Matt Weber: Strength and Inspiration

The journey was tough, very tough at times, unfathomably tough during what he calls “my dark days” from January through April when he often felt so weak that it was all he could do to lie on the couch in front of the television and push the buttons on the remote. But, warrior that he is, he kept the faith. He knew he’d get well. He knew he’d be back.
    “There was always something telling me, even when I was at my worst, that I can and will get better,” Matt said one recent afternoon. “I never blamed anyone, never complained.  I tried to keep a positive attitude. This has definitely been a character building experience, but not one I’d recommend to anyone.”
    The odyssey began late last fall.
On the way back from his great-grandmother’s funeral in Kentucky, Matt reported feeling weak and tired.  He soon developed a headache, then a nagging cough. Just fatigue and stress, he thought, perhaps a bug he picked up somewhere along the way.
    He awoke November 8, feverish and nauseous.  Doctors checked him for mono, flu, pneumonia, bronchitis, even tuberculosis.
    By November 12, he felt stronger.  He figured he was on the mend, but the next morning, a Monday, he awoke exhausted.  The lymph nodes in his neck were swollen.  He was having nosebleeds and experiencing pain in his left side.
    “Deep down,” said his mother Debbie, “we knew something was wrong. We didn’t think it was bad.  We just wanted a name for it and a solution. It never occurred to us that it would be earth-shattering.”
    Over the next two days, Matt had extensive blood work and a chest x-ray. The verdict came with crushing force and left him, his mom, and his father Dennis numb.
    They headed straight to the emergency room, the future now uncertain. A cacophony of thoughts swirled through their heads. Somehow, they remained outwardly stoic and clung to the doctor’s compassionate words of hope:  “This is a curable disease.”
    Suffice it to say that the ensuing months brought days of joy and days of anguish as Matt endured debilitating chemotherapy and radiation treatments, spinal taps, bone marrow aspirations, trips in and out of intensive care, and heavy doses of potent drugs with unpredictable side effects.
    In mid-January, he suffered renal failure and spent time hooked to a dialysis machine. He lost his hair.  His weight, 135 pounds spread over his six-foot frame, dropped to 104, and he began taking his meals through a feeding tube.  He developed stress hyperglycemia, which doctors combated with insulin injections.
    Through it all, Matt’s spirit never wavered. An inquisitive young man who aspires to become a physician, he asked his doctors probing questions about his treatment, and they explained each procedure in detail.
The outpouring of care and support buoyed him and his family. “Whatever it takes” became his mantra. There was more.
    “In a time of crisis,” his Mom said, “you learn the difference between believing in God and trusting Him. We knew we couldn’t handle this by ourselves, so we had to trust Him.  Everyone’s prayers and support definitely had a positive effect and enabled us to do what we had to do.
    “Matt never said, ‘Why me?’  We tried to stay away from, ‘Why Matt?’ We realized that this was a difficult path we had to take.  We just dealt with it and tried to figure out the meaning. We knew that failure was not an option.”
    There were, of course, high points, benchmarks on his road to recovery. On February 1, he walked four minutes on a treadmill.  His steps were tentative, but they signaled a start. On April 10, he addressed the Upper School assembly and thanked his teachers and fellow students, many of whom wore orange wristbands with the words “FAITH, COURAGE, STRENGTH, HOPE” in his honor, for their prayers and encouragement.
    On May 24, he turned in his feeding tube for good. By summer, he was traveling with his family, knocking off one-by-one his assignments – including a term paper on the history of leukemia and its treatment – and earning straight A’s.
    His prognosis is excellent. He’s in what’s called “the continuation phase.”  For the next couple of years, he’ll receive chemo treatments, but they promise to be much less harsh that those he underwent while in the throes of T-cell ALL. Then, he’ll have regular checkups, standard procedure for cancer survivors.
    Now he’s back, a bit older and a lot wiser, stronger, and tougher because he’s faced a daunting opponent and wrestled it to submission.
    “I was never scared,” he said without a trace of bravado.  “That’s what I take pride in the most. There was never a feeling of, ‘Oh, gosh, this could be devastating.’ I never said, ‘This isn’t fair.’”
    What’s the best thing about your return? I asked him.
    “Last year flew by with incredible speed, so it’s like I’ve been here all along,” he answered, “but I missed the people so much. Nobody’s treating me like I’m anything special.  I really like that.”
    Some might consider your struggle heroic, I suggested.  
    “I didn’t really do much,” he answered with a smile, “except keep up the attitude that things are getting better. Whining wouldn’t help.  I just stuck to the plan of my doctors and didn’t quit.”
    OK, I said, but what you’ve done is really impressive.  What have your experiences over the last year taught you?
    He smiled again.
    “Treasure what you have,” he responded, “because you never know what can happen in the blink of an eye. Don’t linger on the past or on an imagined future. Start with the present and look forward to what you can achieve.” — Weldon Bradshaw