Previous Challenge Entry (Level 3 - Advanced)
Topic: Bold (emotionally) (08/30/07)
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TITLE: How to react to cancer | Previous Challenge Entry
By Ruby Harris
09/04/07 -
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I was so down on myself that I felt I didn't have the right to display
my real emotions. I wanted to be bold enough to speak up but was so
afraid of rejection that I actually doubted what I wanted to declare.
Guess what changed it? I was diagnosed with breast cancer in December of 2006. Yes, just before Christmas. I picked up my mammogram and carried it to a surgeon that declared a biopsy was very necessary. In a few days
after the biopsy he made the "malignant" declaration to me.
My first question was, "How do we get rid of it?" He replied, "well that is the first step." He immediately set me up to see a radiation doctor the next day and the following day I saw an oncologist. Each doctor gave me a little bit of news worse than the day before. I was sure glad that I didn't have to see one the fourth day.
It went from a centimeter in size to 2 12 times the original declaration. I was then told it was invasive and no need to consider a mastectomy. Then came the news that I had the gene that causes cancer. I would have to have eight treatments of chemo followed in 24 hours with a dose of a medicine to make white blood cells rebuild really
fast. Then I would follow that with a thirty day break and begin thirty-three radiation treatments. Then lastly I would have to have eight months of a treatment to try
to shut down the gene in my body.
I got through the chemo with very little sickness but massive pain. Even morphine
wouldn't stop it long enough for me to sleep. I went two and a half days with no sleep and
became so weary that I cried for the first time. The medicine went directly into my bone
marrow and it was excruciating. God filled me with such joy at being alive and in His care
that I shared poems that He gave me with the other patients and the doctors and nurses.
The lady that worked at the Diagnostic Center on the plaza got one emailed to her and she
would post it in her cubicle so her patients could read them. If they asked for a copy, she made
it and gave it to them.
I forgot to mention that I believe God healed me before treatment ever started, but for the sake
of my four daughters, I agreed to go through the treatments. I even told my doctors that I was
healed and why I was going through it. I missed several days work right after the chemo but
went to work until the next treatment three weeks away.
When I started radiation, I continued to carry poems and shared. One nurse made copies
and sent them into the hospital. I shared them with my Sunday School class and I have a list
I email to in several states and they pass them on to others. The radiation didn't burn me hardly at all.
With every treatment, I claimed the scripture that I could walk through the fire and not burn and not
even smell like smoke. I worked every day during the radiation and I praised God as I was able to.
Just a week or so before finishing radiation, I was told that my blood had not been invaded by the cancer
cells like they had thought. Then I got the news that I was not going to have to have the eight months
of treatment for the gene. You talk about praising God. I looked my doctor square in the eyes and
I said, "Thank God", to which he replied, " Yes, Praise God!" He had ordered a new biopsy that had
just become avialable and I was so low on the good side that he said it would do absolutely no good
for me to go through it. It could have caused congestive heart failure.
So, boldness has come. I have no fear of declaring that God has healed me. I have not one problem
with sharing the contents of the poems He gives me. I am so wonderfully well, that if I do not praise
Him then I would be of all people most ungrateful. Yes. I am very bold emotionally.
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