THE JOURNEY part II

        

          The Road To Here

  If you haven't read part I to this post you can start at the beginning by scrolling down to the next article since I'm unable to remember the link set up-sorry. Then meet us right back here to get caught up with everyone else to just where things are in my world of  Cancer land.

In the midst of this cancer storm I am standing, am believing for complete healing from Jesus Christ, the healer and patiently awaiting the manifestation of that total divine miracle healing! I'm excited, no ecstatic about that! I know it's on its way, I have my hand up and in His perfect timing I believe I will see it. (details in the previous post as to why I'm so confident about that)

Here's the thing though, this could be the most difficult time for me to publicly make this stand. For me spiritually, I believe it's the most crucial time! It didn't just happen or come to me in story form and I jotted down my thoughts, no. This was planted deep within me a couple years ago by my Heavenly Father, through grace testing me, producing a hunger for truth, feeding me, teaching me and finally when it was wrapped up as truth and flowing through my very blood veins and interwoven into every cell of my body, I began to say it as fact. No more "ifs" or "hopes," no it is fact and truth in my life. 

I remember the first few times I spoke those words out loud to friends. It didn't quite sound like I thought it would and definitely 
wasn't heard in the way I had hoped. No one got excited or made much of it at all. But of course with loving support there was always a quiet agreement rendered. 
I get it! It's not an easy road to walk nor a very comfortable place to stand. When you're being a little on the radical side of life when has it ever been though? For every missionary who ever said they were going to some remote country to preach the gospel, I imagine they met with that similar quite support. What can someone really say back to, "God said,?"

Well, God did say, so many times, through His infallible word, through His leaders of today and to me, His child who has been bought at a very high price, with that precious blood that His faithful son shed for us on his journey to the cross, being brutally beaten for our transgressions and then hanging there for what must have seemed an eternity. Being naked in front of his family and friends, being ridiculed and mocked..I could go on..but I won't today, but you can read it for yourself in 
Matthew 27:27 of the Holy Bible. 

 I have spent most of my life trying not to envision the events of that day because when you really think of what he went through for us it's so hard to comprehend. But his great love for us won out over any doubts He may have had. That's where I had to get. I had to know that this is Gods will, I had to know what I was accomplishing and I had to be at a place where nothing else mattered and my eyes were set on Him and His great plan for my life. 


Honestly, I thought this post was going to be more about the medical side of what's going on right now, but that isn't what was on His mind this morning. Not yet anyway.. today is day #5 of my radiation treatments and I want to share some of that info because so many are going through this and you know, not one single person is prepared for that. I mean, how could you be? I will be back and explain what, why, and where soon, I hope you'll join me. Thanks for reading and I'd love to hear your thoughts and comments. 

Hugs,
Joann

ANNIVERSARY #3

Unbelievably to me, it's been three long years of living in Cancerland for me. When my journey began I didn't have even the slightest clue of what I'd be going through and the kind of things I'd experience. Today, I feel that I've seen it all and am quite the veteran cancer patient, but honestly, I believe that I'm not really that close to knowing even a fraction of the knowledge of all things lung cancer much less other kinds of cancer. Considering my chances of even still being alive today were so very slim I do have to say I'm not complaining about a thing!! Just thrilled to be here!

Recently, in the infusion waiting room ( that's the place you wait until it's your turn to get your chemo or where your loved ones have to wait for you) as I was waiting to be called back to get my chemotherapy cocktail this particular morning, I overheard a young woman sharing with a small group of us a little of her journey. Something that happened to her has really stuck with me and I feel I should be her voice today. She knew she had cancer but did not know it had begun to spread, which is called, metastasis or metastatic cancer. She began having tooth pain and was convinced that due to the treatments she had cavities that she couldn't see. She had a CT scan and it hadn't shown any knew tumors so she returned to the dentist convinced the continued pain in her mouth was cavities and she could no longer live with the discomfort. She wasn't sleeping and couldn't eat so she begged her dentist to remove 2 teeth that she felt were responsible. Unfortunately, this didn't take away the pain and she set another appointment to remove 1 or 2 more teeth; whatever it took to get rid of this unrelenting pain.

Once she told her oncologist what had happened and that she was having more teeth abstracted he sent her for a head MRI to look for another culprit and sure enough the cancer had metastasized to her jaw and was causing the pain in her mouth and not any amount of dental work was going to fix it. I was very sad for my new friend and for what she was going through. Of course her next step was some rounds of radiation along with the chemo but thankfully it took care of these tumors on her jaw.

I can say that I'm glad to be here today and thankful that my path has deviated from some of the places that fellow sojourners have been forced to travel. For me, I've been up some bumpy roads and down a few torrential drenched and gulley lined streets.  The truth is that every single illness, though some of the facts may be very similar, the story itself will vary greatly from one another.

I guess today that is the thing that I want to make crystal clear if nothing else makes sense to you.
I have heard so many people trying to make the connections between two people's particularly different journeys. There just isn't much comparison. Even if the exact same type of person, say the age, sex, type of cancer, where it is, diagnosis and even prognosis began at the same time fighting their battle as someone else with everything the same, it would never stay the same and quickly you'd have many differences that would require different decisions on treatment and or surgery and of course the outcomes would always be different.

For you, my message would be; treat everyone and what they're going through as an individual,no matter if it's cancer, their love life hurts or even finance issues. Love them where they are and listen to their heart. Most of all, pray for them, take their crisis serious because even though they may be acting strong they may actually walk away from you and cry the whole way home. (Yes, you guess it; that's me on many occasions)

Thank you for listening to me today, blessings to you! And don't forget to spread a littl love and show an extra dose of compassion to someone who doesn't have it all together..
Love ya,

Jo