This week's story is from Pastor Earl Feddersen, LCMS Foundation Webmaster, manager of the Giving Catalog and author of the weekly mission devotion, Edit-O-Earl. This story was his Christmas devotion and is a follow-up on his previous story Something Good Every Day.
On November 30, my 5-year-old grandson Seth entered the hospital again. The doctors were saying he would remain in the hospital for four to six weeks...28-42 days. Within a few days he received very heavy chemotherapy and then full-body irradiation. This time, it was not specifically designed to attack leukemia cells. In fact, they hadn't found any recently. The treatment was designed to void him of every kind of immunity, in the hope that he would not reject a bone marrow transplant.
The doctor said that the healthy stem cells would enter his blood stream and immediately find and fill all those voids. He will no longer have any of his former immunities, but he will have the immunities of the donor.
Finding a match can sometimes be difficult. There are six points that are checked. They are not exactly like this, but they come from this, so it works as an illustration. Seth comes from Dan and Amy. Amy comes from Richard and Sherry and Dan comes from Earl and Gwen. In every case, God has added the breath of life, but those six sources have come together in a unique combination of ingredients that we call Seth.
Dan and Amy were tested, because they are Seth's closest sources and had the possibility of a close-enough match. Neither passed the test. The most likely candidates are always siblings because, in whatever combination, they come from the same six sources. Seth's older brother Ben is a big strapping lad, a giant for his age and a potentially wonderful possibility, but he didn't match even four out of six.
By the gift and grace of God, Dan and Amy have another son. Luke is a 2-year-old and, by that same grace of God, a perfect six-for-six match! God is so generous.
On December 4, Luke stayed in bed...awake...for five hours while the stem cell apheresis was performed. The previous day, a catheter had been surgically placed into a vein in his leg. While many still refer to the procedure as a bone marrow transplant, the process actually involved pumping Luke's blood through a machine that filters out the stem cells and then puts the blood back into him.
In an attempt to explain to Seth what would be happening, Dan and Amy told him that Luke would be giving him some blood to put good things into him that would take the place of the bad things. Seth asked, "What will they do with my blood?"
To my knowledge, Luke hasn't stayed still for two hours in his entire two years, unless he was asleep, but he stayed in that bed and did his job for his brother from 11:00 a.m. to almost 4:00 p.m. At one point, the machine "beeped" and a nurse came in to tell Luke to straighten his leg because he was crimping the tube. Amy said that the machine beeped a few more times after that and he just straightened his leg on his own.
Somewhere between 3:30 and 4:00 two nurses finally came in to remove the tubing. At his mother's encouragement, Luke told them, "Thank you." Then he hugged them both before skipping down the hall to play with his daddy.
While the lab was counting the stem cells from a sample, the hospital staff started the process of putting the precious cells into Seth's catheter. This was one more of many, many times for prayer since this whole thing began. They needed 2-2.5 million stem cells in order to be confident that the procedure had a chance to work for Seth. About halfway through the pheresis, putting the stem cells into Seth, the report came from the lab...9.5 million stem cells out of that little 2-year-old body! God is so generous.
Someone removed Luke's catheter and he proceeded to keep his father up playing in the playroom for half the night. Dan said, "I was never so obliging to be kept up by one of the kids."
When you think of the odds of anyone being a six-for-six, essentially perfect match for Seth, it is safe to say that Luke gave his brother something for Christmas that no one else in the whole world could give. Thank God that Dan and Amy had another son.
My friends, God only has one Son. But that Son gave what no one else in the whole universe could give to you for Christmas...He gave Himself. He is the one and only perfect match for what you and I need in order to live. His blood not only wins our forgiveness; it fills all the voids where sin and death had been with His righteousness. And there was no pheresis...no surgery that could be performed so that His blood could be put back in. He gave it all. God is so generous.
Our mission is to tell the world about our Brother Jesus and His gift...His perfect blood shed into death for us. We are so blessed to know about Him and about God's great love, grace and generosity.
About 2,000 years ago, shepherds returned to their fields glorifying and praising God for all they had seen and heard. After they had seen Jesus, Luke tells us, "They spread the word concerning what had been told them about this Child and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them."
My friends, spread the Word concerning what you know about this Child, this Jesus, this perfect gift from our generous God. And may God bless you and yours and fill your lives with His light and joy.
On Sunday, December 15, Seth's blood cell count made the turn. From the chemotherapy and full-body irradiation, his counts had been in the depths. Medical personnel particularly watched for the "ANC" or Absolute Neutrophil Count. Neutrophils are the white blood cells that fight infection. Seth's count had been around 0-10, but on Sunday it jumped to 100-110.
The doctors had said that when Seth's ANC count was at least 500 for two days he could go home. On Monday the count was 2,100! They decided not to bother waiting for the next day. He came home that Monday, 17 days after the whole thing started and 11 days earlier than first thought possible. God is so generous.