Special Feature
David Needham And Cancer: The Shadow Of Death
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Written: 12/01/2008 
Author: SGN
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Cancer. A terrible word that strikes fear into the heart. It was a word completely unexpected as the diagnosis for David Needham, patriarch of The Needhams. In February of 2007, right around his 69th birthday, David began to feel “off”. It was nothing specific, but he was just not well. David’s appetite waned, he had trouble with his digestion, and he began to lose weight--the only real danger signal. “It was like my get up and go got up and went!” he remarked wryly.
Being unable to handle any kind of food and losing so much strength caused David to take a break from traveling with The Needhams in March 2007. Common sense dictated that he see a doctor, and a family friend referred him to a local gastroenterologist. When David went in for his appointment, he proceeded to witness to the doctor and gave him a Needham CD. The doctor responded by quoting Scripture and professing his faith in Christ as well, to David’s great delight and relief. Having a Christian doctor set him at peace, and soon David underwent a series of tests including CT scans, x-rays, and both upper and lower GI scopes to look for anything unusual. The family thought perhaps it was a hernia or some kind of aggravated ulcer.
Father’s Day weekend, David called his children and grandson who were singing in Texas and told them the results were in. The doctor asked for them to come in so he could explain what he had found. Two days later the doctor told David and his family, “Look into these cold grey eyes. It’s cancer.” In the lower GI, the doctor had removed several polyps, leaving him uncertain about the colon. But in the upper GI, he had taken a biopsy from the stomach, which came back as positive for cancer. The Needhams were stunned.
Spend any amount of time conversing with David, and you will quickly realize two of his passions are God Almighty and nutrition. He has spent years of study in the Scriptures and researching nutrition. Not only did he study, but he put in practice those things he had learned: no pork or unclean meats, no margarine, excellent supplements and much more, to the point that he has been asked to write a book. Cancer was unthinkable.
I Thessalonians 4:18 states, “In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.” So the family bowed their heads, and David thanked God sincerely in the face of this frightening diagnosis. He did, however, have three major concerns—how would this affect his wife, Eileen; how it would affect his family; and how this would affect the Needham ministry.
David continued to lose weight and by July, he had dropped from over 200 pounds to the 150’s. The doctor recommended immediate treatment. But a year earlier, he and Eileen had planned and paid for an ocean side vacation in Maine with two couples they had led to Christ decades before. They decided to wait for treatment and go to Maine. “At this point, I knew I was dying,” says David.
They struck out for New England from Tennessee on August 1, 2007. In Connecticut, they stopped for a meal at a Denny’s. David could not eat and ended up with dry heaves in the restroom. Since his legs felt rubbery and he was weak and nauseous, David figured he was probably bleeding internally. Not wanting to frighten Eileen, he simply handed her the keys to have her drive. Several miles up the road on I-84, Eileen pulled over since he was having dry heaves again. David tried to tell Eileen he thought he was bleeding inside, but the words would not come. He was too weak to say them. Eileen realized he was passing out and dove out of the vehicle, reaching David just in time to ease him to the ground as he lost consciousness.
Eileen tried to call for help, but had no cell tower. People thought she was crazy jumping up and down by the side of the road trying to flag someone down. Finally, a man and a woman both stopped and one of them called 911. First, a state trooper arrived. Then a fire truck came, followed eventually by the ambulance. David regained consciousness and remembered being amused and thinking with his own brand of humor, “A fire truck? I’m not on fire. I’ve got the best ‘fire insurance’ in the world! Besides, I’m already ‘put out’!”
The man checking David’s blood pressure was more nervous than he was, and David found himself reassuring the young man that everything would be alright. Eileen followed the ambulance to UCONN Health Center, a mere mile away from where they stopped.
At the medical center, David was given 4 units of blood. He tried to explain what he had, and that his medical records were in Tennessee which could easily be faxed. No one listened, insisting it was his heart and subjecting him to a needless battery of testing. And the test was on for David! The most frustrating thing was being unable to rest at all. Since it was a university hospital, every few minutes some doctor, nurse or student would come into the room to poke, prod, take a temperature or blood pressure, or stab him with another needle for more blood samples. David could get no sleep with the constant activity.
Still, there were positive things happening. A family relationship was restored through the difficulty, and David saw more people praying than he had ever seen. Also, Eileen’s family lived within driving distance of this unfamiliar place, a support network already in place and ready to help her! “I came to realize,” states David, “more people care about us than we can possibly imagine!”
All the testing did confirm the earlier diagnosis of large cell, b-cell, diffuse non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in his stomach, along with adenocarcinoma of the lower intestine--two kinds of cancer. One doctor came in tearfully explaining that his own father had just passed away from this very cancer, and that David had, at best, two months to live; and that was only pertaining to the lymphoma.
Despite this, David and Eileen were blessed in that The Needhams (their children) had been on the way to Connecticut for concerts when this happened. This enabled them to be there and pray with them and encourage them during most of the ordeal. Eventually, the head surgeon came in announcing that his plans for David included the removal of his stomach to be replaced with an experimental accordion-like bag since the cancer was “probably” pushing on the liver, as well as the removal of the intestine, along with massive chemotherapy and radiation. Red flags flew up all over the place. David’s response to the surgeon was, “I’m outta here!”
His son Dave insisted that he and Eileen fly home. They arrived just in time to make it to the funeral of a dear friend who had passed away from cancer. “Doctors had not offered much hope, but our hope is in the Lord,” explains David.
The decision needed to be made: treatment or no treatment? There was much to consider. I. Cor. 2:9 “…Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.” David was kind of looking forward to going to heaven, now! But leaving his beloved wife and family and friends and ministry was also ”kind of tough.”
It was quite a dilemma. After studying nutrition so many years, David was aware of many causes and treatments for cancer. The challenge was deciding whether or not to suffer to the point of death. Nutrition calls for incredible dietary and lifestyle discipline. The medical options were frightening. David’s mother had cancer in her 40’s. David was a child and attributed every pain, bump, or lump to cancer. He had such a phobia that he could not even say the word! Ironically enough, he found some lumps on his chest and eventually worked up the courage to go see a doctor. He learned that it was normal muscle tissue. As a young, unsaved man, he climbed Mt. Wachusett in Massachusetts to thank God from the mountain top. But he still feared cancer. Now faced with this decision to simply die, or treat with nutrition or medicine, David knew one thing: God has a plan and a purpose in every event.
In September 2007, David was lying in bed, dying not so slowly, truth be told. He had chosen to wait for any treatment. His son Dave was working in the home office on managerial duties for The Needhams when the phone rang. It was the surgeon. He asked if this was “the son”. Dave told him it was. The doctor asked him if he had addressed the need for treatment with his father. Dave replied he had been trying not to force his opinion, but that his mother and sister were trying to get him to do something, having just received another call from the other doctor. The surgeon told Dave that if his father did nothing, he would be gone before Christmas.
Dave immediately walked from the office into the room with his father and quietly asked him for a decision about treatment. “Whatever you decide, I will back you completely. Dad, you have trusted me with your livelihood as the manager for The Needhams. I am asking you to trust my opinion to have the surgery done, and look into more treatment. I want my children to be able to know their Grandfather.” David agreed, and his daughter Diane literally ran from the room to schedule the surgery. It was done within a week, and David looked markedly improved in only 24 hours after the removal of the colon cancer.
Next, the surgeon referred him to an oncologist. Again, God’s hand was involved. Not only were David’s doctor and surgeon Christians, but he learned his oncologist was a Believer as well. And he took the time to ask David some questions regarding his nutrition. Did he eat totally organic food; did he weigh it on a scale; did he ride a bike 12 miles a day? As it turns out, Lance Armstrong did all these things and still got three kinds of cancer. Likely, the cause for David’s cancer ran along environmental and genetic factors, since David was a master diesel mechanic and two of his brothers also faced cancer.
David asked the doctor if he would use the treatment he was prescribing. The oncologist replied, “If you were my dad, I would use it on you.” The treatment was actually designed for Lance Armstrong. In lay terms, rituxin is an artificial protein which binds to lymphoma, particularly David’s kind. The chemicals that follow attack the protein and the cancer is thereby eradicated. The side effects were not at all inviting: hair loss, muscle pain, bone pain, and other risks including onset of leukemia.
For David, thoughts of Job ensued. The man was broke, grieving, in terrible pain and all he had around him were people giving him terrible advice. Yet he remained faithful in the face of the great question, why? And Job was unaware of the spiritual battle going on around him. In David’s case, he had good advice and knew that there was more to the situation than he was aware of. Trusting that God would see him through and less than ten days after major surgery, David was admitted back into the hospital for this unusual chemotherapy.
Because rituxin combined with chemotherapy is so strong, the possibility arose that it would make a hole in his stomach and cause massive internal bleeding. Also, most people have a strong allergic reaction to the artificial protein. Neither scenario occurred. David had no major reaction and he was sent home the next day.
Every chemotherapy recipient faces nausea, loss of appetite, and hair loss as well as a myriad of other difficulties. For David, nausea had already been a big part of normal life, and in some ways he actually felt better. His appetite began to return. As for the hair loss, that is a story in and of itself.
David’s wife Eileen had been the director of a cosmetology school in New York. So when his hair began to fall out here and there, she decided to shorten it to ease the transition. She clippered his beautiful white hair down to about a half-inch length. The result was very modern. Diane was standing in the doorway of the kitchen when she saw the guard on the clippers pop off. If time slowed, you would have seen Diane reaching to stop Eileen as she made the final pass at David’s head. Too late, though. There was a big bald spot on the top of David’s head from the unguarded clippers. “Oh! Oh, Honey! Oh, I am so sorry! Well, there’s nothing we can do but take it all off now.” By the time Eileen finished those words, and before what was happening had sunk in, David was neatly clean-shaven. So much for a transition!
By Christmas, David felt he looked like a walking skeleton, traversing the valley of the shadow of death. But shadows can’t hurt you, and the smile on his face let everyone know he was still alive and fighting. David had the opportunity to minister to many people in prayer and testimony. Several churches in Virginia organized a benefit concert and raised money for medical bills. By mid-January, he still had “mop-up” treatments to take, but CT scans showed David to be cancer free! Their beloved husband and father, a man of great faith and conviction, had been at death’s door. Many sleepless nights of tearful intercessory prayer had gone by. Tenacious faith that God was not finished with David yet prompted high expectations for his recovery. For The Needhams, the words “cancer free” were nothing short of a miracle.
It has been a little over a year since Dave Needham walked into his father’s room to ask him to consider treatment. David is continuing to be extremely careful with his nutrition. He is dealing with the after-effects of chemicals in the form of some bone and muscle pain. And he needs hernia repair from a persistent cough during chemotherapy that pulled on incisions from surgery. But David plans to return to the ministry at some point in the future. He and his family have much to be thankful for. In the last year, The Needhams have seen a great outpouring of love toward their father, knowing that people all over the country have taken time to pray. He has a new granddaughter, Kayliana. He serves a God Who loves and cares and directs and heals and corrects. Relationships mean a whole lot more. Compassion for others, especially those facing cancer, has become increasingly important. Life is even more precious now. David can add another chapter to his unique testimony—and he is still here to thank God for it!
For more information on The Needhams, visit http://www.theneedhams.com Current radio single—“Give It All To Me” from their CD Streams. Other links include http://www.myspace.com/theneedhams and http://www.shoutlife.com/theneedhams
Reader Comments
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Hello David,
What a wonderful testimony. You have set a great example for us all to follow. Prayer changes things. We love the Needham family and will keep you in our prayers daily. Go David go and keep that wonderful smile and attitude.
Your friend Dwight -
I had the honor of traveling and singing full time with the Needhams for 6 short weeks in September 2002. David Needham is the most rock solid man I have ever met, period. He's a believer and a wonderful example to Christ.
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