| | Yesterday we threw an open house at our place, celebrating our move to northwest Houston after 22 years of living in the neighborhood where my husband John grew up and where we began our high school romance. Family, friends and co-workers all came to "warm" us into the new place. It was a wonderful afternoon of connecting with folks we have known for many years and some we've just recently met. The last guest to arrive shared a story that encouraged my faith and helped me to worship right there in the middle of our new home.
Carolyn was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2007. We had lost touch for a year or two and the only reason I found out she was having surgery was that Donna, my sister-in-law, saw her in the parking lot of one of our favorite clothing stores. We got together with her and prayed around Donna's kitchen table before she went under the knife. Oddly enough she was seeing the same doctor I had seen when I had my own bout with breast cancer the year before. After Carolyn's surgery Donna and I (and our husbands) went to visit her.
As far as I knew all was well until early this year when I learned that Carolyn wasn't expected to make it. The doctors had discovered cancer in her spine and it was stage 4. Of course we couldn't believe it.
While in our living room last night Carolyn shared that how even though her nodes were clear cancer showed up, and were it not for a doctor who encouraged her to have a PET scan she might not have known about it until it was too late. The doctors reported to her that the cancer was in a low vertebra and would require extensive surgery that would have laid her up in bed for many months. As a single mother, she decided it wasn't an option. They told her to get her affairs in order, so that's when Carolyn began a search to save her life.
She simply Googled "spine cancer cure" and found out about a machine that could kill cancer of the spine without surgery. There were only three of these machines in Texas and one was at Methodist Hospital in Houston. Carolyn's neighbor across the street just "happened" to work there and connected her with the appropriate doctor.
"When I thought my number was up I told God I wouldn't forsake Him," she said. "I also told him I didn't understand why this was happening to me, but I would accept His will, whatever it was." That was the night before she went in for her consultation. The next morning, after the doctor examined her, he told her not only was it was treatable, but he believed she would be cured. "One night I thought I might die and by 9:30 the next morning I had hope that I was going to live."
"It occurred to me that as a believer wherever I am is where I'm supposed to be," she said. "No matter what my situation -- even if it isn't where I'd like to be -- it's where God is working. Maybe someone else can find Him in the middle of my situation. The worst that can happen to me is that I end up in heaven."
After five treatments Carolyn has been declared cancer free.
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| | Posted 4/26/2009 12:33 PM - 67 Views - 4 eProps - 3 comments
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