Medical Update

Yesterday I began my final round of arsenic trioxide, which is delivered to me on an outpatient basis at Hackensack University Medical Center (a great hospital, by the way). It has few side-effects, but renders me exhausted at the end of the day. After this four-week treatment, I will be "handed over" to the transplant team, where I will have my own stem cells harvested and frozen, given high dose chemo (the really awful kind), and then I will receive my stem cells back. This means I will be unable to preach or teach for some time. The treatment should last until late May, with at least a month of recovery time.

Not being able to preach is very difficult. There is nothing I find more fulfilling in my vocation than preaching Christ crucified. In the meantime I try to read (if I can stay awake!), and offer my thoughts here on this blog. Given all the medications I am on, my offerings here may not be all that profound...

I covet your prayers, and am deeply thankful for the support of my church, those who drop me off at the hospital each day, and my family and friends who work very hard to make sure that I don't have to worry about anything but getting well. I want to repeat something I read on Dr. Mohler's blog: when my wife is present, I feel okay, but when she is absent, I struggle to cope. Such is the blessing of a godly, compassionate wife.