Daniel was released from the hospital on Oct. 31st - Halloween. While raising our kids, we had placed very little emphasis or importance on Halloween. Some years they would dress up in costumes and stay at home and pass out candy - other years, they wouldn't dress up at all. But we always made sure to visit a pumpkin patch every year, after which we'd carve the pumpkins and bake the seeds. We didn't make it to a pumpkin patch this year, but when we got home from the hospital, the kids DID dress up in costumes and went trick-or-treating for the first time. They were invited by the neighbors (the same neighbors who had come up in the middle of the night to visit us after Daniel's diagnosis) to go with them and their kids. Daniel dressed up as Darth Maul from Star Wars, complete with a red, double-ended light saber. He was quite pleased with how he looked in his new costume, and it was a special night for him.
This brings me to an important topic. When we got home, Wes and I started to discuss some very weighty issues together. One issue we discussed was this - what should we tell Daniel? Should he know the precariousness of his disease? After deep thought and prayer over this, we decided not to tell Daniel everything. We kept to ourselves the knowledge that Daniel was supposed to die. Our logic went this way - we felt the knowledge of a terminal illness was too heavy a burden for a 6 year old bear. We felt that as parents, we were given the responsibility to bear the emotional burden FOR him. As Jesus told us he would carry our burdens, so we would carry this burden for Daniel. So we shielded him from discussions involving the terminal nature of his illness, and we kept our focus on life, and living each day to the fullest.
Almost immediately after returning home, we started hearing from people who had first-hand experience or knowledge of alternative therapies that would be worth checking into. Most of these treatments involved supplements for strengthening the body's own immune defenses, enabling the body to fight off the growth of cancer. We were given several books about alternative cancer treatments and healing foods. I started immediately to read them. A couple we'd never met before heard of Daniel's diagnosis. They lived just a few blocks away from us - their own daughter had died of leukemia a few years before. The husband was an auto mechanic and owned a shop. Since the death of their daughter they had dedicated their lives to helping people with cancer, and the auto shop lobby was set up for cancer patients to come and receive healing treatments and advice. They told us about something called a Rife machine, named after Rife, a scientist who invented the technology behind it- essentially the machine looks like a long, cylindrical lamp connected by wires to a computer. The computer tells the light to flash at a specific frequency. The concept behind the machine is that everything, even cancer, has its own frequency and you can use that frequency to break down cancerous tumors. I know, it sounds very bizarre, and this is a very simplified, layman's explanation. They gave us an offer to come by the shop with Daniel anytime. Eventually some friends who had one of these lights, let us use it and keep it in our house.
All this information came at us so fast, it was hard to process at first. But it did serve to bolster our hope that maybe these alternative treatments could extend Daniel's life and treat his cancer. Perhaps God was leading these people to us. We also quickly learned that alternative treatments for cancer overwhelm the internet - many of them are bogus money-making schemes. But we felt like it was worth a try to check out the alternative options out there - after all, we had nowhere else to turn. At the very least, we could start giving Daniel foods and supplements that would strengthen his health and body.
It was nice to be home, but Daniel still had lots of pain and needed attention around the clock. There were several appointments on the books with Daniel's neurosurgeon and his oncologist, Dr. Janice Olsen. We had lots to think about and many important decisions to make (important is quite an understatement!). We felt more than anything at this point, that we needed divine wisdom to make the right decisions for Daniel. We started praying fervently that God would guide and direct our steps. Before our first appointment with the oncologist, we were visited at our home by our Pastor. He said he had something very important to tell us. Pastor Ron is the kind of guy who hardly ever gets emotional or allows himself to be pulled along by his feelings. Yet, what he told us was incredibly uncharacteristic of him - he said, "I had a vivid dream last night. And I felt like in the dream God was telling me to tell you not to do any chemo or radiation for Daniel." The words were direct and straight to the point. It was quite an amazing thing to hear from our very logical, doctrinally conservative and unemotional Pastor. We took his words and stored them away in our hearts and minds.
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