The Miracle

I am in total disbelief right now typing this.  I got a call from Dr. Colman at Huntsman Cancer Institute today saying that they are "pretty sure it's not a tumor."  They were supposed to call on Tuesday and didn't.  They called this morning to tell us that the pathologists wanted to have someone else look at the slides and confirm what they were thinking and that they'd let us know by the end of today.  I was glad they were being so cautious and double checking, but I started to wonder if it had been worth it to do the biopsy at all!  I thought, Wow!  I just risked my life and my brain function to obtain a biopsy sample that may not give us any answers!

I certainly don't feel that way now!  Without the biopsy, the doctors would have recommended radiation to reduce the "tumor."  Dr. Reichman, made the inspired decision to go ahead and do the biopsy, knowing how devastating it would be to treat it if it was not indeed a tumor.  It's mind blowing to think of all the different directions this could have gone and how we have been led to the people we needed to help us on this path.  I'll never forget the moment I was in my hospital room and Joe was taking a shower and suddenly he just started saying, "Oh, I just had the best idea!  I just had the best idea!"  He had just had a thought that he should reach out to a contact he had made through work, Matt Leavitt, who had created a new improved method of collecting biopsy samples.  Joe sent him an email asking for advice at which time Matt urged us to get a second opinion on our biopsy sample and to make sure to get it up to Salt Lake to be seen by the pathologists that specialize in neurology.  That one "thought" that Joe had changed the course of my life!  That was not a thought, people!  That is the power of the Holy Ghost!  The Holy Ghost speaks to us and guides us and gives us the inspiration we need to steer through our lives.  God is there, he is so there!  He cares!  Isn't that the best news ever?

So, what is it then?  If it's not a tumor, what is it?  That's the next step.  Right now, all we've been told is that they think it's a myelinating lesion, a sign of a myelinating disease.  I have no idea what that means.  It could be something like MS.  It could be another kind of auto-immune disease.  That's the next step.  Figuring out what it is and how serious that will be.  I feel like I can overcome anything now!  I am so ready to take on whatever it is.  Bring it on!  I don't want to act like those kinds of diseases aren't serious, because I realize that they are and that they can be debilitating and degenerating.  But going from thinking you're going to die and possibly not raise your children and that you're about to intentionally poison yourself and make yourself sick when you're feeling healthy and whole, to suddenly realizing that you probably have a long life ahead of you that has a lot more hope for health and healing without being subjected to the tortures of cancer treatment, THIS IS GOOD NEWS.

I feel so free knowing that I don't have to go through chemo and radiation.  I cannot describe the horror I have been feeling about intentionally swallowing a pill that I equate to rat poison and allowing it to wreak havoc on my beautiful, healthy cells that I have so carefully been trying to protect and shield from contamination.  I don't clean my house with vinegar because I like the smell.  I don't make my own dish washing powder because it's convenient.  I do it because I care so much about not introducing unhealthy chemicals into my body!  I believe that our mortal bodies are gifts from our Heavenly Father.  I believe that having a body is part of our mortal experience and that we are supposed to learn how to gain control over our physical appetites by strengthening our spirits.  I believe that God expects us to take great care of our physical bodies and respect them as a gift from Him.  I'm certainly not perfect in the way I eat and I haven't found a way to avoid all contaminants, but it is something I give a lot of thought to and my life is quite a bit more complicated than some people's because of the efforts I make in this area.  So, having spent an entire summer with my house completely infested with ear wigs

and not being willing to have someone come spray poison, you can imagine my horror at the thought of agreeing to taking a chemo pill.  Right now, those pills, and all the other pills meant to counteract the negative side effects, are sitting in the pharmacy waiting for pick up!  I felt like I was about to be on one of those videos you see of people from the 50s running through the fields as the crop duster is spraying deadly chemicals overhead.  I considered turning down treatment, but there's just so much pressure!   What do you do when your family thinks you're crazy to not listen to the doctors and your husband is convinced that you're giving up five years of life by not complying with treatment.  But God knew what was coming all along.  I had been pleading with Him to tell me what to do and the only feeling I had was to listen to what the doctor's say.  My plan was to ask the doctors if I could have three months to delay treatment and try my own therapies to see if I could make any progress without the slash, burn, and poison methods.  My family did not feel good about that idea. I didn't even have to have that conversation.

I have to confess that, though many of you have the impression that I have had unwaivering faith through all of this, last night I had a complete break down.  The fear finally started to creep in.  I had been researching alternative methods on my computer for days and I was particularly hopeful and excited about one treatment until I read that it had worked on many cancers but not on brain cancer.  The lack of convincing success stories for treating brain cancer combined with the stories I was reading about cancer treatments actually causing future reocccurence of other cancers in patients had me feeling so hopeless.  For the first time, I started thinking, maybe there isn't a way out of this! Maybe it really is as bad as it seems.  Maybe it is God's plan for this horrible tragedy to happen to our family, because that is a reality of life.  Tragedies really do happen to good people.  I lost hope.  Just like Peter, I looked down at the blackness of the water and felt the winds kicking up and felt sheer terror.  Lord save me! I started to sink.  I was sobbing to Joe.  It was the morning of the surgery all over again.  I felt like such a phony!  I've been telling people how peaceful I feel and how I know I'm going to overcome this and look at me now!  Where is my faith?  I felt a little better when I woke up in the morning.

I spent a large part of today making cancer fighting foods.  I made a coconut smoothie with a real coconut that I really struggled to get into and ended up having to use a hammer and a screw driver to finally gain entrance.  I won't be doing that again, especially after all of the chunks of the actual shell that ended up in the smoothie.  Then, right before picking my kids up from school, I made a cancer fighting salad topped with two crushed cloves of garlic, one of the best cancer fighting foods there is.  It may be days before I stop smelling of garlic.  Joe says this is one of the biggest reasons he's pleased it's not cancer.  While I made the salad, I rocked out to the song "There is a Way" by Newworldson.  I tried to remind myself that He is The Way and that there is nothing he can't overcome.  I also listened to the song "I'm Letting Go" by Francesca Batistelli.  It's about letting go of your own plan for your life and giving it to God to do what He knows is best.  The music had me pumped up and ready to be brave again.  I'm so grateful for people that are given talents like singing and song writing and use their talents to serve God and make a difference in people's lives.

Joe  confessed that he had been reading discouraging things on the internet about my condition and that even though the doctors had given me an average life expectancy of 13 years based on a grade 2 and 2-5 years based on grade 3, he had read that it could really be more like 18 months and was expecting me to be dead in two years.  I'm surprised he had such little faith in me!  I'm stronger than that, Joe!  I was able to feel his disbelief.  I tried to tell him that it wasn't as bad as he was acting, but he wasn't convinced.  He says he was being "realistic." Hopefully, the lesson you'll learn from this is that, I'm always right.

So, here I am, just having had the narrowest scrape of my life.  What a roller coaster the past three weeks have been!  I'm just sitting here wondering. why me?  Why do I get to be the one to walk away from a cancer diagnosis?  It's not fair!  Why do so many wonderful, deserving, faithful people have to go all the way through the hell and I just get to be okay?  I want to acknowledge the unfairness, especially to those of you who may be suffering from this kind of tragedy in your life.  For whatever reason, this is like an Abrahamic trial in my life.  A chance to be tested but then released from the depths of tragedy.  I know that my life will be forever changed from this experience and that there are still a lot of unknowns in my future.  If I could choose any way to find out about having an auto immune disease, this would be the way!  It feels more like a blessing than a curse!

I need you all to know, all of you that have prayed for me, that you have taken part in a miracle.  You have saved my life.  You have given my children the security of being able to believe that their mother will be there for them.  I believe that it was your constant, heart-felt, faithful prayers that changed the biopsy results.  God had a plan all along, but He often pours out blessings only after being asked.  Thank you for asking.  Thank you for caring.  Thank you for your love and support.  I will never forget what you have done for me!  And most of all, Thank you God!  Be there for God and He'll be there for you!  Believe in Him!  He is real!  If you don't believe in Him, look for Him.  Pray to him.  Ask if he is there.  You can know that He is!