I remember Christmas time last year. Millie looked good and felt pretty good, at least for a sick kid. Sometimes I had a hard time with wanting to take her to the hospital for treatments. Yes, I would have done anything to heal her, but in the weeks at home between treatment she looked and acted ‘healed’. She played hard, lived big, and loved life. It was a false sense of calm as the storm raged just under her skin. Each appointment we would wake up early with our sweet little girl, raring to go to “My Hospital” and see all her friends (the nurses). She seemed so healthy that I often had sorrow that I took her to the hospital just to get sick. All the side effects from the medications, nausea, diarrhea, swelling, lack of appetite, and bone pain were just some of the things we willingly put her through.
In early December, Millie was admitted into the hospital for an immunotherapy treatment. At this point she had only had 1previously and it was rough. Her second one seemed to go much smoother. She was placed into the stem cell unit, an area that is much bigger and easier to stay in when you would be inpatient for any length of time. She liked that they had toys in there to use, a Little Tykes car, trampoline, and the music therapy lady Katy who came by and brought a bag of instruments. Millie enjoyed being in that area and honestly so did we with the queen-sized beds available for the parents.
After being there a day or two I distinctly remember having a conversation with the Stem Cell doctor that Millie saw a few times as we were harvesting her cells. His office was in that area and he knew Millie both as his patient, but also with the view of a little girl growing up in a hospital. On this December morning I asked him an important question. I said, “Millie never seems to get better, nor does she get worse. Are these children able to just continue on as is, receiving treatment but not improving?” His answer that day was one that chilled me and proved to be so true. He answered, “In my experience they do not. If they are not responding, the cancer will eventually explode and grow rapidly.” In the coming months I would have a bird’s eye view of how very accurate that was.
In May, Millie was having random issues that we did not recognize as tumor growth. However, by June there was no denying how quickly the cancer was growing. Her ever expanding girth was so uncomfortable and yet, she still managed to play each day. In July, she took to resting more and by July 6th, our 30th anniversary, we knew the days were drawing close to the end. Just 2 short days later she closed her eyes and met Jesus.
We had known to expect it, yet it came so fast. How cancer can grow so rapidly is beyond me. Sweet Millie’s cancer was stage 4 because it had metastasized but only to one place in her body, her liver. So many children with Neuroblastoma are riddled with cancer. They have a number called a Curie score that measures how many places it is in the body. The score range is 0-30. Millie’s never got higher than a 2. We have friends that are thriving now with scores that started out much, much higher.
Something that amazed me was how a child’s death is so different from an adult. She was not scared, nor did she fight it. Her little conscious was clear with no need to make anything right. I am so grateful that it was peace filled. Many of our children were in the room and SJ recently told me how scary it was to watch Millie die. Not because of the moment, but because it makes her concerned that daddy and I will die too. I reassured her that as far as I know we are not going anywhere any time soon. Thankfully, she knows Jesus and she knows we will all be together again with Millie in heaven someday. That sweet assurance of salvation…
Thinking back to my conversation with the doctor, a cancerous tumor is very similar to sin. It seems that a little sin should be okay. It is not huge and probably does not overtake your life. It is just in that one area of life and you can control that. You know the other areas are alright because you are a ‘good person’. You could probably go on forever keeping that sin covered up, denying it is a problem, and living life… UNTIL it explodes! That is when things get messy. We have become so accustomed to living with the sin that we started to justify it. We then became tolerant of more sin, often without ever realizing it. Now the sin has grown and is affecting every area of your life and you wonder how the roots got to be so deep?
Romans 6:23 “For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
See that little sin is really only leading you one place and that is to DEATH. ((Know I am talking about spiritual death here and not about Millie dying. I need to be clear, she did nothing that caused her death)).
Proverbs 28:13 “Whoever conceals their sins does not prosper, but the one who confesses and renounces them finds mercy.”
We think that we can keep that little sin hidden, but scripture assures us that we will not be successful and prosper. Only though confessing and renouncing (turning away) will we be free.
Again, in James 1:14-15 “Instead, each person is tempted by his own desire, being lured and trapped by it. 15 When that desire becomes pregnant, it gives birth to sin; and when that sin grows up, it gives birth to death.”
The sin is leading straight to death. NOTHING GOOD comes from Sin. Not even a little sin is good. It reminds me of the Israelites needing to cleanse their house of leaven (yeast) each year. It was a picture of a little bit of leaven would affect or rise a whole loaf of bread. A little bit of sin will do the same to us. You can not keep the leaven separate and you cannot keep sin from affecting your whole body. As you think on this, rest assured that Christ died for you (ME!) even when we were filled with sin and he knew we could not get rid of it ourselves without him. There is HOPE in the Name of the Lord! JESUS
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