(The following is a rewrite of my deleted post, When the doctor says you have cancer, that I wrote three days ago. I deleted it, because that post was a mess. And a little hysterical. π )
This past Tuesday, two days before Thanksgiving, I went to see my doctor and he told me the growths that have recently appeared on my forehead and neck are cancer. Either basal cell or squamous. He told me I need to have them removed in the hospital. My surgery is scheduled for December 6.
My feelings felt hurt. It just doesn’t seem fair for me to have cancer, AGAIN. I had a type of uterine cancer when I was 26 years old, which the pathology report said had most likely already spread to my endocrine system. But after much prayer and only minimal surgery, and no other treatment, I was cancer free. That was 39 years ago. I was even able to have another child a year and a half later, despite the surgeon saying that would never be possible because of my extensive scar tissue.
When I was in my early thirties, I had a large painful tumor in my gallbladder. The doctor said it was almost certainly cancer and that it needed to come out right away. I saw the surgeon on a Friday and he scheduled me for surgery the following Wednesday. Not wanting to have another surgery, I told the surgeon, an atheist, that I was going to pray and ask God to take the tumor away. The surgeon literally laughed in my face. “You can pray,” he said, “But I will see you in the hospital this Wednesday.”
Wednesday came and I checked myself into the hospital as instructed, even though the intense pain was gone and only a mild achey soreness remained. The pre-op nurse said the surgeon wanted her to do another ultrasound first thing, to see if the tumor had changed or grown since my previous ultrasound, which had been done five days before. I got up on the table, she ran the wand over my belly, and as she did, she looked puzzled. “This machine doesn’t seem to be working right,” she said. “Let’s try this other ultrasound machine.” So I walked across the room and climbed up on another table. After passing the second wand over my belly and taking several photographs, she printed out the pictures and said, “I will be right back.”
Moments later, I was summoned to the surgeon’s office. I found him sitting behind his desk, staring at two pictures that he held, one in each hand. “Look!” he said. “Do you see how big your gallbladder was last Friday? Do you see how this large, single mass completely filled up your enlarged gallbladder? Now, look at today’s picture. Not only is the mass completely gone — your gallbladder is many times smaller than it was just five days ago. Thin and elongated, back down to a normal shape and size.”
Then this atheist surgeon looked at me in amazement. “Maybe God really did heal you!” he said.
When I was in my forties, shortly after graduating from nursing school, I had all the yucky symptoms of colon cancer, which is one of several cancers that run in my family. Surgery removed a large precancerous polyp, which the pathology report said was adenomous benign. Many colonoscopies later, I remain free of colon polyps and free of colon cancer.
But now I have skin cancer and I’m scheduled for surgery in less than two weeks. This will be my fourth surgical procedure done under general anesthesia since May 2017. I really hate going under general anesthesia, because I have almost died from an anaphylactic shock reaction to an anesthesia drug, twice in the past. But even more than hating anesthesia, I hate the word cancer.
Why, God?
As I was driving home from seeing the surgeon last Tuesday, right after being told that my suspicion was correct, that these new growths are cancer, I prayed and asked God WHY? Then these words from a song that we sang in church last Sunday, came to my mind:
Your mercies are new
Over and over
Your mercies are new
Over and over
As surely as the morning comes
You’re faithful!
Yes, Lord. Your will be done. My life belongs to You. Thank You that I have an excellent surgeon whom I trust. Thank You for a good hospital and a great surgical team that has always taken the best care of me. Thank You for my excellent health insurance. Thank You for my loving husband and my caring and dependable stepdaughter; I know they will see me through as I heal from this surgery, as they have done before. And thank You that my Google search revealed that basal cell and squamous cell skin cancers almost never metastasize and kill a person. Thank You for miraculously healing me of various kinds of cancer and precancer in the past! Most of all, God, I thank You for Your great love and mercy, and for Your amazing grace that has saved my soul, through the cross of Jesus Christ, my Savior and my Lord. Amen!
Your mercies are new
Over and over…..
~Thank you to my readers for stopping by. And an extra special big hearty Thank You to my long time blogger friend, Phoebe Sparrow Wagner, the author of WagBlog (https://pamelaspirowagner.com) whose great knowledge about skin cancers alleviated my fear of googling basal and squamous cell carcinomas.
((HUGS)) and Love and Happy Merry Christmas Holidays!