A Sack Half Full - Cancer and Chemotherapy

I found out recently that an old friend I had not seen in years had testicular cancer. He was treated with chemo and surgery and he wrote a book, A Sack Half Full, about the experience. He wrote the book to share with others the struggles and the life altering revelations that such an intense experience brought into his, and his family’s, life. He wrote it to help those going through a similar life crisis gain hope and encouragement. He wrote it with humor and humility, with honesty and grit, and with faith in God for His provision. He wrote it from a perspective of how his illness affected those around him, those he loved. He wrote it because he could – because by the grace of God and Chemotherapy – he lived. It is a touching story of the intimate thoughts and actions of a man going through the rigorous trial that is cancer.

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Jerry was only given a 30% chance of survival. He had “Stage Toast” cancer as he called it. The cancer had moved from his testicle to his abdomen and he was at Stage 3. The tumor was large and required chemotherapy to arrest the growth before surgery could even be considered. Initial chemotherapy is designed to shrink the primary tumor, thereby rendering local therapy (surgery or radiotherapy) less destructive or more effective. Cancer chemotherapy is designed to stop, and kill, rapidly growing cells in the body – cancerous or not. There are no medications that can target just a cancer cell though current pharmaceutical research is pursuing just such a drug vigorously.

Since chemotherapeutic agents act by killing cells that divide rapidly, one of the main properties of most cancer cells, it also harms cells that divide rapidly under normal circumstances: cells in the bone marrow, digestive tract, and hair follicles. Thus the most common side-effects of chemotherapy are myelosuppression (decreased production of blood cells, including white cells so also immunosuppression), mucositis (inflammation of the lining of the digestive tract), and alopecia (hair loss). Jerry dealt with them all.

Jerry was treated with the three gun approach; Cisplatin, Etoposide, and Bleomycin.

Cisplatin is a chemotherapeutic agent containing Platinum. Platinum complexes react in the body by binding to DNA and causing crosslinking between the strands, interfering with cell division by mitosis. The damaged DNA elicits DNA repair mechanisms, which in turn activate apoptosis or programmed cell death when repair proves impossible. Thus cisplatin works most vigorously in cells that are dividing and replicating.

Etoposide exploits the normal mechanism of action of the enzyme topoisomerase II, which aids in DNA unwinding, and by doing so causes DNA strands to break. Rapidly dividing cancer cells rely on this enzyme more than healthy cells so are targeted by the drug. Etoposide forms a complex with DNA and the topoisomerase II enzyme, preventing re-ligation of the DNA strands. This causes errors in DNA synthesis and promotes apoptosis of the cancer cell.

Bleomycin is a glycopeptide antibiotic produced by bacteria. It is a family of structurally related compounds.
When used as an anticancer agent it is primarily bleomycin A2 and B2. It works by causing breaks in DNA. Bleomycin chelates metal ions (primarily iron), reacting with oxygen to produce free radicals that cleave DNA. The most serious side effect that can happen when you take this medicine is that it can cause scarring of the tissue in your lungs (pulmonary fibrosis).

All three drugs affect the normal actions of DNA in the division and replication of cells. This in turn results in cellular damage and death. In Jerry’s case he had two means of defeating his cancer, the action of these drugs and the prayers of the faithful. Friends, Family and Churches bent a knee to pray for his recovery. After his surgery to take out the tumor, now shrunk to half the original size, the report showed that everything was clear; no cancer detected. It was a miracle, the tumor was completely dead, just scar tissue, something the doctors did not expect. The prayers and the chemo had achieved the ultimate cancer free victory.

In all of this Jerry and his family found meaning by letting go and letting God. As Jerry states in the book “The following two verses (below), when put together, plus the peace of God’s presence in the cancer struggle, gave me a sense that I didn’t have to understand it all now. It just didn’t hold the value or importance to me anymore—just a valley before a mountain.”

James 1:2-3 (NIV) says, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance,” and Romans 5:3b–5a (NIV) says, “Suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us.”

Read more at God’s Chemistry Set

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