Just Breathe: Healing from Sinus Cancer

Jacob Boger had severe headaches, watery eyes, and felt fatigued all the time. MRI tests showed a tumor in his nasal cavity, behind his eyes. A subsequent biopsy revealed even more… cancer. “I had ignored the symptoms for so long that the cancer had progressed through the 1st stage, the 2nd stage, and the 3rd stage. And by the time we did the biopsy, I was in the 4th stage, and given a less than 10% chance to live. The cancer was eating a hole in my skull and was heading toward my brain.”

Jacob needed immediate chemo and radiation. His doctor told him about the possible side effects. “’It’s going to make you sterile. Your saliva glands are going to be destroyed. Your taste buds are going to be destroyed. The radiation that’s going to go with this treatment is going to destroy your hair follicles. You’ll never have hair on the sides of your head again.’”

Jessica was Jacob’s girlfriend at the time. “And I remember that night. I was driving him home from a restaurant. And he told me, ‘The doctors told me that I won’t be able to have children.’ I remember that moment, a tear rolled down his cheek when he was in the car with me.”

The tumor was 4 inches in diameter. Jacob started his treatments immediately. His doctor said he would live only 5 more years. “He said that for the 5 years I’d be battling the cancer. (He told me) even if it went into remission, that at the level that it’s at, stage 4 that it’s at, and the aggressiveness that it’s at, it’s going to come back. One of the warning signs that he gave me was that if I ever wake up, or through the day, have cerebral fluid coming out of my nose, which was a clear, salty kind of fluid, he said, ‘Just rush to the hospital. You’re done at that point.’”

And then it happened, just as his oncologist had warned him. “One night, in the middle of the night, I woke up because there was fluid on my lips. And I tasted it. It was that salty solution. And I immediately remembered the doctor saying, “If you ever have that happen, you’re going to the hospital immediately. Rush to the hospital.”

The discharge stopped. Jacob went to the hospital, and continued his treatments. “So I did 3 months of chemo therapy then I went into a radiation treatment. And after about 2 weeks of that, I’m deteriorating. My body is deteriorating. Over the course of 2 months, I lost over 60 pounds. And my faith is being tried at that point.”

Jacob was a Christian, and believed God would heal him. “I was constantly listening to teachings on healing. I was constantly in my Bible, and I was in prayer. And I would tell God, ‘Your Word says, ‘By Your stripes, I am healed.’ And I believe Your Word. You tell me to stop taking these treatments; I’ll stop taking the treatments, because my faith is in Your Word.’”

Jacob says that’s exactly what happened. “I woke up in the middle of the night one night, and just as clearly as I’m speaking to you right now, I heard God tell me, ‘It’s over. It’s finished. It’s done. Stop taking the treatments.’ The peace of God was on me, and I said, ‘God, You told me to do it, so that’s exactly what I’m going to do.’”

Jessica was on the verge of worry. “For a moment, I thought, ‘Oh wow, that’s a big deal.’ But then I always went back to, ‘I know him. I know his relationship with God is the real deal. I know that he knows how to hear from God.’ And I trusted in him that he could hear from God. I trusted in his faith in God.”

“That day, I walked in and told him, ‘Doctor, I’m done.’ And he treated me with respect and I appreciated that. I said, ‘Yes, sir.’ He said, ‘Will you get one more MRI?’”

“I said, ‘I will.’ I got the MRI that day. He scheduled it that day. He wasn’t kidding around. Three days later, I go back into his office and he put the films up on the board and he says, ‘This is where the tumor was. This is the aggression. This is how big it was, and this is the new film. There’s no tumor. Your tumor vanished.’”

“Medically speaking, these cannot be the same person. Not ‘unlikely’ or not ‘It’s not very probable.’ They absolutely cannot be the same person. There was no scar tissue. The bone had been replaced. (It was) All fresh bone. No scar tissue there. There was absolutely no evidence that cancer had ever been in my body.”

“He said, ‘Nothing we did could have caused this. We don’t make tumors vanish. The bone that had eroded away has been replaced. It looks like you got your miracle.’”

“I said, ‘Yes, sir, I got my miracle.’”

Jacob’s Oncologist, Dr. Renato Larocca says, “Something wonderful has happened. There is no question. Something wonderful happened on that MRI. He’d had a spectacular response.”

The tumor and the cancer were completely gone, and Jacob was on the mend. “It took about six months. My weight came back. My hair grew back. My saliva started flowing again. Also during that time, my relationship with now my wife Jessica was flourishing as well. I asked her to be my wife six months after I stopped taking the treatments. And remember, they told me that I wasn’t going to be able to have any babies. And my wife knew that going into it when we got married. But now, I’ve got 3 perfect little boys, a 6-year-old, Roman, a 3-year-old, Judah, and a 1-year-old, Justice. And they’re doing just fine. Not bad for not being able to have babies.”

Jessica sees the miracle as well as anyone. “I just knew that God is a miracle working God. If He had saved Jacob from stage 4 cancer, to live and to be strong, and for us to have a life together, that He would most definitely give us the desires of our heart, which was to have a family. So when I look at Roman, Judah, and Justice, I think, ‘Miracle.’”

Jacob concludes, “This isn’t a story about Jacob Boger getting healed. This is a love story. God loves humanity so much that He wants to heal them. He wants to restore them. He wants them free from depression, free from addiction, free from sickness and disease.”

“Prayer is very powerful. When you have a relationship with the CEO of the universe, you can get some things done.”