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Faith, Family, Friends Sustain Covenanter in Cancer Battle
By Craig Pinley
LAKE TAHOE, CA (June 14, 2004) - Dick Madsen of Midway Covenant Church in Des
Moines, Washington, has gone the extra mile in recent years in his
battle to overcome cancer. On Sunday, June 6, he went even further - an
extra 100 miles to be exact – in his quest to help doctors find a cure.
The 60-year-old Madsen - a lymphoma cancer survivor - participated in
"America's Most Beautiful Bike Ride," a trek of 100 miles around South
Lake Tahoe with a short jaunt to the nearby town of Truckee. Madsen was
among 2,800 riders at the event, which raised $6.5 million to help fund
research.
Madsen is a member of Team in Training, a fundraising arm of the
Lymphoma and Leukemia Society (www.teamintraining.org). He raised $9,000
as part of his effort to thwart an illness that has ravaged not only his
body, but those closest to him as well. He credits a strong Christian
community and the love of his wife, Jeanie, and other family members as
he recalled his battle with cancer. A daughter-in-law, Kim Ott, rode
with Madsen on Sunday as did close family friend Dave Campbell. They
were part of a team of more than 30 from the Seattle area who were part
of the event.
"It's been a community affair in more ways than one," said Madsen as he
discussed the event and his recent faith journey. "Since I was
diagnosed, our church family responded in unbelievable ways. The crux of
the story isn't about Dick and Rick, and Greg and the family - it's
really about how God has touched our family in so many ways, to remind
others about the opportunities they have in the church to minister to
the body around them."
In 1998, Madsen - an employee at the Weyerhaeuser Company - discovered
that his lymph nodes had become enlarged. He had a biopsy and was
diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's "B-Cell" Lymphoma, a blood disease
affecting the lymph nodes. He required three months of chemotherapy and
radiation.
The disease returned in late 1999 and Madsen discovered that the
lymphoma had occurred both in the lymph nodes and bone marrow. He was
referred to the internationally known Fred Hutchinson Medical Center in
Seattle, about 20 miles from their home. "It was all over me and they
placed me into a bone marrow transplant program, but could find no
donor," Madsen said. Because the medical center couldn't find a match,
they opted for a stem cell transplant, using Madsen's own healthy stem
cells, after totally cleansing his body of any cancerous cells. The
process took six weeks.
Then, a heavy dose of chemotherapy was given to Madsen - killing off the
cancer from Madsen's blood and immune system - a three-week process that
Madsen said has an 80 percent average rate of success. During that
period, he needed to be isolated for three weeks as he regenerated his
immune system - any small infection or illness could have killed him.
Next came the slow process of transplanting new stem cells as doctors
grafted healthy stem cells into dead bone marrow areas during a 10-day
period. Madsen's life hung in the balance for a long time.
"There's a combination of things that can go wrong," Madsen observed.
"First, your body may not be able to withstand the high dosage of
chemotherapy - it's like being injected with poison - and it's like
being taken to the brink of death. You're subject to kidney failures and
any number of things can go wrong. But they give you all sorts of
medications and they do everything they can to keep you going. The other
sources of problems occur when the grafting fails and the stem cells are
rejected. But all through the process you have no immune system."
Madsen's transplant occurred in February 2000 and for a while it was
slow going. He walked one mile a day - 19 laps around the nurse's
station - during the early days and weeks after transplant as he fought
to gain the strength he needed. As if things weren't bad enough, a
daughter, Julie, (a high school student) was hit by a car in August 2000
and nearly died. She was hospitalized for six weeks. However, by June
2001 things seemed to be looking up. Madsen was running a marathon in
Alaska for Team in Transplant, raising thousands of dollars. Madsen's
son Rick joined his father for part of the marathon and enjoyed the
event too. Then a double dose of disaster struck.
In August 2001, the lymph nodes in Madsen's neck were enlarged and
doctors said that the lymphoma had returned. Doctors decided to use an
experimental drug called Rituxan (one of many drugs used in Madsen's
first treatment). There is still a lot of uncertainty - every six months
Madsen takes a four-hour intravenous infusion each week for a period of
four consecutive weeks - but the results have been good.
"We didn't know what to do," said Madsen. "I was too close to the
previous transplant to do another one and we wondered where to go next.
But we knew there was a drug that was being used for research and it was
near its release date (in 2000). Because of the work of Fred Hutchinson
Medical Center, they had support from primary research of Rituxan. "It's
ironic, because that's exactly the kind of thing I wanted, to do
fundraising for research on drugs like these."
While Dick Madsen has made an encouraging recovery, a son and a friend
were not as fortunate. In September 2001, doctors discovered that Rick
(who was then teaching in the Los Angeles School District) might have a
similar lymphoma. Rick had discovered a swollen area in his groin and a
biopsy in Seattle confirmed the initial diagnosis.
Rick Madsen had most of his treatments at City of Hope Medical Center in
Los Angeles, near his work, and was put on a transplant list. He
underwent a stem cell transplant in February 2002 for "T-Cell Lymphoma,"
a much more serious form of lymphoma and much less common. Jeanie Madsen
moved to Pasadena to live nearer to her son. The extensive transplant
process worked for two months, but Rick's lymphoma came back two months
after the process ended. Rick died July 1, 2002, at City of Hope
Hospital. Not long after, Dick's pal, Greg Vette, also died from a
similar illness.
"Moms and dads aren't supposed to bury their sons - it's supposed to be
the other way around," Madsen said. "He had a great future. He had
graduated from the University of Washington and was just getting started
in teaching. But my faith was strongly built as I watched this Christian
effort, not just my transplant but Rick's as well. God showed Himself to
us in so many meaningful ways."
The Madsens have only been at Midway Covenant for a few years and many
from the Madsens previous church were instrumental in helping the
family. Some mowed the lawn, did yard work and provided meals. Others
took medical classes to help Jeanie with the day-to-day care of Dick
Madsen during out-of-the-hospital recovery periods. "We have had so many
people who have supported us that our non-Christian friends have been
blown away by what people have done," said Jeanie.
Of course, there were plenty of people praying for the family, too, as
the church has corporately prayed and many others are prayer warriors
for Dick, who has taken 75 pills each day, stayed faithful to God and
gotten in shape again as he considers how to help raise funds for cancer
research. The practical helps that were being done on his behalf were a
source of strength through it all.
"It was a multi-congregational church family affair," Madsen noted.
"They all were very kind and the financial support we received from
Midway Covenant and other churches was wonderful. Our old church
congregation and others we knew were very supportive. People helped find
a place at Fuller Theological Seminary (for Jeanie to stay during Rick's
illness) and people made contributions to help pay apartment and travel
costs. One friend, who now lives in Georgia, came up to Washington and
spent six weeks with our daughter (Julie) and was a mom for her. The day
that Rick died, the nurse caring for Rick gave her whole focus to us.
"There are some scripture verses that helped when Rick was dying and
Greg was dying," Madsen continued. "I read in John 14:1-6 about God's
house with many rooms. Through my tears we read those things regularly.
And in reading these verses it just said, 'Hey, this is where we are all
going - and some day we would all sit at the banquet table with God.'
When the doctors told us that there was nothing else they could do for
Rick, our natural response as a dad is to say that we'd find someone
else. You can't help but see God in everything that happened - the nurse
that cared for Rick, friends that came from Seattle and at his local
church in California. And in my own transplants, God's glory came
rolling by."
Madsen said that one significant incident at a Los Angeles hospital with
his son and best friend has particularly motivated him during recent
months.
"When I was visiting Rick in his hospital room in Washington (before he
was moved to Los Angeles), Greg had just had a recurrence of lymphoma
and he was sitting in the hospital room with me and Rick," Madsen
recalled. "The three of us were just trying not to be morbid, and my
friend called us 'The Three Chemo-sabees.' I said that when this was all
over, we could join Team in Training and raise money for research. We
all decided to do the marathon again in a year.
"As it turned out, Rick passed away and two months after that Greg died
from the effects of his lymphoma," Madsen recalled. "I was too 'roughed
up' to do the marathon (in 2003), but this past year I decided to sign
on in order to raise money for T-Cell research. My daughter-in-law said
she wanted to join me in my Team in Training effort and we crossed the
finish line together. And as I crossed the finish line, I was crying for
my son. I had his picture on my shirt and he was on my heart for all 100
miles."
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