PVCC Puma Press: April 2006

“Mary, get off the phone,” said my 23-year-old brother Joe. I just looked at him as I continued to talk.

“Why,” I asked. I’ll never forget the next words that came out of his mouth.

“Because,” he said lowering his voice, “Mom just got a phone call from Dr. Hecker, John has leukemia.” (John is my 17-year-old brother, the second to last of my parent’s five kids.)

“What!” I was shocked.

“I gotta go David, I’ll call you tonight”...CLICK!

I ran into the kitchen. My mom was standing by the sink crying. She said that the doctor had just called her but that she wasn’t sure of all the details. John didn’t even know yet because he was at our grandpa’s house. They would find out more when John went in for his appointment.

I didn’t cry that day. I was shocked. However, the reality of the situation had not yet set in.

That night my brother and I went to our classes at The College of Apostolic Ministries. I remember talking to people about John’s diagnosis that night. I remember saying he had leukemia, but it wasn’t the bad kind. He would get chemo and be fine.

A reality check

The reality of the situation did not set in until the next day at work. I was playing with the baby girl I am a nanny for when my cell phone rang. It was my mom. She told me that she and John had gone to the doctor’s office for his first appointment as a cancer patient. She said that what he had was called Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia, more commonly known as ALL.

ALL is an acute leukemia, which means it gets worse quickly. It is a cancer of the white blood cell. ALL is caused by the overproduction and continuous multiplication of malignant and immature white blood cells in the bone marrow. If left untreated ALL is very fatal as it will spread throughout the blood stream.

John’s doctor told him that with chemotherapy he had 40 percent chance of surviving. If that didn’t work, they would do a bone marrow transplant, which has a 10 percent chance of working. Overall John had a 50 percent chance of surviving.

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	The truth hit me like a punch in the stomach—my little brother might die
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“So what happens if neither of those work?“ asked John.

“Then we just keep you going for as long as possible,” said his doctor.

With those words from my mom the reality of the situation finally sank in. The phone disconnected and I started crying. Ella, the baby girl I take care of came over to me and I picked her up. She seemed to understand that I was upset. She laid her head on my shoulder and let me hug her while I cried. The truth hit me like a punch in the stomach—my little brother might die.

What is faith?

Just have faith. Just have faith. Just have faith. Those words echoed through my head over and over again. All my life I have heard those words. I have even said those same words to comfort other people. However this was different. Now those words were being directed to me and to my family. If we had enough faith would John be healed? What if we didn’t have enough faith, would he die because of our unbelief? What if we all had faith but it wasn’t God’s plan to heal him? As I listened to those words being repeated to me over and over again I couldn’t help but wonder...What did it mean to have faith?

The beginning of John’s sickness

Although we all were shocked about John’s diagnosis, the fact that he was sick was nothing new to us. He first got sick in November of 2004 at a church conference in Fresno California.

John says that he and some of the guys were wrestling in the hotel room. A little while after wrestling, he started getting pains in his chest and had difficulty breathing. John thought that he had pulled a muscle or something from wrestling. The pain lasted for a couple days then went away. At this time John was still 15, but a couple of weeks later he was sick again on his 16th birthday and was too sick to even take his new truck for a drive.

After that, John was sick off and on for the next five months. We had a good family doctor, Ida Crocker, who was determined to figure out what was wrong with John. She sent him to doctor after doctor. He was in and out of the hospital and was tested for Lime Disease, Valley Fever, Stress, Asthma, Pluracy, Influenza and AIDS. Every test came back negative. Because John’s white blood cells were still in the normal range, no one could pinpoint what was wrong with him.

Finally, John was sent to see hematologist and oncologist, Dr. Lanny Hecker.

“I’ll never forget,” says our mom, Frances Ginty. “We were sitting in the car when John read the words on the building. It said, Virginia G. Piper Cancer Center. Then she says that John just looked at her and said “Uh Mom, is there something you're not telling me?”

“I said no,” said our mom. “You are just going to the hematologist to get your blood tested.” My mom says that as far as she knew that was all he was going for. She says she never thought he had cancer. It never even crossed her mind.

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	Photos by Mary Ginty
	John Ginty allows his older brother Joe to shave his head when chemotherapy causes his hair to start falling out.
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On John’s second visit, Dr. Hecker, did a bone marrow test on John. John’s bones were so full of Leukemia the doctor couldn’t even get any bone marrow out.

However John had a positive outlook from the very beginning.

My mom says that when John went to the doctor the next day after finding out his diagnosis, she was feeling pretty down. She says that John just looked at her and said, “The only way to face this Mom, is with a smile.”

ALL things work
together for good

Once again I was hearing it. Just have faith. Just have faith. Just have faith. To me it seemed like we were all characters in a book. Cancer happened to people all the time. But, it was always other people. Now it was happening to me. I thought about a pastors wife I knew that had died of cancer. Did she die because she didn’t have enough faith?

It was at this time that my mom started claiming a scripture from the bible for our family. And we know that ALL things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to his purpose (Romans 8:28).

Suddenly it dawned on me. John didn’t have to run around claiming that God was going to heal him to show that he had faith. He already had faith by simply trusting that God knew what was best for him.

On June 1, John went into the Good Samaritan Hospital for a month to begin his chemotherapy. We all promised John that we would take turns staying with him at the hospital so that he would never have to spend a night alone. The nurses at Good Sam were excellent and right away all the nurses loved John.

John was given chemotherapy drugs to kill the leukemia cells. However, chemotherapy also kills good cells, which causes patients to have side effects, such as nausea, hair loss, tiredness and higher risk of infection.

“Think about it,” John said to me one night while he was laying on the hospital bed. “Everyone will eventually die some day, but 16-year-olds don’t just die. So if I die, I know that God must have a reason."

John was in and out of the hospital for chemo treatments until the end of November.

Finally in December we got the phone call we had all been waiting for. We all breathed a sigh of relief when we found out he was in remission. This means that the leukemia cells have stopped growing. Instead of trillions and trillions of leukemia cells, John now has millions and millions of leukemia cells. For the next two-and-a-half years John will be on chemotherapy pills, to kill off the rest of the leukemia cells. Sometimes, he still feels sick from the chemo, but all of his hair has grown back, and he know longer has to go into the hospital.

Although things are looking good the honest fact of the matter is that the leukemia could start to grow again. However, John chooses not to dwell on that. John feels that although he cannot control his future he can choose his attitude.

John's cancer has taught my family and I that faith doesn't always mean healing, but that we should always trust in God.

John feels that if God allowed him to have cancer He can take it away. “Whatever happens will happen,” says John, “but that’s God’s decision, not mine.”