Tom Green Knew Hope Always Existed

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This is a guest post by Tom Green, 60, who was diagnosed with stage 4 kidney cancer in 2015. He is currently a business owner, a new student at McDaniel College in Maryland, and a member of the McDaniel Green Terror football team. He lives with his family in Pennsylvania. Read a story about him at the Baltimore Sun.

Up to 2008, I was known for two things my wealth and my strength. As a successful land speculator, people respected me, or at least they respected what I had accomplished. Unfortunately, both money and power vanished in just a few tumultuous, faith-testing years that included economic recession, bankruptcy, and leaving my family business to pivot to a new career. In that time, my mother passed from cancer.

Then in May 2015 I would see my faith tested once again; stage 4 kidney cancer.

I would lose 50 lbs in the matter of a month and being sickly would see my family doctor. My doctor would have me do tests that would check my blood and CT scans that would check my body for any disease. They found it – a 9 cm tumor on my left kidney.

I now feel like the patriarch Job from the Bible’s Old Testament at this point. My wealth taken, my possessions gone and now my health is crippled.

Meet the 60-year-old ‘miracle’ patient set to play college football

My left kidney would have to be taken out as the tumor was rather large. This had me seek a friend I had in medical research at the University of Maryland Medical Center. That friend would go to the top administrators and have the best kidney physician take my tumor out just a few weeks later.

The scary news would come later as they said it has gone metastatic. The cancer had now invaded my left lung and tumors began to show. After my left lung I would have a tumor eat through my sixth and eighth rib. Later it would continue onto my skull and by my aorta. I thought death was inevitable.

With this diagnosis what was my plan in life? Start my own pallet manufacturing company, of course. Seeing how I had my wealth stripped from me, I felt responsible for what seemed to be leaving my family penniless.

Although the days were tough to start our company in January of 2016, it would do something that my wife would later say was my best medicine, it was a great distraction one that would make me push myself. Taking cancer drugs and having started a business was no fun and my death sentence was all but sure. One of the leading doctors in the kidney cancer realm would tell me: “You have 2 ½ years to live”. My anxiety would kick in and though I returned to my faith, I still knew that the end of my life could be soon. I would then learn of a site online called “SmartPatients”. This site would provide me with the hope of medicines that one day could be the cure. I would learn about Interleukin 2 (IL-2) and its eight percent possibility of curing me.

As I studied along, I came to find that my church would ask me: “How can we pray for you?” Being specific, I would tell them what I needed to happen in my body. I learned that my T cells (part of my immune system) would need to be elevated and heightened to be able to see my cancer and kill the cells and tumors off.

Next, I would seek and interview three physicians that were experts in the realm of kidney cancer. Ultimately, Dr. Suresh Nair of Lehigh Valley Health Network would be my choice. After flying to Boston and visiting Georgetown, I felt Dr. Nair was the one who could walk me through the gauntlet I was about to enter.

I would be infused with IL-2 and would have to go through as many infusions as I could stand. My first round I would go code blue with a life-threatening emergency and would be woken by male nurses slapping me in my face to bring me back to consciousness. I would do two more visits with four rounds and again I would go code blue two more times. Dr. Nair had seen enough.

Scared that I may not wake up from another IL-2 infusion, he would send me to Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. There I would see Dr. Antonarakis. He would be the best man for my next phase of discovery. I would enter a phase III clinical trial of Yervoy and Opdivo (ipilimumab and nivolumab, two immunotherapy drugs). Dr Nair wanted me expedited to this trial as my T cells were heightened by IL-2 the trial drugs would now make use of that heightened ability.

In November 2017, I would get my first ipi/nivo infusion, I was facing near end of my two and a half year deadline. On Christmas Eve I could barely celebrate as my body was tired. That night would be the night my wife would put her hope into action, she would pray for me all night. Her prayer was that the Lord would be gracious and heal me or He would take me to my Heavenly home. This would be the time that I would forgive my family for how they treated me. I would also ask God to forgive me for my hate for them and I would lay my anger at the cross and leave it there. Later my pastor would tell me that’s when Job was restored when he forgave his friends God would restore all that was taken from him.

After infusion number two of the clinical trial, I would be forced into taking another biopsy of my eighth rib tumor. As the nurse would stick the needle into my rib, she complained that she had to go deeper because there seemed to be more water than tumor. My wife was sitting across from me as they performed the biopsy. I will never forget my wife’s eyes. Does this mean? Are my tumors dying? Not having the guts to ask the nurse at the time we would call her while we were on the road home. We asked: “Are you saying the tumors are dying?” She would reply: “I can’t answer that question you need to ask your doctor.”

But it was true, the cancer was starting to die.

After two more infusions I felt so good I would enter the gym and bench 315 lbs, a feat that I hadn’t done in YEARS. After the lift I literally kneeled on the bench and thanked God for healing me. I would call my trial nurse and told her over the phone it was gone; she laughed at me almost sarcastically, “it may have well gone down but your cancer isn’t gone.”

Just days later we would get a scan, a scan I couldn’t wait to take. My church family asked me what to pray for on scan day, I told them to pray that all the tumors would be gone. Dr. Antonarakis would come into his office and his smile was beaming like a child coming down the steps on Christmas morning, “ITS GONE”.

Fast forward to today: I am accepted to McDaniel College in Maryland for a communications major. At 60 years old, I will be the oldest college football player in the history of the sport.

My doctor has since told me to leave the hospital and never return. I have never seen anything like your case; you are a miracle child. Funny, I just believe in the God of miracles. Hope was always there. Job part two had be restored.