Friday, September 28, 2012

Our Peace was Purchased at a Price

Today, I am especially thankful. The constant stomach ache and heartburn that I have had for weeks has been relieved and I feel stronger. I am so humbled by all of your prayers.

Why is it that we learn more under pressure? What does that say about our nature?

As soon as I start feeling stronger, I immediately go into my overdrive mode of "catching up". My goodness, look at all of my undone things. How will I ever finish this and this and this....oh my, I am getting sucked into it...already! Here comes the anxiety of our uncompleted earthly list. Before I know it, I am in a dither.

Once again, I am reminded that I have no strength, no purpose and no peace with out keeping my focus, first and foremost, on Him. My life gyrates from one emotional extreme to another. My time is spent in turmoil and every activity seems to produce an ever accelerating rise in frustration. Until finally, I sigh and stop the chaos and draw near to Him. I am Mary and Martha in one bi-polar package.

It never ceases to amaze me that I give Him the mess that I call my life and in return, He gives me beauty beyond description. Even more amazing, it is not as though He only offered me this miraculous exchange on one single occasion. That, in itself, would be awesome. But He does it daily. Some days, He gives me this wondrous Gift multitudes of times.

The human mind and heart cannot conceive that kind of love. We would immediately cry "FOUL" and "That's not fair!". We would whine that the exchange was completely warped.

What I lay down is the stuff that I cannot deal with, the stuff that I have completely messed up with my feeble attempts, the stuff that I took possession of that went against His will. And what He returns to me in exchange for my garbage is indescribable, perfect, unconditional, and always available peace and love that no one can describe in human terms.

And when He gives this gracious gift to me, He knows that I will be back to my ways again before the end of the day, maybe even in the next 5 minutes. But yet, He will pick me up out of the pit again. He knew before the creation of the world, what a train wreck that I would be without Him.

That is why the Maker of the Universe became the Savior of Man's Soul. We simply cannot do it on our own. He knew that we would face challenges that would overtake us without Him. He knew that we could not overcome our own sinful nature without Him. He knew that we could have no hope without Him.

God does not always change the circumstances that surround us. He did not change the circumstances for His own Son on the cross. But He always has a purpose for our circumstances, and He knows that we will face times when we cannot take one more step without Him.

He brought me to Isaiah 40::28-31 this morning. "We may grow weary and weak but He will renew our spirits if we will trust in Him. We will soar like eagles."

What amazing love, my sweet Lord. Help me to see others that way that You see them. I love you from the depths of my soul.

He Reveals the Hidden

There have been so many provisions in the past month, that I am in awe. I have been sick since mid-July and knew in my heart that something was wrong, but could not say what it was. After having a chest x-ray in August, I was told that I had a 2 cm mass on my right lung. (This was terrifying since my mother died thirteen days after being diagnosed  with small cell lung cancer in 2004.) A CT scan was done the next day at a suburban imaging center . By this point, I knew that it was time to move to the Texas Medical Center and see the experts. So I went to pick up my CD of images and the technician handed me a envelope and the CD. She said, "I printed the report too and you really should look at this report."

At first, I was very relieved when I read that the mass on my lung was scar tissue and that I only had 2 small BB sized nodules, that did not seem to raise any red flags. Thinking that I was in the clear, I almost put the report back in the envelope, when I saw in capital letters, "Incidental Report:, 2.6 cm mass on pancreas". It went on to say that the radiologist had caught the top on my pancreas on the CT scan of my chest.

This was not something that I had ever processed through my brain. My name of the top of a piece of paper with the words "pancreas" and "mass" in the same sentence. I know that the survival rate for pancreatic cancer is 5% for 12 months and most of those die in 2 to 4 months. Both of my parents died very suddenly (dad was killed in a car wreck in 2008) and this news hit me real, real hard. There was no sleeping for me that night.

There have been other times in my life that I was face down before the Lord. That night was one of those times. I can honestly say that I do not fear death itself, not that I regularly just sit around and think about it. Like most of us, I am way too busy to think about stressful, depressing things like dying.  Every day is a gift and we are to glorify Him in it. But that night, my little light was not shining. I cried out to Him, I do not want to die, not now anyway! He, very gently, reminded me of the funeral that I attended this summer for a 7 year old, precious, beautiful, little boy that died of an aneurysm. No warning, no nothing. Yet again, I was reminded, I am not in control...none of us are. His ways are not our ways. There is a bigger picture then what our minds can comprehend.

But in the wee hours, God came through the fog of my tears and gave me a memory. I serve on the admissions committee for Hannah's school. In June, I had only one evening of interviews with two families that were interested in our school. One of the fathers is a director in the pulmonary department at MD Anderson. At the end of our interview, I had ask him if he would give a referral for an asthma doctor. Being a very gracious man, he emailed me his cell phone number. Since I am a ding-a-ling, I had never called him for that referral. But God made it clear to me that night that I was to call him first thing in the morning. My hands were shaking when I made that call...what if he didn't remember me...what if he thought that I was a rude, pushy, opportunist. Nothing could be further from the truth, he was very kind and ask me to read him the CT report. Suffice it to say, that I was registered and had an appointment at MD Anderson in less then 24 hours after I made that phone call. Aren't we bless that our Lord, is intimately involved in the details of our lives? Why can I not seem to remember that fact, when my life is not in crisis mode?

It quickly became apparent to me, that God had set up a series of events that had brought me to this place. He allowed me to have a respiratory infection, that forced me to actually go see a doctor (ask my family, that in itself is miraculous), who ordered a chest x-ray that led to the CT scan of my chest. The technician "accidentally" extended the perimeters of the scan & caught an image of my pancreas. The radiologist was thorough in his analysis and reported the mass on my pancreas. The medical clerk at the imaging center was led to print out the written report, instead of just burning a CD of the images, which was all that had been requested. The doctor, who ordered the original scan, was out of town, so I went around him and picked up the report myself. God placed a doctor in my life months ago, who was willing to help with my admission to MDA. The registration at MDA was practically immediate; it is not uncommon to have to wait for acceptance into their programs. This series of events was no accident or coincidence.

There are no early detection tests for pancreatic cancer, this is one of the reasons that it is considered the most fatal of all cancers. Because of the location of mine, the doctor told me that mine is silent. If it was located on the left end of my pancreas, I would have been glow in the dark jaundice long ago. I am so thankful that our Lord is not silent.

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Yet Again...I am not IN CHARGE

Today is a challenging day for me. Learning a difficult lesson about preconceiving ideas and convincing myself that I have things figured out.

Before I update on the change in events that occurred yesterday, I want everyone to know that hopefully I will be able to go back & fill in the details of the past month at a later date. The truth be told, until last night, I was not planning on posting any of this on a blog. But I know that I need the prayers of my friends and do not want anyone to be misinformed.

As some of you know, I had my second appointment at MD Anderson yesterday. It did not go as we had expected, but I am very thankful that it also did not go as bad as it could have. There is always an upside when you are living in this realm. I am alive and God has blessed me beyond words.

We were amazed at the doctor that God has provided. He is a born again Christian and is a member of Second. He attended Harvard Medical school and is one of the most humble, gentle spirits that I have ever met. He spoke with kindness and concern but was, at the same time, very straight forward.  There is no doubt in my mind that he is a Gift.

For the past several weeks, I have told myself multitudes of times, that I was going to have this ping pong ball removed, it would be a harmless benign thing, and I would happily go on my merry way.

But reality does not always line up with our fantasies. The good news is that this is exactly where God shows up and amazing things happen. I have learned that there are times in this life where, He asks us to trust Him enough to step up to the edge of the cliff of fear and uncertainty and JUMP. For me, this is another one of those occasions.

The choice of surgically removing this lesion is not a simple decision, for several reasons. First, I was told yesterday that the pancreas is extremely sensitive and does not respond well to any poking or prodding and especially does not like to be sliced or diced. Second, I knew that the pancreas is an essential organ to sustain life and cannot be transplanted. Third issue for me is that my lesion is very large and located within the center of the pancreas. It is taking up a sizable portion of the interior of my pancreas and has a circumference that extends past the pancreas wall. In other words, it is wider then my pancreas. So, as the doctor put it, to remove it would require them to remove at least half of my pancreas and would not leave me with a very good quality of life.

Another important aspect is that this lesion still appears to not be solid. We will not know anything absolutely until after the procedure. But at this point we are encouraged by the appearance on the scan results. The extremely aggressive form of pancreatic cancer is usually in a solid state. That does not mean that it cannot still be malignant, but it is definitely a source of encouragement.

I have been ever hopeful that this is a benign growth and know that it could still be the case. But now knowing that it will not be removed unless it is aggressive, is going to take a little getting use to. My best hope at this point is that I will have this monitored for the rest of my life. Right now, both my liver and pancreas functions are normal, so that is very good.

There is a form of growth in the pancreas that is called a pseudo cyst. These are benign and I have been hopeful that mine would fit into this category. However, I do not fit any of the causes of a pseudo cyst. Most commonly, they are found in people, who are alcoholics, or have chronic pancreatitus or gallbladder issues or have sustained severe trauma to the abdomen. (Unless, having 3 babies is considered severe trauma, then  I do not fit any of these categories.) As the doctor said, not having any of these situations works against me, because a pseudo cyst is the diagnosis of choice.

But, we will have many more details after all the information from the internal ultrasound and biopsy are back. They have scheduled the procedure for October 10th. We could have chosen to be squeezed into the schedule next week, but I chose to wait for an "unsqueezed" slot. God's timing is always perfect and I am resting on that fact.

If the biopsy indicates a malignancy then we will have a different scenario. The GI team at MDA will have to put all their brilliant minds together and come up with the plan of attack.

But, I know that I know that God has every aspect of this journey in the palm of His Hand. His ways are not our ways, "but all things work together for good for this that trust Him and are called according to His purpose." And He does have a purpose for this and He will be glorified.

New Adventure

Ok, this is a scary endeavor for me. But my prayer is that first and foremost my Lord will somehow be glorified and that His Truth will be spoken. Whenever I find myself in a place of insecurity, many times it has been at that exact point that I am stepping out of myself and into His plan for me. So I begin this journey as a form of worship and soul searching.

"Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity?" Job 2:10 -- The Master Potter applies the pressure of suffering as He molds us into vessels of beauty that will display His glory.