Beyond Explanation

Every once in a great while, we get to experience something that defies explanation.

Something so unexpected that we have a hard time believing it.

Something so "out there" that we catch ourselves waiting for someone to call and say it was all a joke and we come crashing back to reality.

Something with no real human explanation.

Perhaps you can't understand it until you've lived through it.

Last Spring (we still haven't gotten to a "this Spring" in Wisconsin this year, but that's a different story entirely), I went to National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland to participate in a familial midgut Carcinoid study. They found a couple of suspicious spots when running a special PET/CT that is not available in many places. That lead to them running more tests which came back inconclusive. They requested that I submit to a capsule camera study for definitive answers to what showed up on the scan.

I went through all of the prep (no fun at all) and swallowed the capsule on the morning of the test. I went about my day with a special harness that allowed me to peek at what the camera was seeing. I, of course, had no real idea of what I was looking at, but it was pretty cool nonetheless for a geek like me to watch my innards.

Upon completion of the study, they collected the harness and downloaded the data for review. One of the research fellows was suspicious of several areas, so the study was sent out to be read by an outside expert. Due to some circumstances that I still don't completely understand, the outside expert failed to read the study and the two weeks stretched out to just shy of nine months. I got "the call" from the lead researcher one morning last December. He told me the results were finally in and the study showed five definite Carcinoid tumors and four suspicious spots. I was scheduled to head back to NIH in March of this year for some more scans and surgery to remove the affected areas of my small intestine. I was told to expect to stay in the hospital for up to two weeks.

Diane and I made all of the arrangements for her Mom and our critters and made our way to NIH one Sunday in March. I checked into the hospital bright and early Monday morning and started through the gauntlet of tests and exams. My first major test was a repeat of the special PET/CT that had started this whole journey.

The entire research team makes their way into the room each evening to discuss the results of the day's tests and prepare for the next day. Diane and I waited patiently in the room for them to appear during rounds. The team walked in, shook hands and then the lead doctor suggested that Diane and I sit down. That was a bit surprising since I already knew I had cancer and couldn't imagine that they could really hit me with much worse.

We sat down and the lead doctor said, "We have some good news for you." The team proceeded to tell me that my scan was completely clear. Had that been my first scan, they would have said it was negative and I would not have been brought back on the one year protocol.

To say I was shocked would be putting it mildly.

We asked about the previous scans.

We asked about the camera study.

The doc said that it could have just been an artifact or anomaly on the initial scan. He was harder pressed to deal with the camera study, though. He suggested that maybe they saw a fold in the intestine and thought it was a tumor. When pressed on that being possible with one or two spots, but virtually impossible with five confirmed and four suspicious spots, he admitted that he really didn't know. All they knew was that I don't have cancer now. They were going to go forward with one more scan the next morning, but if that was clear (as they expected), I would be free to go home.

They cancelled the remaining tests, pre-anesthesia meetings and surgery. Just one more CT and then I could go home.

Wow.

Just wow.

People may offer up any number of explanations for such an amazing result, but they just can't explain that an expert in the field would make nine mistakes on one study. The only explanation that makes sense to me is that God answered the prayers of so many of His people who lifted Diane and me up before him as we headed to NIH.

I still have a hard time believing it. In fact, I still kind of pause to catch my breath every time I get a notification that something new has been added to my electronic health record; half expecting that it's going to be the wake up call from this dream.

I don't claim to know why God chooses to heal some people and not others, but He does. For some reason that I am not likely to comprehend this side of eternity, He chose to remove the cancer from my body.