As far as anyone can tell, my liver has no cancer.
Glory be.
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It was at this point that we told a handful of people. We continued to pray for Unexplained Clinical Improvement of the lungs and nodes. Just because Ty and I were on an agonizing, nauseating roller coaster ride didn’t mean I needed the world to ride it with me. I didn’t want to lift people’s hopes—like my children, for example— if the end game was the same as it was four months ago.
I found myself in a place of watching, waiting, and anticipating. God was at work; I could see it. But I was groping in the dark, profoundly experiencing the words that I wrote in my first blog home from Houston:
As the following months unfold, I suppose we will walk through these questions together, either one or the other, maybe even both at the same time:
Can we believe that God does miracles today?
Can we trust Him when He chooses not to?
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Seven weeks later, Ty and I arrived at the hospital for my check-up scan. Had the nodules grown? Would I be right back where I started? Or would they be smaller… even gone? Are these things even possible, I wondered, or has it been wishful thinking these past two months?
In another downhill jerk on the roller coaster, I didn’t get the scan that day. There was some insurance glitch, and I’d have to wait another week. The hospital sent me home.
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The following week, I had my scan, and I met with Dr. G the next day to review the results. He entered and sat down across from us. The room was pregnant with anticipation.
There’s nothing there, he said.
Ty burst into tears. He held his face in both hands, his body racked with sobs. I could feel him shaking next to me. He put his hand on my leg.
I started crying. Then Dr. G’s eyes welled up. The tissues were passed.
He wiped his face with the tissue. I don’t know why I’m getting emotional, he said. He gathered himself and went on. The nodules in your lungs have continued shrinking to the point that they are almost undetectable. I mean, I’m going to keep my eye on you. I’d like you back in 8 weeks again just so we can keep checking on your lungs and liver, but…
It is highly, highly unlikely that this is cancer. Happy Easter.
And that’s when I realized that this appointment had been divinely rescheduled. What looked like an insurance glitch was a purposed intervention. I found out that I didn’t have cancer on Good Friday, the day we remember the trade that Jesus made for anyone who wants it:
My spots were traded for his spotlessness.
My death for his life.
A Good Friday, indeed.
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And here, I will step out of the story’s way. I hope you inched forward while hearing it and clapped your hands over your mouth at the end.
I want to leave you with Psalm 118:7 again, but this time out of The Message version:
I did not die. I lived!
And now I’m telling the world what God did.
In this version, death is past tense, not future.
Right now, I really like that.
