Music to My Ear

I heard the best words I could ever hear yesterday. My oncologist informed me that I am now officially cured! Those words were music to my ear. I have to admit I was a bit numb when he first spoke these words, I guess I figured it would still be a few more years before I would hear them, I don’t know maybe I just didn’t expect to hear them on this day. Even with as windy and rainy as it was today, this news felt like sunshine in my soul. To top it all off after I shared the news with my family we looked outside to see a rainbow.

I Am Still Here

It is a quiet morning 9:00 a.m., Selena is still sleeping. She has a terrible head cold that has left her with little energy. The sun is shining through the windows, though it is pretty chilly out side. My heart is heavy, though I feel so content and such peace. That is such a hard feeling to truly describe.

The past few weeks have truly been a rollercoaster of emotions, sometimes these emotions get tangled and twisted to the point I don’t know what I am feeling. Numb is a good word, a good way of describing how I feel most of the time. Though I know that God is working, I see His work, and I praise Him for all that He is doing.

Two things lay deeply on my mind, the first today is that my Niece is probably in surgery or very close to going in for her surgery as I type this. We have had a lot of good news on this front and we continue to hold on that more good news will prevail. She had her gallbladder removed and it was benign, Praise the Lord! Her genetic testing came back and she does not carry the gene for this breast cancer, Praise the Lord. Now we sit and wait to see what the surgeon finds when he goes in to remove the lump, we pray he is able to remove the lump without having to remove the breast.

My dear friend DeAnn, however, has probably taken up most of my time and emotions. She had a recurrence of Hodgkin’s Disease after 18 years. After two rounds of her chemo, she was admitted to the hospital with a fever of 104+. By Sunday she was placed in ICU on a respirator. The chemo has damaged her heart, lungs and kidneys. Unless her heart strengthens she will not be able to come off the respirator, and they will not be able to do the kidney dialysis that her body so desperately needs. The flip side to this is that if her heart does strengthen, will it withstand the dialysis, as well as the rest of the treatment needed for the Hodgkin’s.

I thought the following was such a wonderful testimony as to how God is using this situation with DeAnn, to show His compassion and faithfulness to all of us concerned with DeAnn.

I thought I would try to compile some of the amazing things I've seen over the past few days:
An explosion on Facebook of literally hundreds of people responding to the posts, and posting them as their own status, reaching hundreds more.
Many people saying that they are unable to sleep or are waking up in the middle of the night with DeAnn on their mind, and they pray. Some have even said they dream of DeAnn. Some prayer warriors saying they have never prayed so hard in their life for someone.
An ICU nurse who says she doesn't have trouble sleeping at night with all the patients she sees in such critical condition, couldn't get DeAnn off her mind.
A hastily assembled payer vigil for 7pm Tuesday night at the hospital has to be moved to the chapel because approx 25 family and friends show up for the prayer. At the same time, many individuals unable to be present are also praying at 7pm, including a Bible study of over 100 women. One woman who says that every night since then, she has been praying at 7pm for DeAnn.
Pastoral staff at a local church following Facebook all day looking for updates, and stopping work to pray specifically for her.
Ian being awarded Clubber of the Month at AWANA, something he has only done two other times in 7 years, for a twenty minute testimony he gave in front of 45 clubbers several weeks ago (those that know Ian are not surprised it was 20 minutes, I am shocked it was not more :) ).
An unknown individual donating airline miles so her brother can fly out from Kansas, and a fund started to help with expenses.
A snowstorm right before chemo was to start, "stranded" DeAnn, Ian and I together at my parents house for three days, which is a wonderful memory of a happy time we were able to spend together before all this began.
A professional photographer who created an extra "grand prize" just for DeAnn of a free 11x14 and video session, which resulted in not only a wonderful family portrait, but a video that that to me, is more precious than the photo and brings tears to my eyes each time I watch it. DeAnn has seen the photo, I pray that she will be able to see the video. (written by her husband)

As I continue my break from blogging during this difficult time, I just ask for prayers for both of these situations. I will try to update as I can muster the energy and thoughts to do so.

Please Prayers and Positive Thoughts

Right now is a trying time for me emotionally. I go in for my 3 month cancer check up on January 21, well blood work will be drawn on the 14th. This also marks one year since I finished my treatments, well almost just shy a couple of weeks of when I totally finished all the radiation.

Though I do not feel they will find any cancer, it always weighs pretty heavy going in for these appointments. I think this one is weighing heavier then any of the others, probably because of the timing.

Anyway please just keep us in your prayers, for peace while we get ready for this appointment, and that they not find any cancer. Thank you in advance.

Counting My Blessings

Now that I know that I am cancer free, I truly feel free to tell my story and to count my blessings. I stopped blogging during my treatments as I just didn't want to drain everyone with my woes of the side affects, plus I wasn't able to focus enough to put words together. In fact I had the Internet shut off during that time as I did not want to be reading about my disease and getting information that was way more then I needed to know. All I truly needed to know was that God had me in his healing, loving arms, and that He was going to get me through everything.

Truly everything started 3 years ago when we found out that we were going to have our first grandchild. We knew from the get go that the State was going to be involved and rather then take the chance of never knowing where our grandchild would be, we made preparations to help raise her. Never did we think we would end up doing all the raising ourselves, but we still would not have it any other way.

God truly knew what He was doing though, as I had not had any symtom of Anal Cancer what so ever. Then I caught the flu from our granddaughter last summer. Yes, it was a bad case of the flu, but I just never got over it. I actually got an abcess on the tumor so the pain just continued to get worse. The first doctor I was seeing, just would not listen to me, so I made an appointment for a second oppinion. It became very apparent that I could not wait for that appointment so my husband took me to ER. It was actually the ER doctor that found the tumor, though at the time we still was not sure what it was.

It wasn't long before the wheels started spinning and I found myself going through tests almost daily while the doctors were putting the puzzle pieces together. "CANCER" what a fearful word in itself. I knew from the very get go though that God did not give us this little angel to raise to just take me away from her this soon. I just laid myself down at His feet and allowed Him to carry me through the rough road that I had to travel down. I could not focus to read my bible so I started copying it word for word in a notebook, and believe me I know I got more out of God's word by doing this then I would have just to read it. It is wonderful to look back on it now and realize how many books I actually copied during that time, 10 in all!

Selena, kept me busy and though she didn't understand why Grandma truly could not play with her like before, she was so content to be read to, play tea party, talk, or just be near me. She truly was my inspiration to get through everything.

Prior to my treatments starting I started writing in a journal, actually I have kept a journal most of my life, but this was a special journal, where I made myself count my blessings everyday. This allowed me to keep focused on what God was doing through me during this time and not feel sorry for myself, or feel any anger or feeling that Satan could use to work against what God had planned. Looking back and reading these entries have given me much joy now that all of this is behind me.

An entry in my Journal on November 9, 2008:

Sometimes we wonder why god allows us to endure such obstacles at times that we just want total peace. Today I hurt horribly bad all through church to the point I had to stand through the service, yet when we started home the pain was relieved. I know God was using that this morning so I have no reason to be angry nor ask why. I just pray that for what ever reason God had in having me endure that this morning that His will was done.

I wrote about a young teen who came to me after the service and showed no fear at all about asking me questions about my cancer. After my treatments were all over, I found out that she had fallen quite ill, and was hospitalized, not ever really finding out what made her sick, but she beamed as she gave her testimony that the whole time she knew God was with her and healing her.

God truly does know what He is doing even in our times of trials. He uses us during these times to build up the faith in those around us, and he also uses these times to bring others to know him, I know that so well, as two of my three brothers became saved during this time. God does do good in all that He does!