And So I Hope

I have been encouraged today by the Lover of our Souls.  When I returned home from the oncologist and wanted time with God, I asked that He would speak to my soul, something personal and perfect … tell me what He’d like me to hear.  I went to Psalm 128, since that is the next one on my personal reading schedule, and it begins with ‘my theme:’ “Blessed are those who fear the LORD… “ and it ends with an incredible blessing, that speaks volumes of healing and promise to me: “and may you live to see your children’s children.”  Personal and perfect!

This has not been a day where peace reigned.  I was quite nervous about the upcoming oncologist appointment; quite overwhelmed with treatment options I’ve been researching.  I don’t know how I’ll ever make a decision on treatment.  I finally realized that I need to chill a bit, and remember that I know the All Wise One, the Healer, the Decider, the Revealer of Truth.  Okay, that helped… then on to the doctor.

What can I say?  Dare I hope?  I went in with dread, but came out with hope.  He had no sure answers - yet.  The full CT Scan report is now in my hands, and everything is worded carefully:  “cannot rule out subtle mets”  “lesion suggesting mets” “irregular lucency in right post rib, suggesting mets,” “subtle mets in this area cannot be ruled out.” Four areas of possible cancer mets – two in tissue, two in bone. 

The only way to know for sure is to do the bone biopsy.  He ordered it.  Bleh.   Ouch.

(I also learned that I had a “mild old compression fracture on my T9 vertebrae” – now was that from the rock climbing fall in my twenties? Or the inline skates fall in my 40’s? Or something I don’t even remember???) 

The high tumor marker?  The absence of an abdominal tumor?  He’s puzzled with that one.  All my previous symptoms pointed to a huge tumor.  I explained that after that high tumor marker test came in, I immediately asked for people to pray, and they did.  Before anything had changed, I told my family that for once, I couldn’t wait to have surgery, just so I could be comfortable again. I was very tired of carrying that “thing” around.   Then the uncomfortable heaviness in my abdomen disappeared.  It was gone by the time I went in for the CT scan.  How can that be explained, except that God answered prayer?  The doctor doesn’t know.  He said that the there are false positives with the tumor marker.  But after a pause, he added that he’d never seen a false positive that read as high as mine though.  Mine was about 130, the false positives he’s seen were 40.  Normal is about 30.  At my request, he finally ordered that test again.  I’m curious to see if it is lower now that my abdomen feels better.

We also talked about the possibility of colon cancer.  Apparently the CT Scan does not do a good job of catching that.  My markers for that also doubled in the last couple of months.  He wasn’t concerned, initially, because they were still in normal range.  However, since he’s not sure what is going on, he ordered a colonoscopy.  Lucky me.

I asked about getting permission for second opinions at Alternative Centers and City of Hope; but he said no one would see me until we get something concrete – back to the bone biopsy.  Bleh.  I really don’t want that.

The last question of the day.  “So what do I do in the meantime?”  “Well,” he answered, “It looks like prayer has been working.  Why don’t you keep that up.  It seems like God is the one who knows what is going on.”  (or something to that effect – and it almost knocked me over to hear him say that – because I am the one who is always talking to him about God, and giving him books to read, and telling him that I pray for him.  And he’s always the skeptic!  Okay – so that made the visit all worthwhile.)

And so I hope that God has begun a healing process, and He will complete it.