PODCAST TRANSCRIPT | EPISODE 293: Seven-Year Battle with Cancer, Part 2
LIFE TO THE FULL w/ Nancy Campbell
EPISODE 293
: Seven-Year Battle with Cancer, Part 2
The story continues. God does an unbelievable miracle and Arden and Esther are blessed with little Gethsemane! Arden's body resists continuing cancer treatments and so they must face stem cell transplant. Esther publishes TRIM HEALTHY MAMA INDULGENCE.
Announcer: Welcome to the podcast, Life to The Full, with Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies.
Nancy Campbell: Hello, ladies! We’re back here with Arden and Esther, sitting here with me, and continuing to tell the story. There’s so much more yet, but they also have a wonderful story that, against all odds, in the middle of all this chemotherapy year after year after year, God did something very wonderful. Do you want to share, Esther?
Esther: Yes. Throughout the years, obviously, we desperately wanted a baby. But we knew that going through chemo, it was really unlikely we were going to going to have a baby on chemo. Even if we got a clean scan, and he was able to get off of chemo for a while, your body needs time to heal. After all he had been through, even the doctor said it might happen, but it also might not. It probably won’t.
Arden: They specified that.
Esther: It probably won’t. I had a chemical pregnancy in 2017. That was fun. I guess it brought my hopes down even further. Obviously, I tried to live my life in a way where my life didn’t depend on children. My worth didn’t depend on children. I am not valued more or less than a mom with a lot of children.
I was trying to find my hope and I didn’t see in God. As much as I wanted children, I had to put that on the altar to God. He was asking me, is He more important, or are the children more important to me?
Arden: Because she was going through a hard time, watching everyone around here.
Nancy: Oh! Everyone having babies on the Hilltop!
Arden: She w a mother at heart before she wanted children. She’s one of a dozen children. She was always very caring. She’s responsible. She did so much, and she wanted children, watching everyone else have children. We were married years before, and that was tough.
Esther: One of my life-long dreams too was to be a mother. So, I had to come to the end of myself twice. Well, all the time, but twice in a monumental way. I feel like in my life so far, and with Arden, I had to be willing to. . .
God put him on the altar, like the altar, like the altar that Abraham put Isaac on. God told me, “Am I more important, or Arden, to you?” I had to say, “God!” Then God blessedly gave Arden back to me, and said, “Fine, you can keep him. He’s yours now.” I do try to keep everything with a loose hand, because ultimately, it’s all God’s.
Then I had to do that with childbearing, because I really, really, wanted children. It was one of my passions and dreams. I had dreamed of it from the time I was a little, little girl. It didn’t feel fair that I had to put that one on the altar as well, but I had to.
God said, “Who’s more important to you? Me, or the children?” It took time, and it took a lot of struggling and fighting. But in the end, obviously God is more important. Without children I can still live a wonderful, full life, because I have Him.
However, God in his gracious kindness, did give me a baby. Arden had been off chemo for a little. He had just gotten a clear scan. We were giving his body a break to get through all that crap. On January 11 of 2019. . .
Arden: Actually, I was going to add to that. Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt. But I was going to add to that. I had gotten clear scans, and they were actually wanting me to do a stem cell, but we didn’t feel like we wanted to do a stem cell at that point.
Esther: We didn’t feel like it was the right time.
Arden: Yes. That’s the miracle.
Nancy: Yes.
Esther: Exactly. I never take, or I have learned not to take pregnancy tests early, because it’s rather disheartening to find negative after negative after negative. I had the two faint positives from the chemical pregnancy, but every other test I had taken was a negative pregnancy test. It was disheartening and discouraging and so on. Three years in, I had learned a long time ago to stop taking early pregnancy tests.
But strangely enough, on January 11, 2019, I had this random urge to take a pregnancy test. I was early. I was a week early. I would not normally take a pregnancy test then. It didn’t make any sense. Arden was out hunting, so I was like, “Well, he won’t know if I take it or not. If it’s negative, I’ll throw it away. He’ll never know.”
But for some reason, I felt this sporadic urge to take a pregnancy test! I took it, and I had to wait the five minutes that they recommend to make sure of your full results. So, I stepped away, did a couple of things, and then I stepped back to it.
To my absolute shock and awe, it was positive! I didn’t believe it at all. Honestly, between that day and the next morning, I took eight pregnancy tests in total because I didn’t believe it! It was so hard for me to believe it.
Arden: The funny thing is, well, generally I’m always late from hunting.
Esther: I’m married to a hunter, you know. There is no time frame for them. If they say they’re coming back at ten, they may come back at eight. They might come back at noon and noon is more likely!
Arden: That morning, I’d gone hunting. I was like, “You know what? I just feel like going home and spending time with my wife.” It was the one morning. . .
Esther: The one morning, if you’d been late, it would have been perfectly fine, because I was trying to figure out a way to tell him.
God gave me, He blessed me with a really easy pregnancy. I had very little morning sickness. It was a very good pregnancy. It was wonderful. We found out midway we were having a baby girl, which is honestly, so wonderful. I’d really wanted a little girl. I was so happy with whatever God gave us, but I did really want a little girl.
Arden: All of that year, 2019, I was doing natural treatment in Arizona, so I was not going to Vanderbilt and doing low-dose chemotherapy there. I was doing a low-dose immune chemotherapy.
Esther: Immunotherapy.
Arden: Immunotherapy in Arizona.
Esther: So, 2019 actually was a very blessed year. It was easier. It was simpler. I was pregnant, and I know I went through the entire year of 2019 in kind of a bliss because it was so fun being pregnant.
Arden: Beautiful. It was amazing.
Esther: I was talking to someone recently who’s also gone through infertility. She was talking about how, even though little things in pregnancy that are hard, become so beautiful and wonderful when you’ve waited that long. For me, even if I was sick, I didn’t even care! I was just so happy to be pregnant and have a baby.
My daughter decided she wanted to be stuck in me a lot longer than I would have liked. Our due date was September 23rd, and we didn’t end up having her until the 29th. But on the 29th, bright and early in the morning, like at 1 am, I went into labor. I had a beautiful labor, a lot harder than I expected, but it was beautiful, and it was wonderful, and we had a beautiful baby girl.
Interestingly enough, I’d always loved the name Gethsemane since I was a teenager. I didn’t know why at the time. I love unique names, and it was a beautiful name, but I didn’t realize how much meaning there would be to it until later on.
Later, when we were talking about names for our daughter, we knew it would be Gethsemane. We talked about this before we had gotten pregnant, but we knew it would be Gethsemane for a daughter because after all we had gone through, it fit.
Gethsemane is the place where Jesus prayed, “Not My will, but Yours be done.” He didn’t want what was happening to him. His human self didn’t want any part of it. He didn’t want to hurt. He didn’t want to ache like that. He didn’t want to suffer like that. But He said, “Not My will, but Yours be done.”
That is the place I had to come to. Arden had to come to it. We, separately and together, “Not my will but Yours be done. Please take this cup. Take it. But not my will. Yours be done.”
Then for her middle name, we actually had been praying about it and talking about that. I was researching one day, and the perfect name came to me when I was searching. It was Elianna. Elianna means “God has answered.” Together that was the story. “Take this cup. Not my will but Yours be done.” And then. . .
Arden: “God has answered.’
Esther: “God has answered.” Her name is Gethsemane Elianna. We are so blessed and so happy to have her. She’s the joy of our lives.
Arden: She’s beautiful, amazing, smart.
Esther: She’s four. She’s spunky. She’s a little stubborn. I think, too, it puts another perspective on mothering. Because even the hard days with her, I might not get to do this again, because I might not have another one. I try to enjoy it to the fullest, even the parts that are hard.
Obviously, as a mom, you still go through hard days. I may have it only once, so I’m trying to savor it, and make it last as long as I can. It’s not a burden to me. It’s beautiful.
We can go back to the stem cell transplant.
Arden: There’s a lot that goes in there in this whole story.
Nancy: So, all through this time, you still continued to work while you were on this low-dose chemo.
Arden: Through all the treatments, I continued to work. The only time I didn’t work was during the heavy dose, the big heavy dose. Actually, before the heavy dose in 2016, when I was stage four. I was sleeping. I was out of it. These giant tumors on my neck and my underarms.
Esther: You worked as much as you possibly could.
Arden: Yeah, it’s how I was raised. Even Granddad Bowen, and I have that memory. “A good man’s never stuck.” I didn’t want to be someone just sitting at home. “I can’t work.” So, I did. I forced myself to work every single day, just for a little bit. You guys can imagine.
The first few doses of low-dose chemotherapy were fine. I didn’t have any side effects or reactions. Not even hair loss for probably the first year, so I’d say, 2017, nothing. Then I got clean scans. Since it’s a really aggressive type, it started resisting those chemotherapies, so we were switching to other low-doses chemotherapies. I reacted to those. I heard cancer is killing cancer, but I was sick from those. Minor hair loss, but I was sick two weeks out of every month for years.
Nancy: Whenever we’d see you, “How you are going, Arden?” “Oh, great!” We most probably didn’t know you were going home to throw up.
Arden: Nobody knew besides my wife.
Nancy: So, for quite a few years, you and Bowen were managing the manufacturing plant for Trim Healthy Mama.
Arden: Yeah, I did a lot before I did that. I was doing freelance videography for singer/songwriters.
Nancy: Oh, that’s right. You used to do all the videos for your mom and Auntie Pearl, doing their cooking shows, yes.
Arden: Yes, did all their videos.
Nancy: Are they not doing them so much now?
Arden: Not as much as cooking videos right now.
Nancy: They were so great!
Arden: We’re going to get back into that but they’re passionate about other things right now.
Nancy: Well, yes, they’ve got all this Trim Healthy Medical they’re working on.
Arden: So, I did a lot of freelance videography. I contracted with tons of different people, tons of companies. Trim Healthy Mama is one of them. And then, actually it’s when we had the baby, I started at CMS, which is one of my parents’ companies. I started fixing the equipment there, like a maintenance guy.
I’ve always liked tinkering with little machines. Not engines, as a mechanic, even though I could do that. I like to say, “I’m a jack of all trades, master of none,” but still better than master of one. I’ll finish it that way. [laughter]
I’ve always loved tinkering with things. There’s a guy who I used to work for. He instilled in me that if you’re capable, competent, and willing to learn, you can pretty much do anything. These machines that we would wrap candy bars for other companies and protein bars for Trim Healthy Mama, I was fixing them. Then I started teaching other people how to fix them.
Then some machines that we had in that facility, there were only a few of them. Actually, there were several of them in the United States, but only a few guys who knew how to fix them. So, I’d fly out and fix the machines for some company. I did that for a number of years. Then I managed a couple of other guys at CMS and taught them how to fix the machines and operate machines. Then I worked in a lot of different areas at CMS.
Then Bowen and I got offered jobs to manage because we had been showing initiative for a number of years. Dad raised me my whole life with skillsets, skillsets, skillsets. “You’ve got to learn skillsets. You cannot complain. You’re a man.” I used to, when I was younger, I was like, “Dad’s being tough on me.” I’m so glad he did because it made me the man I am today.
He told me when I first started working for the company, “Hey, don’t think for one minute that I won’t replace you if you’re not doing your job. You’re expecting anything for free? You’re not going to get it here.” I’m like, “No, I’m not expecting anything for free. You raised me different.” I had to work for it. I don’t want one red cent given to me by my parents’ company. I’m not owed anything by them. Yeah, so when the baby’s born, I started that. In the beginning of 2021, I started management at CMS with Bowen (my cousin, Pearl’s son).
Nancy: Yes, yes. Now, you’re onto something new now, but we’re going to wait for another session for that one, because we’ve got to. . . Oh, first of all, what was Esther doing? Well, can I tell you what Esther was doing? She was doing so many things.
But you have to know that Esther has always been the dessert and cake cooker on the Hilltop. She is the best. There is absolutely no one who can even compare with her. Even someone who can make beautiful desserts—no one can make them like Esther.
She got the job. Everybody’s birthday, everybody’s special occasion, Esther made the cake. If Esther made the cake, everyone surrounded it like flies, waiting for their little piece. It’s not only delectable, but it is so totally pure and healthy. Esther was always busy baking and doing these things. Then, of course, like my place here . . .
Arden: Oh, no, I was going to add, over the years being around my mom and all her healthy friends and everybody, and parties, she’d have potlucks and everything. Some healthy desserts just don’t taste very good. I was like, put some in my mouth, “Mmmm, mmm.” Thumbs up! “Mmmm, it’s good!” Then go somewhere and barf! [Nancy laughing]
I’m actually not a huge sweets guy. I’ve never really loved sweets, but Esther’s are very, very, very good. They taste bad for you.
Nancy: Yes, they taste bad for you, they’re so good! [laughter] But they are so good! Esther was always doing that. And as my father always used to say, we were raised with this Scripture, “A man’s gift makes room for him and brings him before kings.” Your gift always makes room for you.
Of course, Pearl and Serene asked Esther to do one of the Trim Healthy Mama cookbooks. She put together TRIM HEALTHY INDULGENCE. I wonder if you’ve got that book. If you love desserts, if you love cakes, you’ve got to have TRIM HEALTHY INDULGENCE on your bookshelf, because every single recipe is delectable, but the amazing, miraculous thing is everyone is absolutely pure health. There’s no one but Esther who could do this. In fact, Serene, who’s the most amazing cook, can’t make desserts like you! And then Esther did the cookbook. Please get it! If you haven’t already got it, you’ve got to get it.
But then, Pearl and Serene opened the Trim Healthy Mama cafes. The one here, and then they did one in Texas for a while. Esther began making all the delectable desserts. You’re no longer doing it now. You’ve trained others, haven’t you? But you started off making them all.
People came. You can’t believe it. I would often go to the café on the weekends. I knew it would be so fun. I’d only go on a Saturday, because if you go on a Saturday, you know you will meet people from all over the country! You didn’t know from what state you were going to meet them! “Oh, hi, and where do you come from?” “Oh, we’re down from Ohio. We’ve just come down, my friend and I, to stay the weekend, to come to the cafe.”
People, ladies, Trim Healthy Mama fans would come, have a weekend in Tennessee, just to come to the café. And, of course, always to try ESTHER’S CAKE OF WONDERS, your chocolate cake of wonders. All of her delectable, delectable things. They came from out of state just to taste them!
Esther: Well, thank you. I don’t know if it’s that good.
Nancy: I haven’t had one of yours for a long time now, Esther, seeing others have taken over at the café. I don’t actually bother with them now because they’re not made by you. [laughter]
Esther: Well, thank you. I had the wonderful privilege of writing TRIM HEALTHY INDULGENCE when Serene and Pearl asked me if I’d be willing to do so. It was a wonderful opportunity. I’m really glad I took it. I do love baking, but due to allergies, I have an allergy to both wheat and sugar. I can’t have the regular conventional treats. In general, they’re bad for you anyway, so you shouldn’t be eating them.
I was tired of all the fake-tasting healthy treats, especially because I love pastries. I love the Great British Bake-Off. I love all these artsy desserts that you can’t really replicate, in general. With TRIM HEALTHY INDULGENCE, I wanted to make recipes that people could love and didn’t feel like they were missing out, especially for the men. It’s hard to feel like they’re missing out on something yummy. Then they’re also less likely to eat the healthy things.
I tried to make the majority of them taste as bad for you as possible. There are things you simply have to sacrifice, but I think I did a pretty good job. At least all my feedback tells me so.
Then, yes, I was also privileged to be able to be one of the start-up bakers when they started the café, like you were talking about. I have since retired from that job because I have a four-year-old daughter who keeps me busy, and homeschooling her, and all that. But yeah, it was such a wonderful opportunity. I’m so glad it was offered to me.
Nancy: Oh, yes. Now, we’re coming up to you’ve still having to have this low-dose cancer treatment, and the doctors are saying, “We can’t keep going. Something’s got to change.”
Arden: After we had the baby, during that, I started CMS. Like I said, I was getting treatment somewhere else, and I had to come back to Vanderbilt. I was like, “Hey, will you guys take me back?” It was a good treatment, but they had no plan. They were like, “You’re going to have to do this forever.”
Every couple of weeks I was flying back out there for a weekend of traveling. It wasn’t sustainable. I didn’t want to do that with a baby on the way. Who wants that to be how we started our little family? Even without the baby, and after she was pregnant, it wasn’t fun. It wasn’t enjoyable. It was tiresome.
Right before the baby was born, I called Vanderbilt back and said, “Will you guys take me back? Will you guys work a plan for me?” They said, “Yes. Absolutely.”
Right after the baby was born, I went in for scans. They saw where I was, and I started low-dose chemotherapy again. It was back to feeling bad. They wanted to do stem cell, but they can’t do stem cell without a clear scan, because it’s more effective. The chances of you actually beating it with a clean scan are a lot higher because there’s a lot less cancer cells.
I started the low-dose chemotherapy. It was all of 2020. 2021 I finally got clear scans again. Fall of 2021, I got clear scans. They drew my stem cells.
Nancy: They take all your stem cells.
Arden: They insert a catheter in one of my big veins inside of my thigh. Then they have one on the other side. For like a week prior, you inject yourself with a shot that forces your bone marrow to push out your stem cells, so they’re in your bloodstream now. Then they pull them through one leg, through a machine which captures your stem cells. You need about six million cells to actually do the stem cell transplant. I got close to nine, right?
Esther: Yes, you were close to nine.
Arden: Close to nine million stem cells. They recycle and go through the machine. Your blood would come back.
Nancy: Isn’t that miraculous? Nine million stem cells in your body.
Arden: Oh, there’s way more. That’s what they collected. There are billions of cells. Anyway, they collected that for the stem cells. On March 7, 2022, we started stem cell therapy.
There’s a lot of back and forth. I was like, “You don’t want to do this.” I didn’t want to do it because I didn’t know what the long-term ramifications were for my health. But I wanted to be here for my wife and my little girl that we had just had. At that point, not just had. She was a couple of years old, actually.
They pretty much said, “You’re going to have to do this now, or the cancer will become resistant to the chemotherapy that you’re currently on.” I didn’t want to do the chemotherapy anyway for that much longer. It was nasty. It was terrible. I felt terrible, and every day I had to push myself to work, to be active, to be happy, to have the joy of the Lord. I had to put a smile on my face, because I felt terrible.
Nancy: I remember talking to your mom many times over that time. Because it is a huge thing.
Arden: She did not want me to do it.
Nancy: She did not want you to, but yet, in the end, she had been to this big health conference where she met this doctor there. He would have been as pro-healthy and against all cancer treatment as you could get. She called him and said, “Please, what would you say?” He said, “This is really your only choice.”
Arden: Yeah.
Esther: We also had to leave the baby. We couldn’t take the baby with us, because she couldn’t live with us at the hospital. They told us we’d have to be there, at best case scenario, three weeks. But highly unlikely. We’d better prepare to be there for a month.
The thought of also being away from my daughter for that long was horrifying. We had never been away from her, even overnight. My daughter was only two. She was still nursing. It was really heart-wrenching.
Arden: Yeah, it was extremely heart-wrenching and sad, especially for you, because of the bond they had. She was nursing, and all of that. My mom did not want me to, but we had decided, Esther and me.
Esther: We had prayed about it.
Arden: Yeah, we prayed and prayed and prayed. We actually felt, like in the beginning, that same peace. This door had opened, and we felt peace. I need to do this. We went ahead with it.
It’s funny, thinking back on it. When I was doing that, I thought to myself, “I could never do the stem. I could never go through this again. It’s the toughest thing I’ve ever been through. It’s one of the things. They started with the heavy, heavy, heavy hitters again. The idea is, they knock you out. Not like out cold, like unconscious, but they load you up with chemotherapy.
Esther: They wipe your body out.
Arden: They wipe your body out.
Nancy: Really. So, your whole body is wiped out.
Arden: Your immune system, everything gone.
Nancy: You don’t have an immune system?
Arden: They rescue you with your own cells. So, what I did was called an autologous treatment, I believe. It’s with my own stem cells. Some people do it with somebody else’s stem cells. That’s generally reserved for a case where it’s relapsed after a stem cell, or for a harder case of cancer.
Anyway, they were quite certain that this would work. We did it and started on that. They wiped me out.
Nancy: How did you feel when you were wiped out?
Arden: Imagine the worst flu you’ve ever had. The worst flu you’ve ever had, and times it by six. You feel like you’re knocking on death’s door.
But all my life, I’ve been fascinated with Navy Seals. Navy Seals have the mindset and the power that God has given this human body a lot, a lot. We’re capable of so much. We don’t really notice how powerful the mind is and what God has given us. A lot of times we stop at that mental barrier, that mental wall. We don’t push past it.
Navy Seals have always fascinated me that way, because they’re like, “Hey, no day’s an easy day!” You can go seven times longer. You push yourself to your absolute breaking limit. I’m not saying be stupid, but it’s always fascinated me. In another life, I would probably like being a Navy Seal. My wife wouldn’t want that. [laughter]. I wouldn’t want to do that to her. I really do honor and thank all the guys who do and have done that. It’s definitely a sacrifice. But I’ve always loved Navy Seals.
Going through that, I really wanted to apply that. Obviously, I didn’t have the training like they had, but I really wanted to adopt that mindset, so I told myself every day, “You can do this. You can do this.” I went on walks around our little ward, 15 laps were like a mile. We did a mile, or close to a mile every single day while I was there. I had a little bicycle, and I’d ride that bicycle every day. Actually, we were there for nineteen days.
Esther: God did a little miracle there too. Well, technically it was a big miracle. They said, best case scenario, we’d be out in 21 days, but not to expect that. We were out in 19 days.
Nancy: Wow!
Arden: They said I pretty much handled that better than the majority of people handle it.
Esther: Afterward, you weren’t allowed to be out and about.
Nancy: So, you had to be isolated when you came home, for how long?
Arden: Three months.
Nancy: Three months. So, we couldn’t even see Arden. They were living on the Hilltop, but he had to hibernate.
Esther: Yes. He couldn’t go out anywhere or do anything because his immune system was so weakened that even a little cold could be the death of him, literally. They said that most stem cell patients have to go in afterward for infections.
Arden: Weekly.
Esther: Praise the Lord, we did not have to go in once during those three months. We did the standard check-ups, but there were no infections. We had no more hospital stays. It was definitely a miracle.
Nancy: I think one wonderful thing is being out here in the woods. You were hibernating but you could get out into the woods.
Arden: My doctors were great. I gave them a hard time. I was not an easy patient. I was actually probably the worst patient they had because I’m a very outdoorsy man. I want to do things. I told them, “I’m going to do this.” They’re like, “Don’t do this.” I went and did it anyway. I told my doctor, “Yeah, I’m going to go out on the farm.” He was like, “OK, as long as you’re not doing this, and doing such-and-such things.” So, I did.
Thankfully, we live out on the farm, and I was out every day. It was actually a beautiful time. I was able to do work from home, so I worked from home. I was also able to spend a lot of time with my family. It was beautiful.
I was happy, because my daughter didn’t really remember that well. I wanted to do it that way, instead of continuing with low-dose chemotherapy if I got clean scans again, and then do stem cell when she’s four or five, like now. She’ll remember it. I didn’t want her to remember when Daddy was sick.
Nancy: Well, I can’t believe that another session has gone by. We have not yet even got up to what you are doing now. So, that’s going to be the next session. Arden is now doing something new which is very powerful, and which will be a blessing. You’ll want to hear about it for your sons, for your husbands. We’re going to talk about that in the next session. That’s going to be exciting. I know you’ve been blessed hearing this story.
“Lord, we thank You again that we’re able to meet together, that Arden and Esther have been able to share this story, Lord God, the journey You’ve taken them through in these last seven years. Now the way You are leading them. We thank You, and we give You the glory.
“Lord, of course, we’re always thinking about all those who are listening. Many have different problems—physically, mentally, spiritually. I pray, Lord, that You will come and minister to each one. We thank You that You are the God who is enough. No matter what we are facing, Lord “God, You are bigger than any problem that we face.
Lord God, we thank You that we can trust You completely. Lord, You are our Rock, our Fortress, and our God, our Friend, our Shepherd, and our King, and our Redeemer. We thank You. I pray Your blessing on every household that is listening today. In the Name of Jesus. Amen.”
Blessings from Nancy Campbell
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