His peace is with me
Cancer. To me this is one of the most terrifying words in the dictionary.
No one ever believes they will have to face a day that they will be told they have cancer.
Maybe we have a natural, internal optimism that we don’t really know is there until we are forced to undergo a trial in this life, like facing cancer.
When I received this diagnosis in October 2003, the bottom dropped out of my world and that same sense of optimism disappeared almost entirely. It suffered another severe blow about four weeks after my diagnosis when one of my four sisters was also told she had breast cancer.
During the first weeks, I was in total panic, feeling I had been given a death sentence.
From day one, I began to pray.
I would drop to my knees and beg the Lord to take this from me; to heal me. I prayed to Him to just let me live to see my children graduate from high school and that would be enough.
I felt and saw death hovering over my shoulder. It was a large, black wave, ever-present, just waiting to wash over me and I knew that if it did, I would die. I was only 47 and my children were 13 and 11. I desperately wanted to live for my husband and my children.
After surgery to remove my breast, my oncologist said he recommended six infusions of chemo given three weeks apart followed by seven to 10 years of oral medication.
I was about as low as I could get and I fluctuated between depression and panic. So, sometime around the first chemo treatment my doctor spoke with me and told me to stop looking ahead, to not make plans.
He said just accept each day as it comes. Get up every morning and thank God that I was alive and to just get through the day. He said there is enough struggle in every day and I was to use what energy I had to survive each day on its own.
It was at this time that I realized the black wave was gone.
The good Lord had given me peace with what I was going through and I knew everything would be all right. Live or die, my family and I were in God’s hands and He would take care of everything. By His grace I recovered and I still have His peace with me.
In October 2013, almost 10 years to the day of my first diagnosis, I was told I now have multiple myeloma, a type of bone cancer. As I sat there on the examination table and listened to the doctor, I just smiled.
Granted, at first it was a silly smile more from stunned disbelief I suppose; but, then I realized that this is just another trial, another mountain to climb.
In August 2016 I turned 60 years old. I am holding steady at about 10 percent cancer cells, so no treatment yet. I know that if I have to be treated for MM, I will again face a roller coaster of emotions and a ravaged body and terrible pain. But, my Lord is still standing with me holding my hand and I will keep my faith in Him and move forward.
This time, I do not see that black wave.