jamie has walked this cancer road herself, her beloved jay had cancer. she learned the system. and she works at harvest in human resources so knows our insurance, as well as people who can help make things happen. she not only knows insurance, but she understands the referral process, doctors, medical language and cancer speak. i immediately called her and asked her to look up matt's kind of cancer and tell me what i need to know. i was afraid to look it up. there's too much information and i decided to be on a need to know basis. from that moment on, she has been a wealth of knowledge and walked every step with us through the medical process. she has attended doctor appointments with us and taken notes, asked questions and done the "what's next." this allows me to sit in the corner of the doctor's room and cry. something i'm getting to be pretty good at.
i recently added jamie to my list of favorites on my iphone because we were talking many times each day. when we are told a doctor will call us, she gives them about three hours and then she calls them. if any information is different that what we thought or what we expected, she calls them on it. we know the Lord brought her and though i'm sure this is difficult as it brings up memories from her time with jay, she hasn't let it slow her. she says He uses what we go through for His purpose and He doesn't waste tears. we thank God for jamie.
it was time for the first doctor appointment, it was tuesday, 6 days post diagnosis. my hands shook, my knees wanted to give out. i had my hope pile in one hand and matt's hand in the other. i remember walking in and sitting down in the corner chair, jamie had the chair closest to the doctor. our oncologist gave us hard to swallow news. she said a lot of things that i missed. again, thank God for jamie. what i do remember is that based on the type of cancer matt has and the symptoms he explained, it more than likely has traveled to his brain, in which case surgery would not be an option. i asked why. she said no surgeon in his right mind would open that up. i'm still not totally sure what she meant but i figured she knows stuff and she went to few years of school to have md behind her name - i would just trust her on this. she said she'd give us a second opinion but, she said, we don't have time. she wanted to start chemo and radiation immediately and meanwhile she'll refer us out because this cancer is very aggressive and very rare... remember the 1 in 100,000 - well she mentioned that as well. again, matt is one of the "lucky" ones. she ordered tests STAT and those took place over the next two days.
meanwhile, i sent an email to work informing the pastoral staff of the news and several (or all?) replied that they were praying. one of the pastors asked if they could anoint matt with oil soon. the next morning, before matt's tests started up, he stopped in at harvest. the weekly pastor meeting takes place on wednesdays - which "just so happened"to be the day he was having tests done. He is in this. matt went in and was prayed over by a group of incredibly Godly, passionate men. we felt the presence of the Lord. it's good that i was standing against the door because it held me up. after they prayed for matt, he went back to the medical center for two mri's, blood work and a pet scan. and jamie made call after call working on the second and third opinion and what our insurance needed to get this party started.
the pet scan left matt radio active so he had to stay three feet from people and small animals. the normally indoor cat was banished to the backyard to live for the rest of the day with the two dogs. somehow while she was out there, she fell into the pool and apparently cats don't like water. long hair siamese cats really don't like water nor the mats that result from taking a swim. she stood at the door looking oh so pathetic and eventually that resulted in having to shave her. we now have cali the lion. but that's another story.
that night, our oncologist called us and said she read all of the scans. the cancer is encapsulated to the nasal cavity. the pet scan was clear, the cancer was not in the brain. she also said the referral to the radiation oncologist went through as did the chemo referral. matt looked at me from across the kitchen and gave me the best news i'd heard in 8 days. he said he'd hug me but he was still radio active so we fist bumped instead.
the medical personnel might say it was caught early on, they told us worse case, it was misdiagnosed, whatever. others might think the Lord touched matt and removed it from the brain or from where it had spread. i have my theory and i choose to give God the glory in it. He could choose to heal matt completely but so far He hasn't.
we know that God is faithful, He is all knowing and this not a surprise to Him. in fact, it's part of His plan for our lives at this perfect time. As you can imagine, we are shaken to the core, but we are desperately dependent on Him and we believe that's exactly where He wants us.
we know that God is faithful, He is all knowing and this not a surprise to Him. in fact, it's part of His plan for our lives at this perfect time. As you can imagine, we are shaken to the core, but we are desperately dependent on Him and we believe that's exactly where He wants us.
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