The Journey Begins

After discovering what felt to be a lump I decided to schedule the mammogram my doctor tried to schedule for me four months earlier when I went in for my regular annual checkup. I didn’t even for a moment consider the possibility it might be dangerous. In hindsight I have no idea why.

After the mammogram they took me straight into another testing room for a sonogram. I started to feel somewhat apprehensive because of the way the technicians were behaving. Though they said nothing, I was majorly picking up on their non-verbals. After the exam a doctor came in and talked with me. I think he only meant to tell me I needed to have a biopsy. But because of my incessant questions, he ended up confessing he was 99% sure I had cancer . . . and that it was far larger than the stage they normally like to detect such things. He said there were lots of options available to me and that some people with cancer of this size were able to undergo treatment and live many years.

I left the Ross Breast Center that day trying hard not to cry, but my attempts were futile. I cried all the way through the crowded office, I cried in the elevator while the man riding with me tried not to notice, I cried all the way around the massive building (I went out the wrong door), all the way to the parking garage and the 30 minute drive back to our house. All I could think about were the pictures in my head of people on chemo throwing up all day long, losing their hair and many times even losing their battle with cancer. I thought of my husband and our four kids. I tried to picture them trying to make life work without me. Mostly I thought of our youngest, Nicholas, who would never even remember me.

Together David and I began to explore our options. We met with an oncologist, a surgeon, a geneticist and a radiologist. They gave me an enormous amount of pamphlets detailing current medical approaches for cancer, lots of little pins with pink ribbons, numerous pink bracelets, and a children’s book to help little ones understand why their mom throws up all the time and why she no longer has hair.

Four days after my diagnosis, I shared the information with my Sunday School class and asked them to pray for me. After class a woman named Rebecca came up to me and asked if she could talk with me. In a time span of 45 minutes she shared a massive amount of information with me on the link between cancer and nutrition. She told me of her own battle against cancer that took place twenty years earlier. God spoke to me through her and she is the reason I have chosen to fight this cancer with nutrition instead of doing what my oncologist wants me to do: Chemo drugs, surgery, more chemo and then radiation.

It has now been two months. Sometimes it seems like forever . . . at other times it seems like the time as flown. This journey has not been an easy one and I can’t yet say I can call it a “gift” (many others have done so in their own battle against cancer), but certainly I’ve learned a lot in a short amount of time. For these things I’m learning I am very, very grateful. They are the reason I am not doing the traditional medical approach of surgery, chemo or radiation. I do have cancer and I know it can kill me. But I believe the nutrition path I am on will lead me to victory.

Ultimately I know God is my healer. Sometimes God heals people instantly like the woman who reached up to touch the hem of His garment (Matthew 9). And then there are others like Naaman who was told by the prophet Elisha to go and wash seven times in the Jordan. It wasn’t until after dipping the seventh time that he was healed of leprosy (2 Kings 5).

I feel like God has led me to this path and placed my feet upon it. I’m walking down it in obedience to Him and I know my healing is taking place everyday in my body as I go forward. It is a pretty amazing when a person can say, “Every thing I’m putting in my mouth is good for me.” I read this on Facing Your Giant, a blog of someone I’m just getting to know. She was diagnosed with breast cancer last August and after following a path of nutrition is now cancer free.

I KNOW God can heal me in an instant. And if at any point He chooses to instantly heal me . . . that would be quite okay with me. But until then, I will continue to learn everything I can and fight for my health with all that I’m learning.