Answered Prayers

Praise God!  The results of my upper GI tract scope this morning were the best we could have hoped for.  Though my doctor took a few biopsies, he said that he didn’t see any reasons for alarm in that area of my body.  In fact, it looked downright normal!  This is a huge praise, as some of the possible genetic diseases that are up for consideration would also cause cancer in the upper GI tract.  My gastroenterologist thinks I should get regularly scoped (about every five years), but at this point I look in the clear.  My CT scan results should be in on Monday, and hopefully that will confirm that the only real issue right now is my colon.  The colon is enough; it would be amazing to not require surgery or treatment anywhere else at this point!

Once again, Martha proved to be a friend extroadinaire, showing up at our house at 4:30am to accompany us and help out with Evie.  She then stuck around our house afterward to cook us dinner.  If you know Martha, feel blessed.  She is amazing.  My good friend Rachael was also a godsend today, letting us crash at her house in Arlington between tests and hooking me up with some of the tools I will need to continue breastfeeding Evie through all of this craziness.  We also returned home to find a bag with a loaf of pretty amazing homemade bread hanging on our front door from an unknown benefactor.  You know who you are.  Thank you.

Low point of the day would definitely be the prep drink for the CT scan.  It tasted alright on the way down, but not so much on the way back up.  All three times.  In the car.  At 60 mph.  Generous amounts of Lysol and some go-overs with a garden hose are definitely in my car’s very near future.

Tomorrow is Christmas Eve, and Taylor and I are looking forward to a weekend of no doctor appointments and no tests.  I’m sure there will be enough to worry about come Monday, but for now, I am more than ready to celebrate our Savior’s birth and enjoy our first Christmas with Evie.  As one Christmas carol states:

“And ye, beneath life’s crushing load,
Whose forms are bending low,
Who toil along the climbing way
With painful steps and slow,
Look now! for glad and golden hours
come swiftly on the wing.
O rest beside the weary road,
And hear the angels sing!”

I hope you also find rest in our Lord.  Merry Christmas, and may God bless you and your neighbor through you!

Prayers and Praise

Here is a brief update before I go to bed in preparation of a very early start of the day tomorrow.  At my appointment this morning, my doctor went over the results of the colonoscopy, including the fact that the many biopsies she took all came back as precancerous.  Yes, that means that if left alone, they will become cancer, but they are not yet!  Praise God!  From what we know so far, it looks like we have caught this in the nick of time.  Because they are so close to becoming cancerous, however, she told us she wanted to move fast with my treatment.  In fact, she had made an appointment for me to meet with a gastroenterologist in Grapevine that afternoon.  So after we left her office, we picked up Evie, had lunch, and then headed to Grapevine.  There we met with a great gastroenterologist who I feel very good about.  He has experience diagnosing these sorts of genetic diseases and knew what steps we needed to take next.  So after being poked and prodded, my blood is on its way to be tested for exactly what genetic disorder I have (there are a few related possibilities) and I am scheduled for an upper GI tract scope tomorrow morning at 7am (have to be there at 6am) and a CT scan directly following.  Here are a few points I would love your prayer for:

- That the scope and CT scan tomorrow would reveal that my genetic disorder has not caused dangerous growths anywhere else in my body.

- That we would have wisdom to make the right decisions regarding my treatment.  There are a few different options for my surgery, and we need to spend some time weighing out the pros and cons.

- That God would be gracious to us in the area of future children.  One thing I was not expecting today was how often the issue of fertility would come up.  My fertility is definitely at risk.  With the surgery comes substantial risk of damage to my ovaries and fallopian tubes, and depending on the genetic results, there’s a good chance I will need a complete hysterectomy with ovary removal sooner rather than later as I am at extremely high risk of developing cancer in those areas.  This has probably caused me the most emotional distress today.  I praise God, though, for giving us Evie.  What a blessing to have been able to have her before all of this started!  It does seem like our conversation about adoption may be expedited by all of this.

A few blessings from today and great evidence of all of your prayers:

- My good friend Martha was able to come with us to the appointment this morning and then came along with us to Grapevine to help out with Evie while I was getting tests done.  She is also going with us tomorrow for the scope and CT scan.  What a gift to have friends like this, who don’t mind having their entire day hijacked to hang out in doctor’s offices and hospitals!

- Evie is a wonderful baby.  She was not fussy at all today and was the darling of the Grapevine office’s waiting area.  All of the nurses were taking turns holding her, and I overheard them talking about her in the halls while I was getting tests done.  I praise God that she has such an easy temperament and sleeps well on the move.  This whole process would be so much harder otherwise!

- We were very, very late for my appointment in Grapevine due to construction and traffic, and we were unable to reach anyone in the doctor’s office to tell them we were on our way.  The doctor, however, put off going Christmas shopping for his wife to wait around forty-five minutes for us to show up.  He was five minutes away from leaving when we finally reached his office.  Praise God that he waited and was so gracious with us!

- They did not find cancer!  Hallelujah!

Well, I said this would be brief, but alas, it is not.  It is most certainly bedtime, and I am exhausted.  Thank you so much for all of your prayers!  Please keep them coming.  They are not in vain.  May God bless you and your neighbor through you!

Even If He Does Not

My appointment is at 10:40am tomorrow, so shortly I should know a bit more about what the future holds.  In the meantime, though, I have been blown away by the sheer number of people praying for me.  As my father put it tonight (approximately), “I don’t know how these things work, but if quantity of prayer matters, I think you’re covered.”  Indeed!  Scripture says that where two or three are gathered in the Lord’s name, He is there with them (Matthew 18:20).  Tonight, six of my friends gathered to pray in my house, and I know many, many more have been praying elsewhere.  I’ve been told I’m on prayer lists at churches whose names I have never even heard.  There is no doubt that God is here.

As I wait for my appointment tomorrow, this passage comes to mind:

¹⁶ Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego replied to him, “King Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. ¹⁷ If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and he will deliver us from Your Majesty’s hand. ¹⁸ But even if he does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.”  Daniel 3:16-18

“Even if he does not.”  That is what I find so impressive about those three men.  They knew God was able.  They just didn’t know if He would.  But they were not going to let the circumstances, no matter how grim, steal their faith.  I told my husband tonight that I feel like I have wrapped my mind around the idea of the surgery, and I’m okay with it.  A cancer diagnosis, however, would be a pretty hard hit.  So now I find myself staring into my own furnace, knowing that God is able but not knowing if He will.  I know He can deliver me.  But even if He does not, may I still trust Him as fully as I ever have and more.

The Lord has commanded us to pray, and He would not command us to do something that was a waste of time.  I do not know how God is moving, but I know He is.  Our prayers are not futile; our labor in the Lord is not in vain.  I thank you from the depths of my heart for laboring on my behalf.  The Lord listens, and He is here.  Praise the Lord!

May God continue to bless you and your neighbor through you, for you have certainly blessed me!

Rejoice in the Lord. Always.

Well, I find that an update is necessary.  Life is changing for me, and I’m not even sure how much yet.  But I want to write what I know so far for one major reason: I need your prayers.

This past Tuesday, I had a colonoscopy.  Maybe a bit unusual for someone my age (I just turned 27 on Saturday), but I had some symptoms that seemed to warrant it.  Nothing major, but just enough to get me to the doctor.  My doctor didn’t seem to think it was anything too serious, but wanted to check me out.  I went into the colonoscopy thinking the worst case scenario was celiac disease (gluten intolerance).  I thought I would leave that day with perhaps some instructions on dietary changes.

My pleasant anesthesia-induced grogginess in recovery was unfortunately cut short by some much harder news.  This is how I remember it: They had found more polyps than they could count in my colon.  My colon would have to be removed.  We needed to wait on biopsy results to make sure it was still precancerous.  The most likely explanation was a rare genetic disease that results in colorectal cancer 100% of the time.  A complete colectomy is the only treatment.  They would try to reconstruct a substitute colon out of my small intestine, but otherwise I’d have a permanent external bag.  We would be referred to a genetic therapist to see if our now 7-month-old daughter had inherited the disease from me.  We needed to do blood work, CT scan, GI tract scope.  My doctor absolutely needed to see me next week.  I should try to just enjoy each day until then.

Suddenly, celiac disease wasn’t the worst case scenario anymore.

Here it is in a nutshell.  Somewhere inside me, something has gone terribly wrong.  My body, left to its own devices, is a ticking time bomb with a short timer.  And the only way to diffuse it is to literally gut it.

My next appointment is Thursday morning, and I should get the biopsy results then.  Basically, I should find out if I get to keep my hair while I go through the process of losing my colon.  Waiting is hard, but it’s not like I haven’t had some good days.  Cinnamon rolls have been dropped off at the house, friends have come over for impromptu game nights, we’ve taken family walks in the park, and ridiculous amounts of cheesecake have been consumed.  In general, I’ve tried to keep my mind off of things, and friends have been obliged to help.  I know mobs of people are praying for me, and that means the world to me.  And here’s how I’m really getting by:

 ⁴ Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! ⁵ Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. ⁶ Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. ⁷ And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.  Philippians 4:4-7

This is the day the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.  Psalm 118:24

Please pray for me.  Pray for healing.  Pray for my doctor’s wisdom and skill.  Pray that Evie will never have to deal with this.  But most of all, pray that I would rejoice in the Lord today and every day, that He would receive all glory, for He alone is worthy.  He is the Great Physician and Lord of All, including, as ridiculous as it sounds, my colon.  What happens next is completely out of my control but completely in His.  And that, as hard as this all is, should be good enough for me.

Thank you.  And may God bless you and your neighbor through you today.