Cancer
Since 2000, I have had Adenoid Cystic Carcinoma (ACC), a malignant salivary gland cancer. This page links to the various articles and blog posts I have written about it, and in particular about how Christianity and cancer relate. If this wasn't something you knew about me, the best place to start might be to watch the video of an interview I did for my church:
An edited video of the interview was used as the introduction to a talk called “An Imaginary God in a Suffering World?”, which covered the question of how both Christians and non-Christians try and make sense of the existence and meaning of suffering – because it’s a difficult question wherever you stand. You can hear the talk which followed the video (length: about 38 minutes including Scripture readings).
Of my writings on the subject, the best ones to read first are the story of my original operation and my reflections on one of the major lung operations, titled "Thank God For Cancer".
Timeline
- 2000-07: initial lump appears in neck
- 2001-04: surgery to remove lump; diagnosis (8 weeks before university final exams)
- 2001-06: exploratory neck operation, repeated due to excessive bleeding (big writeup of this period)
- 2002-09: Scar revised to try and improve it
- 2005-01: Lump found in floor of mouth and partially removed; discovered to be primary; lumps found in lungs
- 2005-04: Second mouth operation to remove the rest; mouth floor repaired with part of tongue :-)
- 2005-12: More scans done of the lung metastases
- 2006-04: First lung cleaned out
- 2006-05: Second lung cleaned out
- 2006-06: Additional lump found in neck
- 2006-08: Lump removed; radiotherapy prescribed for the neck to reduce chance of local recurrence
- 2006-11: Radiotherapy (big writeup)
- 2007-10: 6cm lump found in liver (pictures)
- 2007-12: Liver lump removed, along with right half of liver and gall bladder
- 2009-04: Rediagnosed with lung metastases
- 2010-07: Kidney metastasis found
- 2012-11: 10cm kidney metastasis removed, along with left kidney
At the moment, the lung metastases are static, praise God, so I hope not to have any more operations in the near future. I am scanned every six to twelve months.