'Walking With the Healer': Book tells of longtime Chehalis teacher overcoming aggressive cancer

Aug. 23—As the COVID-19 pandemic was in its early stages, Richard Gilham began to suffer from back pain.

He had been to a couple of doctors and chiropractors, but they weren't able to diagnose the cause.

Eventually, the pain became so severe it drove him to the emergency room in September 2020. There, he was diagnosed with a rare, aggressive and often terminal form of cancer.

Less than eight months after diagnosis — and despite initial treatments not yielding positive progress — the cancer had completely disappeared from his body.

Richard and his wife, Rebecca Gilham, attribute his healing to the hand of God.

Because the ordeal unfolded during the pandemic at a time of restrictions at health care facilities, Rebecca could not be by her husband's side in what could have been his final months alive.

Rebecca kept a journal throughout the entire experience and has now published it in the form of a short book documenting what they went through titled "Walking with the Healer."

Both Rebecca and Richard are teachers, with Richard having taught at Orin C. Smith Elementary School in Chehalis and Rebecca teaching at Centralia Christian School and, for much of her career, at Olympic Elementary.

Rebecca, 56, still teaches, while Richard, 67, is retired after a more than 30-year career. The couple sat down with The Chronicle last week to talk about Richard's battle with cancer and the associated challenges.

While Richard saw doctors for his back pain in 2020, none of them had been able to correctly diagnose the problem. It was the emergency room doctors who finally scanned his back and discovered a tumor in September 2020.

"They did an MRI, and they found a mass on my lower spine, 6-by-4-by-2 centimeters," Richard said. "They didn't like that at all, thought it was pretty big, and they sent me to an oncologist that afternoon."

After a biopsy, Richard was diagnosed with a double-hit diffuse large b-cell lymphoma. The double-hit meant two chromosomes, not just one, were cancerous. This form of cancer is both more aggressive and more resistant to treatment, Richard's doctor told him.

Within a week, he was on an intense chemotherapy regimen.

"I was in chemo, and I'd go five days straight, anywhere from three to eight hours a day, very aggressive treatment ... and it was very isolating. It was in the middle of COVID so Becky could not come in to any of the treatments," Richard said.

"When I would drop him off, I would spend a lot of time in my car, because the treatment was in Olympia or wherever, so I sat there and waited," Rebecca added.

With chemotherapy's effects on immune systems, both Richard and Rebecca had to stop teaching to reduce the chances of Richard getting a virus or infection. Each chemotherapy treatment cycle was three weeks and Richard went through four rounds of it.

But by Christmas of 2020, he still wasn't showing signs of improvement.

"We called the doctor at 7 o'clock on Christmas Eve because my fever was 104 and I was sweating like crazy, all the classic signs of the cancer spreading," Richard said.

Although she couldn't be with him for his treatments, Rebecca still did everything she could for Richard throughout the entire ordeal, becoming his caregiver.

"At one point in December, it meant going in hourly and getting him to eat five oyster crackers, because that was all he could keep down," Rebecca said.

The doctor recommended Richard transition to an even stronger treatment, radiation therapy, which he underwent 10 rounds of. Following the radiation therapy, he went in for another MRI.

"The doctor's words, some of these quotes stick in your head, but his words were my 'body is riddled with cancer,' even after the radiation and chemo," Richard said.

His doctor planned to administer a stronger form of chemotherapy requiring hospitalization, along with stem cell and CAR T-cell transplants. Despite these measures, Richard was told his chances of survival were still slim.

"Only 10% of lymphomas were the double-hit like I had. Out of that 10%, only about 30% of them respond to these treatments, and out of those 30% that respond, only 20% of them are still alive after two years," Richard said.

He was scheduled to begin the next round of treatments in March 2021 and was undergoing final medical testing to prepare for it.

Right before the final test, his doctor called him and said he wanted to meet with Richard. He explained they were not going to go forward with the final test. He also told Richard to bring Rebecca with him.

"I thought, 'well I'm dead,'" Richard said. "'They don't want to do it because the cancer is too far gone and there's nothing they can do.'"

During the meeting, the doctor informed him after reviewing all of his test results, including bone marrow samples and a full body MRI, they found no traces of residual lymphoma.

"He said there was nothing there to treat medically," Richard said.

Richard has been in for followups with his oncologist, and so far the cancer has shown no signs of returning more than two years later.

Despite the isolation throughout the ordeal, Rebecca said she never felt anxious, as she would read her Bible and write in her journal while Richard was receiving treatment.

"That's where the book came from, reading the Book of Luke and seeing all the different healings in that book, and I saw God meet our needs the same way he did it in the Bible," Rebecca said.

Community support was also vital, with Richard's fellow teachers starting online support groups for him and even selling T-shirts to help pay for Richard's treatments. Richard also got support from former students from his 30-year career teaching in Chehalis.

Many of Rebecca's coworkers would offer her support as well.

"My staff was constantly bringing me gifts, texting me and asking me if we could go for a walk," Rebecca said. "We could still go outside and I still had to be masked up since we had to be extremely careful, and it was winter and it was cold, but we would go for walks."

"We felt a lot of support and love and prayers from our church too," Richard added.

It was their coworkers who encouraged Rebecca to publish her journal. The book is now being published by Redemption Press out of Enumclaw and is available on Amazon and at https://redemption-press.com/.

"I have some copies available at Book 'n' Brush and at the Chehalis Pharmacy now," Rebecca said.

Book 'n' Brush is located at 518 N. Market Blvd. and the Chehalis Pharmacy is located at 422 S. Market Blvd. in Chehalis.