we go to the hospital..


Eight days later I'll be getting my bone marrow transplant.

I am scared to death. Well, I guess I don't want to put it quite that way!

Dani and I have to be at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in downtown Chicago at 8:45 Tuesday morning. We have decided it is impossible to get to downtown Chicago at 8:45 in the morning from here. If we leave two hours before, as we usually do, we will get caught in rush hour traffic and the two hour drive will turn into three and we will be an hour late. If we allow an extra hour for the drive, and leave at 5:45, we will miss most of the rush hour traffic, and the two hour drive will end up being more like an hour and forty-five minutes, in which case we will arrive at 7:30 - over an hour early!

You just can't get there at 8:45!

Once I am there, I get a "Triple Lohman Hickman" installed (sounds more like a trick in an Olympic high dive event!). It's another transfusion "line," whatever that means. And then I start a four day regimen of high dosage Busulfan.

A couple of weeks ago Dr. Traynor gave me a release/consent form to sign. Of course, I didn't read it until I was sitting out in the waiting room waiting to see the doctor on my next visit.

You know how they say you should never sign anything until you have read it? There ARE some exceptions. This being one of them! By the time I finished reading all the horrific things that might happen I was ready to run from the room never to be seen again! Did I really need to know all of that?! What am I going to do? Decide I am not going to do the only thing that can save my life, and not sign the release form?

Anyway, they listed all the drugs that might be used, and their possible side-effects. Very nasty. Hair loss, puking, diarrhea, mental confusion, mouth sores... But I remember one of them sounded particularly unpleasant. It was listed in the "if those other drugs don't work out, we will try these, even nastier, ones" category. "Boy, I sure am glad I won't be getting that one!" I thought to myself (figuring I won't come to that).

It was Busulfan.

The drug I get four days of high doses of. Oh boy. Can't wait.

After that I get two days of Cytoxan. I think they could have come up with a better name for that one. Doesn't '-toxan' sound awfully close to 'toxic'?

Then I get a day of "rest." Somehow I don't think that means I will be laying back, munching on chips and watching "This Old House" on HGTV.

The next day is the actual transplant, which, as far as I know, is basically just a transfusion, like a blood transfusion. Which is a good thing, because I had decided long ago that if I ever had to go in for any sort of surgery I would probably die of sheer panic before they ever got me into the operating room.

And then I could die.

The truth is, I don't see that happening. Probably what is going to happen is, the whole thing will seem so routine I will be vaguely disappointed, scratching my head wondering what the big deal was - and why in the world it cost over a $hundred thousand dollars! (which is what my consent form said it likely will!).

But yesterday I was driving Manuel over to the Brown's to spend the night (the Browns had a period of temporary insanity and volunteered to have the kids spend the night so Dani and I could have an evening to ourselves - which was wonderful!), anyway, on this perfect, sunny summer day, we drove past Preston-Schilling just as a young couple was arriving for a funeral, and I couldn't help but think that in a couple of weeks it could be me they were coming to see.

That thought gave me a chill.

When that possibility first became real to me I couldn't help but wonder what that might mean for me; in other words, what I might see when I closed my eyes for the last time. My theology told me that because I believed Jesus had died for my sins, I was already sealed by the Spirit, as if the packing slip had already been attached to my soul, "Special Delivery - Heaven." But then, I know how I have lived my life, all the times I must have disappointed God, all the wasted opportunities, and I struggle with the idea that God could really love me.

But he does.

I guess that is the wonder of it all. God truly LOVES me. He sees in me something I don't, something he cherishes. Something he was willing to die for to keep.

And so if I do die, it will be because God has decided he would rather have me with him in heaven. If I should live, it will be because, for now, I can better serve and please him here. I kind of would like the chance to make amends for my past mistakes!

But what I have come to see is this.

Nothing happens that isn't God's will.

I used to think stuff just happened. There is evil in the world, and some of that stuff is bad. And evil, being what it is, inflicts itself on those who don't deserve it. Evil isn't fair. If it were fair, it wouldn't be evil! Evil cheats. It doesn't follow the rules.

I used to get real annoyed when someone would say in the face of some tragedy, like a small child getting hit by a car and killed, "It was God's will." Usually the speaker was some white-haired saint of an old lady.

Now I see the old lady was right.

Not in the sense that God willed that child to run into the street, but that for reasons we may never know, it was truly the better thing. And in his perfect love, and perfect wisdom, he allowed it to happen. If not, he would have prevented it. He would have delayed the car by a minute or two, or kept the ball from rolling away... somehow he would have prevented it.

If that is not so, if stuff really DOES just happen, then you have to throw out the Bible. Time and time again in the Bible God promises to watch out for us. He promises to be our protector, to be our rock, to be our shelter in the time of storm. If stuff just happens, and God can't, or doesn't allow himself, to interfere, then those promises are empty.

But if God is watching over us, how come bad stuff still happens?

I don't know.

Other to say that God has his reasons. It can't be that he wasn't paying attention that moment, or that he doesn't care sometimes. God is all knowing, his love for us is perfect. Whatever happens happens out of that perfect love, I just have to trust in that.

A few weeks ago the kids and I were walking over to Washington School for a wicked game of "knockout" (the kids beat me every time!). On the way we saw a little gopher in the middle of the street. He didn't zip away when he saw us, tail straight up like a bumper car, like gophers usually do, and it was soon clear that he had been injured somehow.

Man, I hate that! Now what do we do?! I hated the idea of just leaving him and letting nature run its course - which, at the moment appeared to be to leave him for dessert for the cat that was circling 20 feet away.

But then, what could we do for him?

Well, we couldn't just leave him to the cat, so we dug out our old gerbil aquarium, filled it with grass, scooped up the injured gopher in an empty ice cream container and carefully dumped him in. I made a trip up to Eagles for a box of gerbil food (seeing as how they didn't have any "Injured Gopher" food, I figured it was the next best thing).

I knew the chances were the poor little thing wasn't long for this world, but at least this way he would die peacefully. Which he did.

The thing is, as far as that gopher knew, he was being scooped out of the world he had known. He wouldn't have considered being captive in an aquarium a good thing.

But then, he hadn't seen the cat salivating in the next yard.

And that probably is the way it is with us. Sometimes, from our perspective, the things that happen to us seem bad. We can't understand why God would allow them to happen to us. We just don't see the cat, all we can see is the aquarium.

We never see the things God saves us from.

The thing is, our efforts to help the gopher were very limited. God's efforts are not. His love is perfect, his ways are perfect.

So lately I have been reminding myself of that simple truth,

Nothing happens that isn't God's will.

It makes things a whole lot less stressful!

Well, that's about it for now.

I hope I'll be back to write some more in a few weeks!