Miracle Man

I spent the last couple of days walking around Paris with David Usrey. A few months ago I doubted I would ever do such a thing again.

David Usrey is a miracle man.

Last winter David, the area director of our ministry in Paris, began having a constant headache. His personality also began to change, he lost interest in many things and felt very tired much of the time. His nose ran constantly. His wife Kathy began to wonder if he was cracking under the stress of his international job. But then, in mid-February, he became incoherent and was taken to a hospital. A CAT scan and MRI showed a mass in his brain and the doctors said they suspected the worse, that it looked cancerous.

“We were told he had a tumor the size of an apricot pit and had to have surgery,” his wife Kathy said. “We felt much more comfortable having the surgery in the United States.”

Through an amazing sequence of events, David was hospitalized in Paris on a Monday, diagnosed on Tuesday, flown to the US with a doctor that Friday, and had brain surgery the following Monday in Atlanta. It is a miracle that he was cleared to fly. He could not talk, could not walk, and was more or less semi-conscious. Yet he was approved to fly overseas on a ten-hour flight.

In Atlanta, the surgeons discovered the tumor was not the size of an apricot pit, but more like the size of a peach, or of a grown man’s fist. They confirmed that it was indeed cancerous, GBM 4 – Glioblastoma Multiforme Stage 4 - the “pit bull” of brain cancers and a virtual death sentence. Kathy was told to prepare for the worse – that her husband would be dead within a few months and that until then, she should expect he would come out of extensive brain surgery changed. Chances were he would not be fully functional, he probably would lose the use of one of his legs and his cognitive processes would be severely limited.

But the surgeon who removed the tumor came out beaming. It is another miracle that the surgery itself didn’t kill David. His tumor was so big it had grown across both sides of his brain and if the vein that runs in the middle of the brain was nicked during the operation it would likely have been fatal. The actual surgery lasted four and a half hours and it went better than anyone had a right to expect. The surgeon was very pleased that as much of the tumor as possible had been safely removed.

Within a couple days of the surgery, David was walking and talking and his cognitive abilities were unchanged. He then needed follow-up treatment of radiation and chemotherapy. Perhaps the most prestigious brain cancer surgeon in the US operates an experimental treatment program at the Duke University Medical Center. Seventy-five patients had been allowed in the program, but – in an event of miraculous timing - last winter an additional fifty patients were admitted. David was number 123 of 125 allowed in.

He had several months of radiation. He knew, early on, that it was working. “I could hear it sizzling, burning the cancer out of my brain,” he said. “They say you can’t hear this, but I could.”

He also reached a point of spiritual peace, a point he describes as fully accepting either life or death. “I knew I was okay and felt God’s presence very closely. I felt I wasn’t alone. And even though I was okay with death or life, I felt pretty certain that I was going to live.”

In addition to radiation, David swallowed hundreds of chemotherapy pills and had multiple IV’s as well. These drugs cost thousands of dollars each, and David receives them all for free from the pharmaceutical companies because he is part of the experimental Duke program.

A few weeks ago a PET scan showed the unbelievable – that David is completely cancer free (something he was already intuitively sure of). His doctors are stunned – with GBM 4 you hope to slow down the inevitable. You don’t expect people to become cancer free. David and Kathy returned back to their ministry and home in Paris from Atlanta at the end of September. He goes back to the US every few weeks for chemotherapy treatments. His stamina is amazing – he is two years younger than me and I wilt under transatlantic travel. I can’t imagine adding chemotherapy into the mix.

He is cancer free – and he is also a new man. He is a better man. He says he has “fewer filters,” which causes him to be more direct and honest with people. I don’t think that is a bad thing. He speaks more slowly and carefully, and that also is not a bad thing. My observation is that he is gentler, more tender-hearted, more compassionate and warmer. And he already was gentle, tender-hearted, compassionate and warm. He’s grown spiritually – and the more I think about it, the more I think for any of us, but certainly for David, growing spiritually means we have less anxiety and are more at peace with the world and with God. It means we trust. It means we don’t worry. I felt that peace with David the last few days.

When someone is healed – when someone who was “supposed to die” doesn’t – it raises all sorts of theological questions. Why was he spared when others – especially innocent children – aren’t? Were the prayers of David’s family and friends somehow better, more acceptable, holier or more compelling than the prayers of someone else’s family and friends? My old professor James Cook wrote some wise words about this dilemma a few years ago while watching his son Paul wage a losing battle with cancer: “Jesus’ miracles had more to do with the kingdom than with healing. The health they brought to the sufferer and the joy they brought to the sufferer’s family were gracious, personal, but secondary, gifts. Their primary and universal import was as signs of the kingdom, pointers to the promised reign when God will wipe away every tear from our eyes…the root of the miracle lay not in the quality of our faith and life but in the mysterious reality of God’s grace.” In other words, someone like David is meant to remind us that in God’s kingdom, life is a stronger force than death. The reality of life is that all will die – even David, sometime, perhaps in a few years, perhaps in many years. But for now we are supposed to remember that even then death is not the final word. Because of that, we all should aspire to live with the peace and trust David lives with now. I know I aspire to that.

Monday we were at La Defense, the ultra-modern square arch on the west side of Paris. I touched his arm and said, “David, I am really glad to able to be here with you today.”

He smiled and said, “I am really glad to be here today, too.”