Martin's Story
I noticed a spot on my arm one day and at the time, I didn't give it much thought because it was just a red spot on my left shoulder. Anyway, it actually changed and went black, so I did go and get it checked out. I found unfortunately, that it was melanoma.
I had an operation to have it removed and all went well. Then I was having a shower and a lump had appeared in my armpit and my gut feeling was that maybe the cancer had come back.
At the end of May, about three or four months after, I had this terrible shooting pain in my leg, and I thought what's going on there? It was excruciatingly painful. I couldn't walk so I went back to the hospital and the Doctor gave the situation to me as it was. He said, "What's happened is that your cancer has had the ability to resurface and spread throughout your body."
The medical term for this is metastasize. So the cancer basically changes and moves around. I was diagnosed then with stage four terminal cancer. It all seemed like a tease, I'm doing well then I'm not doing well and then I'm doing well and then I'm not doing well. I said to the the Lord, "Just give me some hope, just give me something to look to, because this is, you know, quite a turmoil."
Interestingly enough, I prayed and said, "Reveal something Lord to me, that I'm able to cling to." So I had my hand on the Bible and I opened it. It opened to 2 Kings chapter 20, right on the page. In my Bible the headings of different things are in bold. It was the plea of Hezekiah, where he asked for more life. When I saw that, I just felt a whole relaxation, I just thought everything's going to be fine.
The drug they were giving me was a drug called Nivolumab, and it's an immune boosting drug. Basically it fights the cancer and it makes your body stronger. It shoots all around your body and it targets all the different areas where there may be cancer. I started to get better and better and better. I had no fear, no matter what people told me.
Then something strange happened, I went for the scan at Burwood Hospital and lo and behold, I went to see my consultant. He's a very quiet sort of dry character, he likes to get straight to the point. He shook my hand and I thought that's really weird, because I've seen him over the last two years, and you know, he's never done anything like that, and he said, "We have no idea what it is, but we know what it isn't, it isn't cancerous. It's nothing to do with cancer."
In this collaboration between God and man and the breakthrough in medicine. All I know is, I've come from a point that I should not have recovered from, but more importantly, I'm so grateful to the Lord for giving me this opportunity of life.