Through the Fire...

Following my initial biopsy results, things began to move rather quickly.  I had to schedule what seemed like numerous tests and doctor’s appointments. Since hearing my diagnosis, everything in life seemed so surreal. I would often wake up at night, with a sense of relief thinking, “Oh, it was just a dream”, and then realizing it was not. It was like being in a continual state of shock.  You continue to function in all your unusual activities of life, but it’s like you’re not really there. I look back at a picture with my son at one of his football games last year, and think, “that was two days after I found out I had breast cancer”, but I wouldn’t have missed it for anything. I went to a cross-country meet the day after my biopsy. Yes, it’s a bad time, but you continue on in life, even with all the uncertainty, and especially for my boys.

After the biopsy, then came the breast MRI. I’m not usually claustrophobic, but when they offered the Ativan, I thought, “what the heck, I could use a little relaxation at this point”.  Again, I was a nurse, but in this situation, only a patient. It was a unique experience to say the least, but I soon fell asleep in the giant tube accompanied by what sounded like the continual banging of a loud hammer.  It came to a stop, I woke up again, thinking this was all a bad dream, but soon realized I was lying on a table alone, scared, and overwhelmed with the fear of the unknown.

I began to pray for God to give me an understanding of what I was to learn from this situation. I asked for continual peace until I had all the results back and knew what I was facing. I would have to return to the surgeon’s office the following day for the MRI results… more of the unknown. On the way to her office, I told God, “Okay, I have cancer, but my prayer is that is it a favorable type of breast cancer”.  Being an oncology nurse, I knew there were various prognostic factors that all add together to really give the whole picture of exactly what type of breast cancer one could have. Based on all these different factors, there are favorable types and non-favorable types. I prayed specifically that it would not be an aggressive form of cancer, that it be contained to the breast only, and that there be no lymph node involvement.

My report was very good. It looked to be a very small area contained within the breast with no lymph node involvement.  The surgeon described my breasts on the MRI as very “busy”.  I actually found humor in that thinking that was fitting of my personality. Feeling very good about things overall, she then added, “Of course, we won’t know for sure the outcome until the surgery”.  She just had to add that in, didn’t she? 

I left her office that day feeling the presence of God so strongly, that I knew in my heart, everything was going to be okay. I asked God to keep me in His hands and comfort me. That day, I reflected on a Bible study by Beth Moore on the book of Daniel I had done a few months ago.  Like Daniel, in trials we encounter, we can be delivered from the fire; the result, our faith is built. We can also be delivered through the fire; the result, our faith is refined. It has to be proved genuine.  I prayed, “God, deliver me though this fire”.

Only God would have known a few months ago when I went to the church library on a day off to find a Bible study I could do at home, that these verses would come back to me at a time when I needed them most.  I know God designed this. These words would become the basis of my prayer. Over the next several weeks, I would ask for “deliverance through the fire”, and I would not be disappointed. He remained faithful to His word.