Ever have a day (or a season) when you feel like things are so overwhelming you cannot see the light? Are you in a life battle that seems to drain you completely?
HOPE! It's real and it's life-giving.
Join me today as I speak to Chris Lawrence. He is a cancer THRIVER and founder of the non-profit, Hope Has Arrived. He has a lot to say about hope and it's infinite power in this life.
Connect with Chris Lawrence at Hope Has Arrived:
Hope Has Arrived
Suggested Resource Links:
Your donations power our podcast's mission to support cancer patients with hope, insights, and resources. Every contribution fuels our ability to uplift and empower. Join us in making a lasting impact. Donate now! 🌟
Ever have a day (or a season) when you feel like things are so overwhelming you cannot see the light? Are you in a life battle that seems to drain you completely?
HOPE! It's real and it's life-giving.
Join me today as I speak to Chris Lawrence. He is a cancer THRIVER and founder of the non-profit, Hope Has Arrived. He has a lot to say about hope and it's infinite power in this life.
Connect with Chris Lawrence at Hope Has Arrived:
Hope Has Arrived
Suggested Resource Links:
Your donations power our podcast's mission to support cancer patients with hope, insights, and resources. Every contribution fuels our ability to uplift and empower. Join us in making a lasting impact. Donate now! 🌟
Hi, I'm Ivelisse Page. And thanks for listening to the Believe Big podcast, the show where we take deep dive into your healing with health experts, integrative practitioners, biblical faith leaders and cancer thrivers from around the globe. Welcome to today's episode on the Believe Big podcast. My name is Ivelisse Page, and it's an honor to spend this time with you. Do you or someone you know, need to hear a story of hope today? Have you been diagnosed with cancer and need to hear from someone who has been there and has overcome great odds? Well get ready because our guest, Chris Lawrence, is here with an incredible story to share. Chris Lawrence is a writer, outdoor guide, and the founder of Hope Has Arrived. He was diagnosed with stage IV bile duct cancer in the spring of 2016, but through the help of experimental treatments and his faith in God, he reached remission and continues living a healthy and active life. He and his wife and two kids live in Colorado. Welcome Chris to the show!
Chris Lawrence:Thank you.
Ivelisse Page:I love that you live in Colorado. What part of Colorado?
Chris Lawrence:We live in Colorado Springs. It's where my wife is from and we had lived here before and we moved back here. It was like over a year ago, yeah.
Ivelisse Page:It's such a beautiful place, we're up in Fort Collins, not far from you.
Chris Lawrence:That's right, and I love Fort Collins. We've spent a lot of time up there and I, it's always a real blessing to get a chance to go up there and spend time.
Ivelisse Page:Yes. Our listeners are always interested in discovering what our guest's favorite health tip is. Can you share yours with us?
Chris Lawrence:Sure. I'm glad you asked that question. Yeah, I'd say mine is regular exercise, just to keep moving and I think, especially since I've walked through cancer myself, I can understand, that looks different at different points in your life. It looks different at different points in your, your health journey, if you are going through cancer. But I think it is just so important to, to keep your body moving. It's what it was designed to do. And whether that's just some light walks or if it's actually running or biking I think it's just healthy. I know, even when I went through treatment, I tried to do that. I was not one of those survivors I've even, read stories or things where they're like, still training for running races and things like that throughout their treatment. That was not me. It beat me down to the ground. So I can say that from understanding the spectrum of that, but I just think it's so important to get out there and move as much as you can regularly. It's just really good for your body. Good for your outlook. Good for your mind and spirit.
Ivelisse Page:Yeah, especially with what you do as an outdoor guide. I think it's so important to get outside in nature and just get refreshed. In the midst of my journey as well, my exercise was literally being able to walk to the mailbox and back that's all that I could do. And then you slowly build up from that, whatever your capacity holds is what you should try and do. So I, I really love that tip. So let's get into your story a little bit. Can you share with us how you found out you had cancer and what you experienced?
Chris Lawrence:Yeah, sure. It came as quite a shock, like it does for most people. My wife and I, we were living, we were actually living in Longmont, Colorado at the time, which is it's near Boulder. And we are working for an outdoor program up there. And, really just, loving life liked the job that we were doing and the people we were working with and we were newer to that area. And we had just had our daughter who's our first child and she was six months old at the time. So it just, it was great. Life was going well. And then I started having this unexplained kind of lower back pain. And I was training for some triathlon races and, I'm a professional outdoor guide, but I'm an amateur athlete. I don't wanna make too much of that, but I was training and, something I enjoyed doing and had fun with. But I started having this back pain and it was unexplained because there was no incident of injury. I did not have any history of back problems and it got really bad. And I remember I went to a physical therapist and they're like, oh, this is just a minor strain. Give it time, this is gonna heal. And it just got worse. And after a while I finally, when it turned into back spasms and which I didn't even know what that was. And I was 37 at the time and a pretty healthy 37, I would say. And it just was starting to become debilitating. And when I finally insisted on an MRI, I got that call that nobody wants to get, from this doctor. We were driving. I can remember the exact spot where my wife and I were. We were in town and we were driving. I had to pull the car over and I'm glad I did. And it's just, one of those news that the news that knocks you to your knees, but he's I think I know what's causing your back pain. It looks like it's cancer and it's spreading from somewhere else. So it's, oh my gosh, this is not, this is really bad. No, cancer's good. But this is really bad.
Ivelisse Page:What was your first reaction when you heard the news and how did your wife handle that as well?
Chris Lawrence:Just absolute fear, just terror. Never felt so I've never felt so scared of my life. And, I think things coming into very sharp focus about what matters most to you. And I think at that point it really was my wife and my new daughter our family and our friends and all these people in our life. But just, I was like, what's gonna happen if I'm not here to be with my wife and my daughter. And my wife and I, we got married a little bit later, like in our early thirties. And my grandparents they're have passed away since, but they, some of my favorite people and they celebrated like 70 years of marriage together. And I'm like, I finally found the girl that I wanna spend 70 years with. And, this was maybe four years into our marriage or something, and then we're hitting this and it just was absolute fear. You know what, where's this going? You know what's gonna happen? And yeah, it was scary, there's, I've never felt anything that terrifying in my life.
Ivelisse Page:What did you practically do during that time to overcome that fear and discouragement?
Chris Lawrence:I'm a person of, I've always believed in God and I just, when you're in a crisis and I know people like to say, there's no atheist in foxholes. This was a foxhole and I know there are some people that like, that's just not what they want in their life, but I think a lot of people, myself included do turn to God. And I had already had that relationship. So it was a place that my wife and I leaned on a ton to find hope. But even so I'm not gonna lie, it was a struggle, We're getting, we are getting zero hope from the medical world. And God was there, but it was, it's not like we are hearing, here's the exact reason why this is happening. Here's where this is going. My friend said this, who actually has we've featured some of his articles on the website I have for Hope Has Arrived, but he said getting a cancer diagnosis, it's like someone takes a bomb and they put it in your chimney, and it just blows up your life. And I'm like, that's exactly what happened to us. And we were just trying to find hope and, any grounding that we could. And so we leaned on the very, places that we had always done that, which was through, our spiritual life, through relationship with God and our family. Our family was huge. Some friends were key too. But it was just very disorienting in a very difficult time.
Ivelisse Page:Yes, having that family support that community support and faith definitely gets you over that fear. And sometimes you have to keep reminding yourself over and over again throughout the day. And so I really appreciate your transparency of sharing that with us. And so tell us what happened next. What was your chances of survival? What were the doctors telling you? And then how did you proceed from there?
Chris Lawrence:Yeah, didn't really want to hear what they were saying to be honest. it was not good. Pretty much the first guy we talked to was, wanted, just put me on palliative heading towards hospice and that, I didn't even really know what all that was. And it was such a weird thing because I had gone from feeling, probably one of the healthiest points of my life. And I'd actually, I had won my age group in some races and stuff, and everyone's oh, this guy's so healthy. And now they're like, hey, let's talk about you, you have maybe a year left. And I'm just, was like, what is going on? And what happened was, so we met with one, one doctor and then I talked to my family and we're just trying to figure out, what do we do here? What are the options? And we didn't really know. All I knew is that, my, when I talked to my dad, he was like, obviously they blew early detection out there. Or however you wanna look at it. I don't really, blame, anyone in particular, it's just, I wish there would've been early detection that would've been nice. But that's not what happened. But he did, my dad was like, why don't you come back here to South Dakota. Which is where I'm from. My, just to be closer to family. Also, this is the surprising thing, there's really good medical care where I'm from, Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Shockingly good. And it's not something that people would expect. And so I went back there, but not knowing that we were gonna find anything more, cuz I was already living in Colorado. It's, lot of major Metro metropolitan areas around there. But we talked to a couple more doctors when I finally got back to Sioux Falls and they were pretty much saying the same thing as the guy in Colorado. But then there was this meeting with this other doctor that I'm still trying to put the pieces together about what happened. Am I answering your question, Ivelisse? I don't wanna go on.
Ivelisse Page:Yes, this is great! No, I just, what was the next steps? What were your treatments? What did you do?
Chris Lawrence:Yeah.
Ivelisse Page:To be here today?
Chris Lawrence:Yeah, so we, just on a whim, we moved to South Dakota. It happened really quick. We flew out to South Dakota. I was in such bad shape, I, I could barely walk, honestly. I remember being wheeled in a wheelchair in the airport. Let's go from six months prior to know, like winning my age group and Boulder triathlons to not even being able to get on the plane. But we get back to, its crazy. We get back to Sioux Falls. We end up meeting, going to these two clinics and then I somehow get connected with this research doctor. And apparently this guy he used to run Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. He's one of the top research doctors. Who come to find, probably one of the top in the world. And he'd been working on genomic sequencing, just trying to help people understand what are the genetic causes of cancer and how to treat that. And, we, I ended up meeting with him because I can't remember how it happened, God did it. It's not because we researched and picked our options of the best treatment. It just fell in our lap, but we had this meeting with this doctor. It, his not, his name is Dr. Leland Jones. And I'm like, I don't really want to meet with another doctor. I'm so sick of hearing, like pretty much you have a year left. There's no hope. I'm like, it's, it is every time is like painful. I don't really want to think about it. I know I have to, so we meet with this guy and then the first words he said, it's like the whole meeting was different. He said got the re results of your genomic sequencing. It's good news. I know how to treat this. And we're just like, what?! We're just like whoa. He walked us through that about why he knew that, and he, talked about how he has a targeted therapy plan that would match, that would go right after and attack the drivers of what was causing my cancer. And this is six years ago now. So much, there's so much known now about this. This is, sweeping cancer care. He laid out his plan, there's no guarantee. But what happened was that for the first time we felt like there was hope and he didn't necessarily say, this is for sure gonna work. This is yeah, you're gonna be cured. But he said, I know how to treat this. And he gave us hope. And then I remember after he left the room, my dad and my wife and I were sitting in the room, we were just stunned. We just felt like hope for the first time. And it just blew us away. And I remember so much so that my dad like, wrote hope on the board and talked about like that hope had arrived that day. I didn't know this, but actually the same day he went and reserved the URL hopehasarrived.com. It's crazy. I'm glad he didn't tell me at the time cuz I would've been like, I don't even wanna talk about that right now. I don't know what you're talking about, but let's, I gotta get through this.
Ivelisse Page:That's incredible.
Chris Lawrence:Yeah.
Ivelisse Page:And so Chris what exactly is the treatment that he did?
Chris Lawrence:So it's some standard chemo. Which like that's not fun, but you can't argue with some benefits that it brings. Standard chemo then immunotherapy. I think that's probably even now that's what a lot of doctors point as the key was immunotherapy. And then there was another targeted drug, which is, questionable about how much impact that had, but. Six years later, it's hard not to say it had some influence, but yeah, there's three different drugs. One of the immunotherapists, in the immunotherapy was Keytruda, which it's that's very common now. At the time, it wasn't even approved. So this guy and his team of researchers had different connections and they were able to get some of this experimental stuff. At the time, you had to sign your life away, but it's what they used. And within two or three months my, my scans started showing clear. They kept me on treatment for a long time. It was a long gaunlet. What I hope for the day when they know exactly how long to keep people on treatment and when to stop. Think how great that'll be. Cause they don't know. And so it was just like a hard journey of faith. It was really cool to see that the scans showed clear, but then, there's always this battle between conventional and experimental. And patients, and the families kinda get caught in the middle, just trying to figure out how to find the best treatment, what's gonna work. When do we stop treatment? It's really difficult. But I do think what helped me and my family navigate, it was just hope. Especially God and then, and then that there are some of these doctors that, that care and they're trying to help us. That was a really key thing. It was probably a year treatment and then I was still on Keytruda for a while longer. But I've been off everything for three years or something like that.
Ivelisse Page:Wow. Yes. I think that's a part that still needs to be focused on, is the post care. Doctors call it that watchful waiting period and then they'll say we'll see you in three months. And, we really believe that's a time when everyone needs to double down and continue on that path of health and, incorporate healthy eating, continued healthy eating, and the right testing to make sure that things are caught early. And so hoping that advances in the future on the conventional side. But I'm wondering, did you include any integrative therapies, any complimentary therapies to your treatment or were you a healthy eater? Are you a healthy eater now? What changed?
Chris Lawrence:I would say yes. We. We've always tried to eat pretty healthy. I think everybody can always make changes to improve. It's a difficult thing. You can always do more. But we did we did try to just eat cleaner. It was pretty strict for a while, especially when I was in treatment, just to really try to, just do everything I could and to set my body up for optimal cancer fighting, essentially. And we kept that going. We still eat a very healthy diet. It's not as strict as it was when I was in treatment. And also, it's like some of this stuff, I don't totally know. I I believe in the power of nutrition. To what extent, it's and I've heard people say this, it's like, we have these like books of research from, so much part of medicine. And then there's just lesser known about nutrition. So it's we, it's not, like we can't say it's super critical, but it's just harder to point to all this data that we have on some other parts of medicine.
Ivelisse Page:I really think it's because, especially even with the mistletoe clinical trial that we're doing with Hopkins is they have to isolate. And the combination of how fruits and vegetables interact with each other in the body. It's very hard for them to kinda isolate the effectiveness let's say of an apple on its own, compared with all of them together with, all the dark leafy, cruciferous fruits and vegetables. I think that's why a lot of testing hasn't been done on that conventionally. As you say, there is so much evidence as to how important you're reducing inflammation and so many other things in your body that good nutrition has. So my next question is, you were 37, you were a new dad and you had a family. Did you work during your cancer treatments? And if so, how did you handle the demands of a job while battling cancer?
Chris Lawrence:Oh, man I went on medical leave for about six months and then then I did ease back into work. I was still in treatment, but it was more like part-time. And then, well, it was part-time approaching full-time. My employer was very gracious with me. And then, yeah, I'd say within a year I was back to full-time and it was it's challenging, to balance that stuff. And we went through about the so many changes at once. I, I do not recommend people do the whole cancer journey like we did it where you, like you move, you upend from your community. Essentially stepped down from my job. They were gracious to give me another role, but it was just different and wasn't working with the team as much and, it's just, and then I'm going through cancer and you were living in a new place. I just don't think any of those are like the best ways to do it, but.
Ivelisse Page:What would you have done differently then? Looking back now, what would you have done differently that you think would've helped you, that you can share with someone listening today that's in the middle of it or just starting their journey?
Chris Lawrence:I just wish someone, someone who had been there had come alongside me a little bit more. Honestly, what we're trying to do with Hope Has Arrived is like just to try to help coach them through the journey. How can you find hope at these different points? How can you try to look ahead? Like what's coming. It's looking back, I can't say I wouldn't have moved because it was what I needed to do. That treatment, where would I be without it? I, I love the name of your organization, Believe Big, cuz I do think that there's not limits about how God can help people. Going through cancer when they pray and ask for his help, like He doesn't have to use medicine, but he does. I just told a story about someone from Zimbabwe, there's places in the world where people are going through cancer. It's not just the developed countries and what are they doing? They don't necessarily have the resources we do, but I'm like, God is not limited by a lack of resources to help people, to find a way through it to find a miracle.
Ivelisse Page:Let's talk about your organization, Hope Has Arrived. How do you define hope?
Chris Lawrence:I would say it's the, it's the belief and expectation of coming good. Even when circumstances or your present reality is screaming the opposite. It's just that fuel that keeps you going. I thought I understood hope before cancer, but I don't think I did. Because what I've found is, like when you experience the absence of something you start to realize how vital and important it is. And so when I felt that loss of hope, I'm just like, oh, so this is what has kept me going at so many points in my life. And it's not like I haven't had some other difficult things, I have, but this was probably the most difficult. Other than, it's another story, but my wife and I lost a child stillbirth. That was pretty crushing. It's just different.
Ivelisse Page:Sorry.
Chris Lawrence:Yeah. We kinda had a string of that was like a year before this cancer thing. I learned that hope is, man, hope is so powerful about how it can keep you going through the toughest, darkest seasons. And you come to find that in life, there's no guarantees. I don't care if you've had cancer or not, everybody's life is fragile. And you also have to think what am I putting my hope in? Because a lot of things I found that I was putting my hope in even before going through it were maybe not as strong as I thought. If you think, oh, my healthy body is my hope. It's our bodies do strange things, sometimes, really funky things. And it just taught me a lot about hope and I'm so grateful for that. I'm also really thankful to help other people discover that too. That's, it's not something I ever saw coming that I was gonna be part of the cancer club. And that also, this is the weird part that I'm like, oh, that I would wanna help other people find hope. And that would actually, that I would find joy in that, that would.
Ivelisse Page:Yes.
Chris Lawrence:Because I think, and maybe you can understand this too. There's part of me at different points where I'm like, let's just pretend the whole cancer thing never happened. And just forget about it. And let's not talk about it anymore, because it was so painful. But then I'm really glad that I didn't let fear or just some of what happened or fear of the future get in the way of the good that could happen for helping other people find hope.
Ivelisse Page:Yeah. Yes. I just read this yesterday in Proverbs 13:12, it says hope deferred makes the heart sick. But a longing fulfill is a tree of life and I believe that hope deferred can lead us to God who has the answers. During times of waiting, my husband says we either grow in faith or in bitterness. And we have to keep looking to God. We keep learning. We need to keep on growing in our character. We need to keep doing as doing good as we wait. At any minute, God can do what we desire or something even greater, but we need to keep praying to see his will over ourselves, our lives. A harvest of blessings, I believe will come if we don't give up. And if we don't hold too tightly to our own thinking and I just love that verse when it came and I was like, oh, how appropriate as I'm gonna be speaking to you today. In our last few minutes here, I would love for you to share about your organization, Hope Has Arrived and how people listening can connect with you as well.
Chris Lawrence:Sure. Yeah. And thanks for that verse. I absolutely love that. I just think there's nothing quite so powerful as the words of the Bible. The Bible, in my opinion, is the authority on hope.
Ivelisse Page:Yes.
Chris Lawrence:And there's so many, there's just like hundreds of verses about hope. It's obviously people have been thinking about this, for centuries about hope and how important it is. But more about Hope Has Arrived, we started it in 2018. And my background is writing in journalism. That's also what I've done besides being an outdoor guide. But our goal is to help people find hope, strength, and peace against cancer. And we do that through content stories of hope, helpful articles. And there's really four areas of topics that I think we, we try to cover. And that's, finding hope, fighting fear(that's such a huge thing), asking God for help. And that one was interesting. I found that so many people want to pray and they want to ask God for help, but maybe that hasn't been their background spiritually or they haven't felt close to God. And when you're going through something hard, that's not a time to play the blame game on yourself. It's more just, hey, God's waiting for you to like, ask for help. So just ask, like he's a good father. So a lot of our articles and it's been, I was surprised about this, but they become some of our most popular articles. People are like, tell me more about how do I pray, how do I ask God for help? How am I sure that he hears me? We're not trying to be just for people who have faith, it's for all people facing cancer. But what I'm finding is that almost all people facing cancer want to know more about prayer and how to unlock the power of that when facing cancer. Whether it's for themselves or praying for a loved one, who's going through it. So that's a big part of what we do. And the other thing is another category. The fourth one I would say is strength and peace, just articles. How can people have strength and find peace when they're in the midst of it? And, that's, we release a new story of hope every month. And we're probably putting out other articles every week. We also have a support group on Facebook, which is, it was funny, it was just we started it on a whim, but it's growing fast. I wouldn't say it's in a good way it's not like one of the huge groups, but I think we're at about 650 members and our goal is not to become huge. But our members have really said it's a place where they've been able to find prayer support. And, and it's not just for people from a spiritual background, there are people from all backgrounds in that group. It's just, people are welcome to check it out. If you want to find a supportive community, a place to ask for prayer. I should say this too. We, we have reached 1.5 million people so far since we started.
Ivelisse Page:Wow.
Chris Lawrence:Thanks. Yeah, it's we've just done that through, social media and just trying to write. People tell the most hopeful and amazing stories. I'm just shocked. You think you've heard it all or you've heard really good stories and then a new one comes along and I feel like that happens every time for us.
Ivelisse Page:That's what you're doing today for us and I know that your story is going to truly inspire and encourage someone who receives a diagnosis. There aren't many solutions or any solutions that are being shared with them, and they're brought to a point of discovery and finding individuals who are hopeful, even oncologists who, like you said I know how to treat this. That's the oncologist that you want to look for. And I just appreciate that you just didn't just take your healing and say, I'm done. That's the one chapter done in my life, that you're now paying it forward. And I think we all owe that to our community, to our families, to the world is to share hope to those who are feeling hopeless as we did. Because Chris only you and those who have gone through cancer can fully understand what someone is experiencing and you can hold their hand along that journey and keep helping them to walk forward and to take each step at a time. And I just feel like that is just so powerful and we need to keep sharing those stories. We need to keep encouraging. We need to keep inspiring people to be hopeful and knowing that nothing's impossible with God. And so thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you for sharing your story and thank you for connecting with us.
Chris Lawrence:Thank you. I've loved this. This has been great Ivelisse. Thank you so much.
Ivelisse Page:If you enjoyed this episode and you'd like to help support our podcast, please subscribe and share it with others. Be sure to visit believebig.org to access the show notes and discover our bonus content. Thanks again, and keep Believing Big!