ON MISSIONARIES: A PERSONAL VIEW (18)

When Joice began her treatments at MD Anderson on May 16, 2013, she kept careful and detailed notes, 156 pages of them. 

We left for Houston at 6.08 on that morning of May 16, after being advised that she was approved by United Health as a “Single Patient Agreement” with MD Anderson Cancer Hospital, of which the Proton Therapy Center is a part. She was the first patient with this type of cancer that our insurance plan had approved for treatment at both entities. 

While the hospital is a non-profit unit, the proton center is for profit, and we were told that it could cost “perhaps $150.000” for her treatment. We went anyway.

MD Anderson hospital is complex. It treats all kinds of cancer, including the rarest, and patients come to it from all over the world. It has been functioning for over 80 years and has 26,272 employees, which includes 1,953 faculty members. The president of MD Anderson Cancer Center had an estimated annual salary of $5,610,380 in 2024. We would be contributing very little to his salary.

Mike had warned Joice that doctors with high profiles were not always the most sympathetic with patients, so Joice should not expect a warm welcome. However, Dr Frank, the head of the proton center, was an exception. I had filled out papers and noted that we had worked in PNG, so he quizzed Joice and expressed interest about our time there. It was a good first meeting and it would continue that way for the next 5 years.

Dr Frank explained that they used a team approach and would discuss her treatment as a group. Based on CT scans, pet scans, blood work, and other factors, they would determine if cancer was present elsewhere in Joice’s body and what additional treatments might be necessary. We were surprised, thinking that only proton treatment would be needed.

We were encouraged by a large gift for “incidentals” from friends, and spent our first stay at the Hampton Suites, although we realized we would need long-term accommodation for the future.

It turned out that the person who mapped the proton target was a UT classmate of Karol’s, so she took a special interest in Joice. It was another evidence of how God was providing and watching over her.

Another instance of God’s care happened on our way back to Duncanville. We had stopped at a rest stop for me to take a short walk while Joice stayed in the car. As she relates it, “Suddenly out of a tree, a beautiful bluebird flew to the nearby grass. As I observed it, I thought, ‘A bluebird of happiness’. It was a God-send, I think, to encourage me at the beginning of a long journey.” (We have a lot of bluebird pictures in our house now.)

While in Houston, Joice got her first taste of “The Machine,” by enduring the jackhammer-like noise during the MRI. She explained that “I was told I could swallow, and there was a different kind of bang-bang noise for the next 20 minutes. I tried to pray, recite Scripture, hymns, then I thought about Alissa [our Aussie granddaughter] and pretended that a nice 30-something man came into Kathmandu [the sporting store where she worked to buy equipment]. They got to talking and he was a youth pastor, so they talked about youth problems. Before I knew it, Greg, the technician stopped the machine to put dyes in my arm. No end to Alissa’s story because the tests are over. I am very, very glad.”

I was waiting and praying, and finally, Joice was finished. She dressed and we walked to the shuttle area. We then went from the hospital to the proton center where we have parked our car. This was to be our routine for the next 6 weeks.

Mike came later and we had a good chat, and as he left, Joice said this about him: “So we said goodbye to the best Advocate: helpful, intelligent, caring (and every other good adjective). He has been a tremendous help about what to expect and how they operate.”

It is difficult to express how helpful Mike and Karol were to us and how friends assured us of their prayers. A missionary couple from Denmark that we knew in PNG sent us money, and so did several others. The cost would not reach the $150,000 that we were told the treatment might end up as, and it turned out that we did not pay nearly that amount.

God was blessing us with friends and colleagues who prayed and helped us. It was an adventure that we would never forget, not an easy one, but it would encourage us for the rest of our lives.

Karl Franklin