Back to Table of Contents | Back to Main Index
Previous Cover Stories | Send mail to The Voice


Cancer infects a common family
Richard Darland shares his struggle with,
and victory over, Hodgkin's cancer

Richard and Brenda Darland sit in their comfortable, kid-proof Vancouver home reflecting on how cancer has changed their lives forever.

Rich, 29, wears a brown Oregon State sweatshirt (his alma mater), faded blue jeans and brown moccasins, and sits on their oversized, off-white couch. Brenda's red hair is pulled back into a ponytail, and she wears a green Mickey Mouse sweatshirt and faded blue jeans. She sits on the end of the couch, her knees up to her chest, listening intently to her husband recall how their lives have been impacted.

A blue Fold-n-Go playpen sits in the corner of the living room by the brick fireplace. A cloth Tonka truck sits on an old, wooden elementary school desk. Photos of their children, Kyle and Andrew, hang on the wall above a gray-striped, oversized chair.

Richard said he had been working a nine-and-a-half-hour day on April 10, 1997. As he was putting on his coat to leave work, he felt a tag sticking up in back. He reached back to fix it and instead he felt a lump the size of a large shooter marble.

He recalled that he wasn't surprised to find the lump because in 1974 his mother died from cancer at the age of 32. Richard was only 4 years old when she died.

"I wasn't shocked that it might happen," he said. "I wanted to go golfing so I blew it off for the weekend."

On Tuesday he went to the doctor, and she prescribed antibiotics, hoping that the lump was just an infection. By Monday the medicine had made his symptoms worse. That Friday the doctor performed a biopsy and sent the tumor to Oregon Health Sciences University Hospital in Portland, and to Vancouver, B.C., for analysis.

The report came back malignant. Rich had Hodgkin's cancer 2B, also known as cancer of the lymph node. Stage two refers to the infection residing on both sides of the body and above the abdomen. The "B" refers to various symptoms such as weight loss and night sweats.

"Oh, it's malignant," he said to co-workers matter-of-factly. The thought of having cancer had not fully set in yet. The thought set in when he was sitting at his desk. "'I've got cancer,' I thought, 'I can't believe it.' It took everything to not bawl. I left work early, and by the time I got home I was a basket case. I went into my room and bawled. 'God, I don't want to die; please heal me. I can't deal with this,'" he said.

Tears well up in Brenda's eyes as she listens intently to her husband speak about his cancer. He looks over to her with his dark brown, sensitive eyes.

"I couldn't believe it was happening," she said. The day they received the diagnosis was only two days before she was due with their second child, Andrew. She asked the Lord why they were having a baby at this time when she could be losing her best friend, her husband. Her mom was also at their home because she had wanted to help with the children and Rich.

During those tense weeks, Brenda's mom made their household run smoothly. She prepared the meals, cleaned the house and cared for their son Kyle so Brenda could focus on Rich and their new baby.

Brenda said she felt that the only way to cope with the situation was to give it all to God. She believed that only Christ could give her the hope she needed during this time. Without this hope, life would not have been worth living. Jesus gave her the added strength and peace she needed to endure this trial.

Upon receiving the diagnosis, Rich called his parents. "He called us on the phone and said, 'I have bad news... I have cancer,'" his dad, Chuck, said.

"It filled our horizon--everything else seemed insignificant," his mother, Barbara, said.

Before going through chemotherapy, Rich decided to try alternative medicine. He traveled with his dad to a clinic in Tijuana, Mexico.

The doctors, who are against chemotherapy, told Rich he needed to go home and begin chemotherapy immediately. According to the doctors, he could have had a heart attack and died at any moment. "We stared down at our shoelaces--we didn't go down there to hear that," Chuck said.

The tumor lay against Rich's heart. The tumor was three inches wide and six inches long. Rich, normally an energetic guy, had lost a lot of energy because the tumor was pressing against his heart. He usually worked 10-hour days but was forced to work six- to eight-hour days due to his energy loss.

The chemotherapy room looked like an average hospital room with a few exceptions. It had nine leather recliners facing a window overlooking a wooded area. The setting was purposely tranquil. Each recliner had its own television and remote control. Because Rich is six feet tall, the nurses had to put a garbage can under his footrest to prop him up. Four beds at the far end of the room hosted patients who received chemo eight or nine hours a day.

The nurses set out sandwiches, fruit and pop for patients to eat while they were in chemotherapy. His first time in chemo was one woman's last. The staff and the patients were throwing her a party to celebrate. They threw confetti and gave her a piece of cake.

Every two weeks Rich would go to chemotherapy. He would work from 7:30 a.m. to 1 p.m., go home, take a two- or three-hour nap, spend time with his family and then go to bed at 9:30 p.m. and wake at 6 a.m.

Chemotherapy consisted of four bottles of "poison" dripping into an intravenous tube in Rich's arm. One of the drugs, Adriamycin, looked like red Kool-aid going through the tubes. According to the doctor, chemo is toxic and designed to kill the cancer before it kills the patient.

The moment the fluid entered his veins, he got sick. "Chemo feels like you are being poisoned," he said. "You are run down, you walk out with your tail draggin', and you need a nap."

One evening during a week of chemotherapy, Brenda's parents were at Rich and Brenda's house for dinner. Rich was tired and was napping, so they decided to begin dinner without him. But Kyle wouldn't eat.

Just as everyone else began to eat, Rich came out of the bedroom. He sat down at the table, and Kyle came over to him. Grabbing his daddy's big hand, Kyle said, "You can pray, too, daddy." They prayed together, and then Kyle began to eat also.

To relieve the pain in his veins, at times the nurses used heating pads. They would also inject Lidocaine to numb his veins. The Lidocaine would burn at first, like getting a shot from the dentist, but then it would take its effect.

"My veins almost didn't hold out through the treatments," Rich said. The toxins collapsed his veins. By his last chemo session, the doctors spent nearly an hour trying to find a good vein.

The Darlands learned a lot about goodwill from family, friends and people they didn't even know. Rich's co-workers volunteered to mow their lawn every Saturday during the summer. During the six months Rich was sick, friends from church brought home-cooked meals to the house three times a week. Unknown family friends as far away as Tennessee sent cards and encouraging notes to the Darlands. "It's very humbling that our burdens were so important to others," he said.

Rich and Brenda said they were bathed in prayer from family and friends during that time. The church elders and Rich's uncle, a pastor, laid hands on him and prayed. According to Brenda, before the elders prayed for Rich, nobody felt like he was going to survive. After the prayer, the family had a real peace that he would be all right. "Whatever happens, he was in God's hands," his mother, Barbara, said.

The Darlands said they held fast to God's word. Philippians 4:6-7 ministered to Rich and Brenda through this ordeal: "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your request to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."

The week before Thanksgiving, during a devotional time, Barbara read the following verse: "Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us, as you help us by your prayers. The many will give thanks on our behalf for the gracious favor granted us in answer to the prayers of many" (2 Corinthians 1:9-11).

That same afternoon, Rich received word from his doctors that his cancer was in remission.

A few weeks ago, Rich planned a surprise party for his mother. The card he gave her read: "Having another birthday is a privilege and blessing from God. The alternative isn't very good."

As the Darlands concluded their story, Brenda sat curled up on the end of the couch with tears brimming in her eyes. Rich gave her a loving tug on her knee as she looked at him and smiled. "It's not a story about a valiant family. It's a story about God's grace in a common family," he said.

While talking about the effect the cancer had on their relationship, Rich said, "The most important thing she [Brenda] did was the way she worked so hard to make it as easy as possible for me. She sacrificed for six months with a newborn, toddler and cancer patient. She never had a negative word to say. She could've said, 'It's all in your head,' but she didn't. She was very uplifting and strong."

"I would love him no matter what," Brenda said. "The bad times have made our marriage stronger. It's hard to be the onlooker when you see someone you love going through this. You want to be the one who is sick. I'm in this for the long haul."