The Burden of Cancer Is Gone

The day before yesterday was a tough day. I reported to receive total body irradiation. It was nothing. I lay on one side for five minutes. And then on the other side for five. I asked them to put a Christian station on, so I lay there listening to the songs and "thinking about something else" (as they suggested I should.)

As I did, I could think of nothing except what the songs were singing. God's glory and our need to worship him.

When I left I rang a bell in the hall that signaled to everyone that this was my last radiation treatment. Of course, it was also my first. The people in the waiting room applauded me warmly. Then I walked out with Kirk.

Within minutes, I was feeling very sick. A weariness unlike anything I'd ever experienced before came over my body. I was so tired I could hardly speak. Then the nausea. It hit me unexpectedly. I barely made it to the restroom to throw up. Lisa and Kirk were having lunch in the park. They bought me some soup, which I took one look at and ran to throw up again.

I finally decided to get as fast as I could to Apheresis, where I had some hope that they could give e some relief. They did.

By the time I started receiving Lisa's stem cells, I was aching all over (more effects of the radiation.) The nurse I had was Joe and he tried various things to help, but it was pretty much agony until I was able to get home and take a Darvon.

Since the day I took radiation, I feel I've improved considerably. The main and most miraculous difference is that I now wake up every morning free of that terrible cancer burden I had started to feel after the auto transplant. I wake up and no matter how nauseated or headachy, I feel a wonderful sense of God's glory. I am at peace and this is what God promised I would have when I spoke to the Reids. I just didn't expect that the main part of my peace would come AFTER receiving the transplant.

But it is a difference that is so good and pure it never dissipates as I go through my morning routine. Making a cup of hot tea, reading e-mails, and talking to Kirk, if he's not already busy with a call. I feel for the first time that the cancer is gone.

I know God has healed me. I liken it to knowing that Kirk was the man I wanted to marry. I just knew that he was the perfect one for me. And it certainly has turned out that way. We've been married now 8 years. Much of those years I know were good because of Kirk's unfailing kindness and love toward me. I am so blessed.