haven't updated here medically speaking for a while.  started a new round of chemo this past week to deal with a cancerous growth that we've been dealing with since late summer/early Fall.  It took a while to diagnose as Lymphoma and start the treatments.  The growth has already responded to the medicine by shrinking and the side effects have been minimal thus far with fatigue being the main issue.  Some great news is that my Cleveland Clinic doctor has coordinated this with a cancer center in Findlay which is less than an hour from home instead of the 3+ that Cleveland is.  I took a day off of school for the first part of the 4 week cycle which took about 5 hours but the next 3 weeks involve only a weekly shot so I'll be able to do that after school without missing any more teaching!!!!  I'll have a week off and then repeat the 4 week sequence before heading back up to Cleveland to be re-evaluated.  As always, if Kim and I have the privilege of your prayers, please focus not on my health but that God help us to "count it all joy" (1 James 2.8ff) and that we be focused on praising Him by seeking out sin in our lives and replacing that sin with the righteousness that honors and pleases Him.

I can't believe it's the middle of October already.  Kim and I are enjoying the routine of my teaching at Apollo and her job in the kitchen at Lima West Middle School.  I've also enjoyed continuing to teach Sunday School.  We're still in the book of James and though we've spent almost 4 months on it, we're only in chapter 3 and I believe the unruly part of the class (and that's most of them) are in secrete laying odds on whether I'll actually finish the book by the end of December!  In all seriousness, though teaching daily and teaching Sunday School leaves me dead tired and daily naps are part of my life, I'm invigorated when I teach and love my job, my church and my teaching ministry.  God created work for mankind BEFORE sin meaning that work and structure in our lives is a good and necessary aspect of godly living.  God bless.  Also, if you are not SURE that you are a born again believer and are not SURE of your eternal life with the God of the Universe, I'd love to talk with you about it one on one.  E-mail me (robkimratliff atsign yahoodotcom).

Matthew 7:16-23

16 You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles? 17 Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Therefore by their fruits you will know them.

21 "Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. 22 Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ 23 And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’

7/18/2013 update

alright, alright.  it's been, once again, WAY too long since our last update so now I've been encouraged (i.e. "shamed") by a good friend of mine who shall remain nameless (craig h*ll) to write an update.  this nameless (craig h*ll) person also called me out publically via e-mail but, in all honesty, I appreciate very much that at least this nameless person (craig h*ll) cares enough about me to want information.  When I last left you I had been released from having to stay close to the Cleveland Clinic and have been at home since.  I received the okay at the 100 day mark after the transplant to go back to teaching as my strength allowed and was back at school in mid April.  As usual, the staff and leadership at Apollo were very kind and helpful, encouraging me to take time off as needed and helping me get my feet back on the ground.  I didn't go back to the classroom since we knew I'd be missing some days but spent my time in our Assessment Center where I tutored kids in a variety of subjects.  I averaged probably 1 1/2 days off per week and was able to finish out the year.  It was tiring but doable.  Our summer starting in June has been spent mostly resting.  I've been weaned off my morning and evening doses of morphine and that has helped my stamina greatly.  For the first 4-5 weeks of summer I was sleeping ALOT during the day as well as getting a good night's sleep at night.  Since reducing my morphine dose (I still take immediate action morphine when needed), I've been able to stay up most days and have gotten into a better routine.  We've been up to the Cleveland Clinic every 4 weeks or so for blood work and consultation with my doctors.  So far, there have been no surprises and I seem to be progressing according to schedule.  Kim and I have gotten to the point of realizing that I probably will never be completely and irreversibly cured of this disease but we are grateful for the present season of having some form of "normalcy" in our lives.

More importantly, I've been able to begin teaching Sunday School again.  I'm currently teaching the book of James and am blessed with the time I've been able to spend in the Word preparing and with my class on Sunday mornings.  My class is SUCH a blessing to me!  They actively participate by asking question and giving input as we study the Word.  My "style" is what it's always been when teaching the Bible:  look at the text first digging deeper and deeper to understand the meaning of the verses in the context of when they were written and who they were written to and then progressing into personal application.  A question we ask ourselves each week is "What do we do with this on Thursday?"  In other words, how are we going to apply what God is/has taught us, what are we going to put off and put on, replacing unrighteous thoughts and actions with righteous ones, and what is God up to in our lives as He gives us understanding and application of the text.  We remind ourselves to:

^22 But ^ybe doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. ^23 For ^zif anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; ^24 for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. ^25 But ^ahe who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, ^bthis one will be blessed in what he does.

 

y Matt. 7:21–28; Luke 6:46–49; [Rom. 2:13; James 1:22–25; 2:14–20]

z Luke 6:47

a [John 8:32; Rom. 8:2; 2 Cor. 3:17]; Gal. 2:4; 6:2; James 2:12; 1 Pet. 2:16

b John 13:17

The New King James Version. 1996, c1982 (Jas 1:22). Nashville: Thomas Nelson.

 

God bless everyone.  If we have the privilege of your prayers, I remind you that our desire is that you not focus on my physical needs but that you pray for God to help us seek out the sin He wants to address in our lives and replace it with His thoughts, words and acts.  THAT is what Kim and I both continue to rely on God for and we are comforted by the fact that He has, is and will provide all we need.  We don't know what God's will is for my physical life (or for the lives of any of us for that matter) but we do know that His will is that this trial be used in our lives to bring about growth.  We also continue to be reminded that this growth does not come from simply going through our trial but through obedience.  Please pray that God would help us obey in all situations.

 

In Love,

 

Rob

We had an appointment with our doctor yesterday (Tues) and he released me to go home.  Yay!!!!  Things are progressing as expected and 100 percent of my blood cells are now from my donor.  The possibility of some kind of rejection is still very real and won’t subside for another 50 days or so.  Though I am home, I have to stay away from crowds and won’t be released to go back to work until mid April.  It’s a blessing to be home with Kim and to also have some time ahead where I can devote more time to my current study of the Book of James.  Pastor John even sent me a commentary on James that is a favorite of his and that I just received on our last day at Hope Lodge.  I really look forward to digging into those pages.  Please keep praying that Kim and I would continue to rejoice in our circumstances and exam our lives in the illumination of His Word.  There have been some awesome changes that God has brought to us as we’ve wrestled with the disease while being blessed with His Word.  That change has been, and continues to be, very painful at times as, of course, the amputation of sin must be.  Pray that God continue to help us and change us, as of course we know He will, and that we would seek to obey Him and to bask in His loving grace and protection at all times.

Hello dear friends and family,

I spent 3 days in the hospital last week.  Woke up Sunday (1/27) with a fever and was admitted Sunday afternoon.  They found out I had pneumonia so I was bombarded with fluids and antibiotics until it cleared out.  The roughest time was Sunday night, Monday morning when I had quite a bit of chest pain and couldn't sleep.  They finally knocked me out cold with a bunch of morphine and when I woke up, I felt a lot better.  We got out on Wednesday and I was pretty weak and lethargic until Saturday/Sunday when I felt a lot better.  Monday's blood work (2/4/2013) looked real good so no hydration or transfusions were needed.  This Friday the 8th will mark the 30th day since the transfusion.  Thanks for all of your cards, e-mail and facebook notes, etc.  Thanks especially to the church for a wonderful care package they sent with food for our stomachs (my favorite Lindt chocolate troufles among the treasures!) and food for our souls in the form of Spurgeon's day and night devotions.  Kim and I both have been reading the entries as part of our study/quiet time.  We were also blessed with a visit from our dear friends Tina and Larry for the superbowl this past Sunday.  Our time with them is always joyful!

Love to all.

Rob and Kim

The stem cell transplant itself took place yesterday (Weds).  Once they got the bag hooked up, the infusion itself only took about 30 minutes.  They kept me an hour afterwards for observation and then released us to go back to the Hope Lodge.  It was really wierd for both Kim and I knowing everything that we'vre been through leading to this dinky little bag that looked just like about a half a pint of dark blood which contained the donated cells.  Our nurse said that there's not much chance of anything eventful happening in the next 5-7 days so I've got today off, labwork tomorrow (Fri), and then if everything checks out, the weekend off.

BTW, 31 years ago today I was a 17 year old high school senior literally freezing my butt off at the coldest NFL game in histrory.  -59 wind chill but a great Bengal win over the Chargers and a birth in their first Super Bowl.   There's NO WAY I'll ever do that again!!!

And now over a year later and so much has happened.  The rest of my 2011-2012 school year was better than I could have hoped for health wise.  No unplanned trips to Cleveland and I taught my first full year after 2 years interrupted by my stem cell transplant in December, 2009 and the spinal meningitis in the Spring of 2011.  My summer of 2012 was a bad one.  Very[ low blood counts led to weekly transfusions and cancelled vacations.  They couldn’t pinpoint what was wrong with me.  I had my spleen removed in late July but the counts did not go up.  Finally, it was determined that my stubborn lymphoma was back and in my marrow and blood system.  More Chemo started turning things around and my doctor recommended we try another bone marrow transplant but one using someone else’s cells and not my own like the first one.  Doctor Dean soberly explained to Kim and I the high risk of such a procedure.  The risk isn’t in the process itself which actually takes place as an outpatient, but after the process as my body will naturally try to reject the donor’s cells.  The key to the process is allowing a “good” amount of rejection that actually helps my body hopefully reprogram itself to kill off cancer cells while keeping the rejection at a point where it’s not life threatening.  Doctor Dean, while aware of the risks, also shared his firm belief that without this process, traditional means of chemo could not continue to hold my cancer in check.  The decision was not hard as from the beginning Kim and I have told our doctors that I want to be as aggressive as possible in fighting the cancer and don’t want to leave anything on the table.  We decided to go ahead with the transplant.   

The first step was finding a suitable donor.  My sister was tested but didn’t prove to be suitable so a search was made of the international databank of marrow donors.  Kim and I are actually part of this database as we were tested as part of a church drive years ago for someone in the community receiving a transplant.  Shortly after my search was initiated, which is done with my information anonymous, I received a notice from the donor bank that I was a possible match for someone looking for a match.  I realized right away that I was actually being matched to myself and called the databank number to let them know.  My search turned up a really close match of a 42 year old European man who has graciously agreed to be a donor.  I don’t know who he is and don’t know whether I will ever know on this earth but am so grateful that he agreed.  With a donor in place, we began the road to the transplant.  More treatments followed to get my cancer as much in check as possible, scans were made, the insurance company was consulted and all this has resulted in a green light to proceed.  We were able to get into the Hope Lodge where we stayed before during my last transplant (Kim and I together in the prep phase and then Kim here by herself when I was in the hospital for a month).  The Hope Lodge is a blessing.  A cozy room to ourselves and shared kitchen and laundry facilities and all of it donated.  Kim and I moved up here on New Year’s Day and the next day I began more chemo.  On Monday the 7^th I start full body radiation and on Wednesday the 9^th the transplant is scheduled. 

With all of that in mind, Kim and I covet your prayers and again want you to PLEASE spend the vast majority of your time for us, if not all of the time, praying that God would help us see the truth of this trial.  That it is a blessing from Him and that we are to rejoice about the opportunity that God has graciously given us to grow in His grace.  Seeing this as a blessing and focusing on the wonderful truths of his Sovereignty and eternity with God (amongst many other things) does not come naturally to any of us which is why Kim and I believe that this is where prayers should be centered.  I won’t repeat a lot of what I’ve already written in this blog about that subject but do ask that you go back and read it if you desire.  

Pray as well for a study I’ve started on the book of James (appropriately!).  I contacted our pastors with my desire to begin teaching Sunday School again and requested a list of what has been taught and preached on during the last few years.  James has not been touched recently and that is what we decided would be a good one to focus on so I’ve begin using my time up here in preparation.  We’ll leave you with the following verses that I’ve been focusing on the past 2 or 3 days in James.

 

James 1:2-8 

² My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, ³ knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. ⁴ But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. ⁵ If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him. ⁶ But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. ⁷ For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; ⁸ he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.