On the Path – Cheryl’s personal battle
Cheryl’s cancer battle
This is an update to my transitions post. On August 6th, 2013 I was scheduled for surgery to remove cancer. The surgery did not happen. At the time that the surgeon came to see me before I was wheeled into the operating room, he rechecked the site, and he was concerned that cancer might have spread to the skin which made surgery a risk. He consulted with a cancer specialist at a nearby Cancer hospital, and he was advised that the treatment plan should be reversed and after taking a biopsy of the skin lumps, I should have chemotherapy as a first line of attack against the cancer. We prayed for wisdom for the surgeon, and so we must believe that God is involved in the process. The disappointment was that I had waited three weeks to get into surgery and there would be another wait to find an available doctor who could administer chemo. I like in a small community with only one cancer doctor, and the oncologists at the nearby cancer clinic are all booked up with new patients waiting three weeks to get into the system.
Yesterday my family doctor came to the rescue, and he got the ball rolling by pulling some strings on my behalf. I will enter the “path” of cancer treatment today with a specially arranged appointment at the hospital with the cancer doctor’s assistant. He will begin the work to stage this cancer to see how far it has gone and complete all of my tests and blood work up to date so that the day the cancer doctor comes back from vacation I can be bumped directly into the chemotherapy program without a wait to be processed.
Bumps along the path
I am experiencing leg pain, and I have a concern that the cancer has already spread to the bone. Or it could just be my sciatic nerve acting up. I am also experiencing tiredness, but this is likely from the new cancer-fighting tea that I was recommended by a friend. The tiredness may just be the way my body is fighting the intruder who has invaded my body. For those who have subscribed to my blog and are following my progress, could you please pray that this aggressive cancer is held back from spread until I can get treatment to shrink and destroy this cancer? Please also pray for strength as I have much ministry work to do, and I would like to carry on unhindered.
Update from August 24, 2013
On Friday I was rushed to emergency with abdominal pain and my body had gone into shock with very low blood pressure, a low heart rate, and I was as white as a sheet as I struggled to keep from passing out. The tests showed very high lipase in my blood, ten times the normal high rate. The doctor is not exactly sure what went wrong. It could be my pancreas, but the thought is that it was a withdrawal from the steroids that I was given during the time of my chemo treatment and the days afterward. My prayer request is that God will help the doctor to find out how to manage my drugs so that I do not have a reaction like that again. It was a very scary experience.
Last update
I developed a blog for my personal health and spiritual journey so that this blog will stay focused on my writing on John 6. You can find my new personal journey blog called On the Path here.
5 thoughts on “On the Path – Cheryl’s personal battle”
Thank you for the updates. Sin, sickness, Satan, death, hell, etc. are enemies, but Jesus is mighty to save, heal, sustain, deliver (Rev. 1:17-18). You are wise to look to God and others in addition to the collective wisdom of the best of modern medicine. May the joy of the Lord be your strength and His perfect love cast out fear. With Job, we announce that we will still serve the King of kings/Lord of lords even if He slay us (which he does not…Ancient Near East idea). With Daniel, we know He can deliver us from the impossibility of a fiery furnace or lion’s den, but even if He does not (He is sovereign and there is complexity in all this in a fallen world that is not the eschaton yet), we will still love, trust, obey, serve Him to the end and forever (win-win no matter what). We do not rely on the arm of the flesh, but the might of the Spirit. Even so, come Lord Jesus, to the Schatz’s now…more peace, more power, more love, more faith, more hope….in the mighty name of Jesus, name above all names, YHWH in the flesh, Immanuel, God with us!
Thank you godrulz37 for your uplifting comments! You are so right, in that when we are Christians it is a win/win situation. Like Paul my desire is to be with Christ because He is my Lord, but what Imstill have to offer makes me want to go through whatever I have to, to live and keep ministering.
I just got a phone call from my doctor. I had a CT scan and a bone scan today, or commonly known to me as the doggy bone and cat scan 😉 There is NO obvious sign of cancer that has spread in either one of the tests!
He did say that he saw an abnormality in the shoulder and wants to have a shoulder xray tomorrow, but because of the very good report, I will be going ahead with the aggressive chemo to kill the cancer, then surgery, and hopefully a clean bill of health!!
Thank you all those who have been praying for me, and keep praying while I go through the chemo process. I will keep you updated.
Most excellent….
On Friday I was rushed to emergency with abdominal pain and my body had gone into shock with very low blood pressure, a low heart rate, and I was as white as a sheet as I struggled to keep from passing out. The tests showed very high lipase in my blood, 10 times the normal high rate. The doctor is not exactly sure what went wrong. It could be my pancreas but the thought is that it was a withdrawal from the steroids that I was given during the time of my chemo treatment and the days afterward. My prayer request is that God will help the doctor to find out how to manage my drugs so that I do not have a reaction like that again. It was a very scary experience.
I am also going to add this to my post above as part of my “path”.