ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, March 2, 1997 TAG: 9702280034
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: ROCKY MOUNT
SOURCE: CODY LOWE STAFF WRITER
Doctors recommended an abortion so that she could begin radiation treatments and a bone-marrow transplant.
But for Jane and her husband, Tod - a couple with deep religious convictions - abortion is not an option. She plans to carry the baby to term, even if it means sacrificing her own life.
But she is not giving up. The couple have asked people to pray for them, and Jane has begun a restrained chemotherapy treatment while continuing her pregnancy.
This is the story of their choice and their faith and their hope that Jane can defy the odds.
`We do have hope'
The family over a meal at home: "Prayer is as important a part of Jane's therapy as anything else," says Tod.
In many ways, Jane and Tod Stillson have lived All-American, "Ozzie and Harriet" kinds of lives.
Reared by loving parents in middle-class homes, they grew up in a small, one-school town in Indiana. Both were star athletes in high school. Jane was valedictorian of their class.
She went on to earn her doctor of pharmacy degree.
Tod became a physician.
They married.
In 1991, Tod's residency at Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital brought them to Southwest Virginia, where Jane also found employment as a pharmacist.
A year and a half ago, they settled in this Franklin County town as Tod began his practice in family medicine and obstetrics. They planned a large family.
In December 1995, baby John was born. Last fall, Jane became pregnant with a second child.
About three months into her pregnancy, she began to wean John from breast-feeding.
It was then that she found the lump in her right breast. "I told her it was probably a blocked milk duct," a common consequence of weaning, Tod said, "but that we'd keep an eye on it.''
At the end of December, while they were visiting family in Indiana for the holidays, the lump was still there, and Jane noticed that even the skin over the lump had changed texture.
They knew something was wrong.
The Monday after they returned to Rocky Mount, Jan. 6, Jane saw Dr. Al Henry, a breast surgeon in Roanoke, for a biopsy. On Tuesday afternoon, the couple were back in his office for the results.
It was cancer.
The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid, do not be discouraged.
- Deuteronomy 31:8
From the Stillsons' collection of Scripture readings sent to them by friends and strangers.
Because of their medical training, "We were concerned because cancers in pregnancy tend to be more aggressive," and more advanced, Jane said, because their existence tends to be disguised longer.
That Thursday, just two days after the diagnosis, Jane checked into Community Hospital and underwent a modified radical mastectomy, which involved surgically removing her right breast and the lymph nodes under her right arm.
"There was some anesthesia risk for the baby," Jane said, but the cases they researched indicated it would be small.
They didn't sleep much the two days before the surgery. "You wonder if you'll wake up and find out this is a dream, that it's over," Jane said.
Before Jane woke up from the anesthesia, Henry broke the bad news to Tod.
The cancer was aggressive, widespread, and being fed by the estrogen and progesterone hormones Jane's body was working overtime to produce during her pregnancy.
An examination of the 28 lymph nodes removed showed that all but two were cancerous, including the one farthest from the breast. The cancer also had spread into the bloodstream.
"The cancer cells were exploding outside of the lymph nodes," Tod said.
The prognosis was poor.
Fewer than 20 percent of women with this type of breast cancer survive five years.
Heal me, O Lord, and I will be healed;
save me and I will be saved,
for you are the one I praise.
- Jeremiah 17:14
Suddenly, they faced the worst kind of decision.
Most of the oncologists they consulted urged Jane - if she wanted any chance of beating the cancer - to have an abortion and start high-dose chemotherapy followed by a bone-marrow transplant.
Or Jane could opt to keep the baby, knowing that, in either case, the odds are that she will one day leave her two children motherless.
"In junior-high terms, that was a no-brainer," Tod said.
"We never thought about it. It was not ever an option. Never," Jane added with an emphatic shaking of her head.
Though they decided that an abortion was not acceptable, "we're not placing judgment on other people" who decide to take that route, Tod said.
"It stems from our trust in the Lord," Tod said. "It was mine and Jane's personal conviction that in God's sight it would not be right to do that. We do not want to sacrifice the baby for Jane."
Nor do they want to sacrifice Jane for the baby.
That's why Jane has begun a conservative regimen of chemotherapy that they hope will at least slow down the cancer until more aggressive treatment can begin after the baby is born.
"We're trying to `thread the needle,''' Tod said.
And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.
- Romans 8:28
Jane and Tod's home is almost hidden in the woods off a quiet dead-end road on the outskirts of this Franklin County town.
Hidden behind the trees is the Blackwater River, and from beyond the river occasionally comes the distant rattle and roar of a passing train.
There is an air of seclusion, even though the house is only minutes from Tod's medical office and Franklin Memorial Hospital - where he may be called on a moment's notice to deliver a baby or take care of one of his other patients.
It seems a perfect setting for a family whose lives - up to now - have been as idyllic as the landscape.
The couple grew up together in the northern Indiana town of Bremen, population 3,000.
Jane's dad was in the popcorn business. Her mom worked in a bank.
Tod's parents divorced when he was 3, but both continued to live in Bremen. His mother remarried a man "who loved and cared for me," Tod said, and he was able to maintain a relationship with his biological father as well.
The 31-year-old couple went to school together from the first day of kindergarten. In high school, the two self-described "serious students" started dating.
Both were three-sport athletes. He played football, basketball and baseball. She was in volleyball, basketball and tennis - losing "only one or two matches in four years of varsity tennis," Tod points out with pride.
One place they were not together was church. Jane was raised Catholic. Tod's parents, who at that time were not religious, sent him to attend a nearby Church of the Brethren.
Church was mainly "just something for him to do," Jane said, until the year Tod was 16.
That's when his best friend, a Methodist, asked Tod to join him on a summer trip to Red Bird Mission in Kentucky to do work for the poor.
"One night there, the pastor presented the Gospel: John 3:16. I thought, `I've not heard this before,' and I committed my life to Christ that night."
For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him will not perish, but have everlasting life.
- John 3:16
"It was not like he came back totally changed," Jane said, "but he got to know Jesus Christ and started living out his faith after that."
Jane and Tod continued dating and studying together through high school.
It apparently was time well spent. Jane became the class valedictorian. "She's the smart one," Tod said.
Jane headed to Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind., to study biomedical engineering. Tod began pharmacy studies at Butler University in Indianapolis.
The two agreed that they should date other people while they were away at school. "We weren't thinking of marriage," Tod said.
But they stayed together after all.
Eventually, it was Jane who went into pharmacy, earning a doctor of pharmacy degree with only one additional year of study instead of the usual two.
Tod pursued medical school after working as a pharmacist one summer in a mission hospital in Africa, where he said he received a calling.
"God touched me, and I clearly felt he spoke to me to train to be a physician."
On Dec. 17, 1988 - just before her final semester and during Tod's second year of medical school, they married.
She then went to work as a clinical pharmacist at one of the hospitals at Indiana University while Tod completed his medical school training.
During this time, they attended their first FamilyLife Marriage Conference, a Christian program designed to strengthen marriages. For Tod, in particular, whose family had a history of divorce, it was evidence of an early commitment to make his marriage last.
In 1991, they moved to Roanoke. They became members at Shenandoah Baptist Church, helped start a new Sunday school class there for young couples, and Tod began teaching it.
They also have been instrumental in bringing the FamilyLife Marriage Conference to Roanoke. This weekend, they are coordinating the fourth such conference to be held here, with 1,000 people participating at the Hotel Roanoke.
And they have taken three foreign medical mission trips since they've been here - to Guyana, Ukraine and Jamaica.
A year and a half ago, they moved to Rocky Mount, where Tod began practicing at Blue Ridge Medical Center with two other Christian physicians. He and Jane had come to like the region, developed friendships here, and the job opportunity was one of the relatively few where he could combine obstetrics with a family practice.
They joined Franklin Heights Baptist Church, and within a few months, on Dec. 7, 1995, their first child, John, was born.
Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up.
- James 5:14-15
"We do have hope" for a cure, Jane said, through medical means and divine intervention.
Medically, Jane is undergoing chemotherapy treatments every three weeks.
There are still risks.
But just how much of a risk is unclear because pregnant women are typically excluded from medical studies, particularly those on the effects of potentially risky treatments. There were no studies from which to accurately judge the effects of the chemotherapy on the fetus.
After researching similar cases, Jane and Tod and Jane's oncologist, Dr. Stephen Kennedy, settled on two chemotherapy agents that - while not the most powerful chemicals available - "hopefully will be therapeutic for me," Jane said, "but pose the least risk for the baby."
The treatment involves first giving Jane a potent anti-nausea drug called Zofran. Then a nurse at the Cancer Center of Southwest Virginia injects the stuff they call "red devil," adriamycin, into a vein in Jane's arm.
Adriamycin is "a mean drug," Tod explained, so caustic that if a drop of it fell on Jane's skin, or escaped the vein into the surrounding tissue, it would cause serious burns that can eat away the flesh.
It can be toxic to the heart, both Jane's and the developing baby's, so Jane has a sonogram before each chemotherapy treatment to see that the fetus is developing properly and hasn't suffered any cardiac damage.
The "red devil" is followed by a second cancer fighter, cyclophosphamide. It can damage the kidneys and bladder unless Jane drinks three liters of water a day for a couple of days following the treatment.
Jane and Tod also are delving into alternative approaches to treatment, including some dietary changes such as drinking a glass of carrot juice each day and taking barley extract. While the effects aren't fully understood or documented, there is some evidence that diet may help combat the cancer.
And their regimen relies heavily on the spiritual.
"Prayer is as important a part of Jane's therapy as anything else," Tod said.
"As a physician, I know there are degrees of spiritual healing, emotional healing and physical healing.
"Only God can do all of the above."
During his residency and now in his own practice, Tod fully incorporates prayer into his patients' therapy.
"We actively pray with patients," he said, and "99.9 percent of them enjoy and like for us to.
``I do have patients come in to see me just to pray for them, or they'll call and say, `I know you are a man of prayer. Would you pray for my aunt or grandmother?' It's a privilege to be in that position."
As important as prayer is, they know it doesn't always provide all the answers - or necessarily the answers they want.
"As much as ... I want to be in control, I'm not in control of this," Jane says.
"We don't know why this happened to us," but "God allows things to happen for a reason. He's fully in control," Jane said. "I'd like to know why, but I may not right up until I see him face to face."
It is the prospect of leading someone to become a Christian, or strengthening someone's Christian faith, that leads them to want to share their story.
"We really want the Lord to be glorified in our lives. If we can help just one person ... the Lord uses all kinds of circumstances to bring people to know him.
"The hardest thing for Jane is the thought of leaving our son, John, and our young baby, and me," Tod said. "The odds are that will happen. That makes it difficult."
But, it is in their faith that they find comfort.
"Knowing that God's in control, that he would take care of the kids, that they are in his hands, is reassuring. He can do far more than me. But as a mother, I think I need to be there," Jane said, for the first and only time in three interviews succumbing to a few quiet tears.
You turned my wailing into dancing;
you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy.
- Psalm 30:11
Family, friends, neighbors, patients and church members have all tried to do what they can to help.
They are "happy to share our burden." Tod said. He and Jane consider it an "important biblical concept, to partake of the fellowship of the body of Christ," by allowing others to help them. That includes soliciting prayers for Jane's recovery and the rest of the family's needs.
"We haven't had to cook a meal since January," Jane said.
Since breaking the news to their families the day of the biopsy, relatives have come in from Indiana for a week or two at a time to help out in the house.
They have received hundreds of cards, dozens of books and articles on faith and cancer and healing, and countless prayers, many from people they have never met.
One man who had heard Jane's name on a Christian-radio prayer list called her at home to offer his bone-marrow. As many as half a dozen other people have contacted Tod to do the same.
But, generous as those offers are, they are not necessary. After delivering her baby sometime in late May or June - about a month prematurely - she will undergo an autologous bone-marrow transplant, in which marrow is harvested from her own system, cleansed and replaced.
The delivery and transplant are scheduled to be done at Indiana University, so she will be close to family during the monthlong treatment.
I will lie down and sleep in peace,
for you alone, O Lord
make me dwell in safety.
- Psalm 4:8
"Short term, I know my prospects are poor," Jane said.
So, their plans for the future are more immediate than distant.
Tod is already making plans for being away from his practice during the transplant.
"We talk about making it a priority to spend time as a family as much as we can," Tod said, and about the possibility of moving back to Indiana and starting a practice to be closer to their families.
"We talk about the fact that we believe Jane is going to be healed.
"And we have talked a little about death. Not to a big degree. We don't want to focus on that too early."
The reality, of course, is that "All of us are in the process of dying," Tod said.
"Whether we have two years or 40 years, if Jesus spares her life, we want to make it all excellent quality time."
The Stillsons may be contacted by e-mail at TStillson@pol.net. or 1397 Altice Mill Road, Rocky Mount, 24151.
LENGTH: Long : 326 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ERIC BRADY/Staff. 1. Jane's oncologist, Dr. Stephenby CNBKennedy (right), is treating her with chemotherapy. 2. At the Cancer
Center of Southwest Virginia a nurse injects adriamycin, a drug
nicknamed ``red devil," into a vein in Jane's arm. 3. ``The hardest
thing for Jane is the thought of leaving our son, John, and our
young baby, and me," says her husband, Tod Stillson. 4. Friends,
family and fellow church members try to do what they can to help.
Mimi Boone (left) gives Jane a hug after bringing over the family
dinner. "We haven't had to cook a meal since January," says Jane. 5.
Jane and Tod are active members of Franklin Heights Baptist Church
in Rocky Mount. 6. On a recent Sunday Tod taught a men's Sunday
school class (above left). 7. The family over a meal at home:
"Prayer is as important a part of Jane's therapy as anything else,"
says Tod. color.