Two days ago, I was sitting in a coffee shop with my pastor and a dear friend. We were taking time to pray and talk about the news that I had cancer and about the procedure I was to have done the following day. My friend Brooke asked me what the ideal outcome would be for me. The three of us had been speaking about the importance of praying specifically. I explained that I was prepared for any treatment, as long as I could come out better on the other side.
If you know my friend Brooke, you are not surprised that she was not happy with that answer. She wanted more. "I don't like that outcome because then we have to be satisfied with cancer," she said. So we prayed for complete healing.
This felt like an awkward request for the Lord because I had already been told that the results of my biopsies showed at least stage 1 cancer. I was going in the next morning for cryosurgery and to talk to with the doctor about our plans. You see, I have always been afraid to ask too much from God because I was afraid I would be let down. This self preservation method is something with which I have become quite good.
John and I arrived at the doctor nearly two hours early for our meeting before the procedure. We waited and they never called us back. The nurse said that he did not need to meet with us. When we got back into the exam room, the doctor pulled up my results and told me that there were fairly developed cells, but not yet carcinoma. The nurse had made a mistake. We still needed to be aggressive, though with my immune deficiency and medication. We are optimistic that we destroyed all of the cells. We will check in six months to see if they have grown back. If I can make it a year without the cells growing back, then we can relax a little.
Another bit of good news...in a weird Kim Dean kinda way. During the procedure, I had a vasovagal reaction. Basically, from the pain or trauma, my body quit sending enough blood to my brain. Laying down usually resolves this and did this time as well. But I have experienced this after every surgery. Doctors always excused the dangerously low blood pressure on pain medication or my anemia. But this occurred again when I was first admitted to the hospital with convulsions. The vasovagal response is a result of a glitch in my neurological system. This is basically the same reason for the convulsions and palpitations. It is a result in the nervous system being over reactive, and sometimes not reactive enough. We learn something new everyday!
