cancerschmancer - the beginning

in the days that followed our news, i was often speechless. God's goodness was evident from the beginning. my heart was broken, my dreams shattered, or maybe just put on hold. my beloved of 20 years was sick and there was not a single thing i could do.

thursday, the day after the diagnosis we went for dinner and when we came home, the house was too quiet. i wasn't used to this. levi was on his bed reading, matt was resting in our room, taylor was in her room on her bed. i sat in the office at my computer listening to worship, trying to make sense of this. i felt like our family was being ripped apart. we didn't know what to do but i wasn't about to lose the kids in this. our house needed noise, it needed life. as i worshipped, the Lord ministered to my heart to write scripture down. create a "hope pile." so using index cards, i wanted to write down every verse people sent to us and hold on to them, when it seems hopeless, His word brings life. i went into taylor's room where she was sobbing and listening to "i still believe" by our friend, jeremy camp. she turned it up and we sat on her floor, arms up, teary eyes closed and worshipped together like never before. he sings after the death of his wife, who had cancer, "even when i can't see, i still believe." after that night, i banned jeremy from her room. however, it was one of the sweetest moments i've had with her in all of her life.

eventually we all made our way back to the office, more kleenex in hand and grabbed a pile of notecards. we wrote out verses and the names of the people who sent them. we ran out of cards and got more. matt and levi joined us and we all kept writing. bedtimes didn't seem as important as they had nights before. and you know, by the time we were done, none of us were crying. a peace had filled our hearts. we worshipped, we prayed together, finally we tucked the kids in and for the first time i thought, it's going to be ok. because HE had this. He knows the end from the beginning and this is not a surprise to Him.

one friend sent me phil 4:8 and reminded me to think on whatsoever things are true. she said, don't focus on the what if's or what you think might be happening inside matt's head. what do you know? he has cancer. do you know it has spread? no. do you know he has a short time left? no.
i was reminded to take every thought captive as it says in 2 cor 10:5. if a doubt or fear began to crowd out my mind, i'd think on His word. i'd pull a card out of the hope pile and refocus my mind. we did this for days and daily we add to our hope pile. every verse that has been sent to us or verse that has ministered to our hearts through our devotion time is in our hope pile.

on the cancer front, we had an appointment with the oncologist the following tuesday. we didn't know what she would say but we knew a very long, hard process was ahead of us. we were going to demand more tests, a second opinion and for crying out loud i was going to make her answer to why on earth the ENT would tell us this news over the phone. she wasn't part of that office but they were all in the same medical clinic, she was guilty by association. i was mad and ready to be the best advocate and i figured now that my phone autocorrected words like carcinoma, oncologist, neuroendocrine - i could do it. and then the Lord brought Jamie.

there was so much to learn. i remember talking to a group of friends - my mentors - on december 31. rather than make resolutions one said, let's make life changes. we decided to get healthier and we'd hold each other accountable. i said i wanted to learn to cook healthier for my family. i didn't even know what that meant. but when august 28 came and the cancer news hit our family. i knew i had to learn. i believe one of many things the Lord showed me was that i wasted 9 months and He wasn't going to let that go any longer - my feet were being held to the fire to the "life change" commitment i'd made way back then. the little i did know was that cancer feeds on sugar so as of that day, sugar was cut out of our diets and so was processed food. (can we say system shocker?!) i seriously didn't know what we'd eat. i thought we might just die but it wouldn't be from cancer, it would be starvation. i texted my very patient friends who gave me amazing advice. what i had in my favor was that matt still couldn't taste or smell so he'd eat anything. it was the kids and i that were going to die.

on the practical front, friends began to offer to help. we didn't know what we needed. but the Lord did. one friend came over with a vitamix blender and everything needed to make healthy shakes, i learned matt needed an abundance of vitamins and protein. another friend gave me books and a cooking lesson - which resulted in 2 dinners that i took home from her house. what i didn't know was that the body of Christ had come together and formed a dinner plan that began when those two dinners left off. another friend, himself a cancer survivor told matt to get as much vitamin c in his system at once. i figured if a man has beat cancer, we didn't care what he said, we'd do it. if he said stand on your head and wiggle your toes, heck, we'd do it. with the vitamin c, i was eager and i added a days worth into one shake. who knew it had to be ingested throughout the day? not this girl. it was bad. very bad. there was so much to learn but God provided someone for every need. He's good like that.