October 24, 2019
Earlier this week a friend suggested that I write a book during this season of life. I was flattered, but I really don’t enjoy reading so the fact that I wouldn’t read my own book makes me question that anyone else would. But this space (and hitting golf balls) has been really good and cheaper than therapy so we’re rolling with it.
I decided if I were to write a book it would be titled “the time I went through a quarter of a century life crisis” but I’m revising my title and landing on “the time God showed up and blew peoples minds and did more than we could have asked or imagined and people came to know him. #yay”
The title makes me think it’s going to sell millions.
I feel like for the sake of the left side of my brain I really wish I could put a timeline on here for this series of events but for lack of confusing all my right brain people I’ll just number things. You may think you know the story, keep reading. It get’s real good towards the end.
Last Wednesday doctors came in to inform us that they thought Colton had an early relapse and didn’t respond to the chemo from his first block. His counts weren’t where they needed to be to take the bone marrow biopsy but they needed to act immediately based on the concern of a relapse so they prematurely scheduled his biopsy for Thursday.
Thursday morning Colton’s blood counts were far above what they needed to be for a healthy biopsy to be taken. We spent the morning reading scripture over him and declaring God’s faithfulness and healing. It was beautiful and Jason and I intentionally surrendered Colton to the Lord again and cried for our souls to hold nothing back from full submission.
Thursday afternoon we got news that the FLOW results came back from the biopsy which showed that Colton had an M1 marrow, 1-3% leukemia remaining in his body. The FLOW is a test that they do here at Hershey Medical Center to get accurate results quickly. They also sent a piece of Colton’s marrow to John Hopkins for an MRD test that looks even closer and gives an exact percentage to confirm that the labs are showing the same results.
Sunday morning the doctors reassured us that the results from the MRD would not show them anything different than the results from the FLOW, but it would just confirm that although the percentage is so low, he still has some leukemia cells in him. **But God.
Yesterday our doctors received the results from the MRD test. The test shows down to the 1/10,000 percentile of leukemia cells so it would have shown us anything from .0001 percent and higher remaining in his body. The results came back completely negative, with 0% leukemia remaining in Colton’s body!!!
There is no other rhyme, reason, answer, statistic or data driven figure to explain the results. The answer is Jesus. We know God on a deeper level because of Colton. We get a glimpse of love and joy. Not the kind that you can buy or the kind that comes from a new car or camper or cup of coffee or whatever your thing is. But the kind that comes from Christ alone.
What this means moving forward..
Infant leukemia acts fast. Even though Colton currently has 0% leukemia in his body, it doesn’t change any of his treatment plans. We are planning to be at Hershey Medical Center doing in patient treatment until April unless the Lord tells us to walk on out of here, in which, we will.
Colton’s happy.
We’re happy.
God told me to give my sneakers to a family in the parking garage this week.
They were happy.
The doctors and nurses are happy.
And we’re in the midst of a Jesus movement.
Thank you for praying, please don’t stop. The middle has been messy, the days where Jason and I don’t have it in us to worship or kneel or praise you have carried us through. It’s so evident that God is using you to further His Kingdom and we know one day we’ll look back at this short blip of time where we got to see first hand Jesus do what only He can do.
xx,
The Dietrich’s