25 YEARS AND COUNTING

May, 1987, one month before diagnosis

On June 29 each year I celebrate a very important anniversary. A milestone.

This year will mark the TWENTY-FIFTH one since that life-changing event. So, happy anniversary to me....a/k/a Honey....Mom....Nana....."MomP".  My family celebrates right along with me.

In the spring of 1987, a pea-sized lump developed above my left breast--which I didn't detect--but apparently had spread to the rapidly growing, walnut-sized lymph node under my left arm--which I would have had to be dead not to detect! When a biopsy was performed on that one node, and the results were returned, I was told by the surgeon who performed the biopsy that I had medullary carcinoma, a type of cancer rarely seen in someone so young (I was 35), and, furthermore, was considered an "angry cancer" that would double in size every 30 days! It had already spread to one lymph node for certain. He recommended major surgery to try to "get" all that cancer and see if it had spread further.

Well, we didn't have a surgeon, had never needed one. We had just called the hospital and scheduled that biopsy with a surgeon who had been recommended by my OB/GYN. So we started prayerfully looking for "our surgeon." My husband was pretty thorough in his research, in fact, and was looking everywhere from New York to California, and calling national medical organizations to ask what certain credentials meant. Wouldn't you know it? One that came very highly recommended was living right here in our own little city!

With my reports now in his hand, my new-found surgeon recommended a modified radical mastectomy, which means removing the whole breast as well as all the lymph nodes in that area--breast, chest, and left underarm. And I was all right with that. I knew that, yes, I would miss the parts they removed, but I knew what I would miss a lot more was living to grow old with my sweetheart and seeing my daughter (then 14 years old) grow up if he had opted for a "less intrusive" type of treatment.

Now, my surgeon, we had learned through the grapevine, was a Christian man who believed that even though he had gone to years of school to be highly trained as a physician and surgeon, there was a higher Physician that could outrank him, any time, on any prognosis or procedure, in which He chose to step in on the case. We knew this surgeon would give us straight answers, seasoned with hope. And faith. And that meant that he would acknowledge that his word is not always the last word in some of his cases.

The surgery day arrived, a month out from my biopsy, and my surgeon held my husband's and my hands and prayed over me before the anesthesiologist came in and did his thing. He told me that he would personally bring me the results of the lab work which he would order on all the tissue and nodes he would be removing. Two days after my surgery (this was in the days before drive-by cancer surgeries where you are sent home as soon as you can stand up), my surgeon walked into my room, sat down in the bedside chair, and I could tell by the moistness on his cheeks (from tears) and the glow on his face that the other Physician had indeed decided to take my case. The kindly doctor told me that in all the breast tissue and 17 lymph nodes that had been removed and biopsied, zero trace of cancer showed up. Then he broke down and cried without shame. He kept saying "It wasn't me. It wasn't me." We knew that, but it was so refreshing, and so uplifting to hear a doctor admit that.

Here I sit 25 years later, still in awe and amazement at the power and love a Savior who is also a Healer. My heart is full thinking of my beautiful daughter whom I did indeed get to see grow up, go to school, marry, and eventually have a beautiful little girl who is now the light of my life--just like her Mommy always has been. Of course, there are a lot of other "little" things that happened along this journey that confirmed even more that I had The Great Physician on my case. But the fact that I am here at all is all the confirmation I need that no matter what "bad news" or gloomy prognosis we are handed, there is One who delights in proving those reports wrong!

Oh....and my little surgeon of faith? He retired from practice here, and in his sixties, went off to school again. This time to seminary to study to become a missionary. I wonder if he ever shared my story with those to whom he ministered?

I am going to share more about this journey.

Later.

Right now, I have a celebration cake to plan.