Poems, Personal Stories, and Observations

Posts tagged ‘cancer’

The Selfish Cells (2)

The lumpectomy surgery was successful!

The one lymph node they removed was cancer-free, halleluia!  But, they did find some cancer on one of the margins, so I’ll have another shorter surgery, scheduled for 11/30/2018, to remove those cells.

Radiation will perhaps start in early January.

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The Selfish Cells

Well, once again, cancer has visited me.  (See: The Kidney Stone Miracle .)

A routine mammogram in September eventually led to a breast biopsy on  October 1st, and I learned on October 4th that it was cancerous.  The good news is is that it was small (Stage 1), and Grade 1 (usually slow growing).  (Ladies, please get yourself checked regularly!)

Surgery (lumpectomy) was today, October 23rd, 2018.  They took out one lymph node, also.  So, I will keep you posted on how things go.  I’ll have radiation for sure.

Just recently, I came across an excerpt from Ann Voskamp’s book, The Broken Way: A Daring Path Into the Abundant Life.  She is sitting in the waiting room of a doctor’s office.  Another woman is there, talking about her “cancer checkup”.

The woman says, ” ‘You know what? … Dr. Reid says … that in our human bodies, the cells that only benefit themselves are known as cancer.’ ”  Ann goes on to write, “How had I never known that cancer is the cells that only take for themselves?  Cancer is what refuses to die to self.”

 

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First Anniversary

Today is the 1st anniversary of what I call my “Kidney Stone Miracle”. Because of going to emergency for kidney stone pain, the doctors also discovered a cancerous tumor in the other (left) kidney. A month later, they removed it and I’m doing well today. Thank you, God, for another year of life!

The surgeon later told me that “You shouldn’t have had that much trouble passing that stone; it wasn’t that big.” But because of the pain, they found the cancer, so thank God.

Often our suffering can have a good result. We don’t always see the result, but in trusting God it can bear good fruit.

You can read the original story here:
https://clarakatalin.wordpress.com/2014/03/11/the-kidney-stone-miracle/

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The Gift of Guilt

I once was amazed by a statement in a book by Peter Kreeft (can’t recall which book) that “The Jews gave us the gift of guilt.” In current times, most of us avoid the idea of guilt and find it very negative. To think of guilt as “a gift” was thought-provoking.

Here’s my take on it, but I am not an expert:
1) Guilt is a gift when I have broken one of God’s laws. This might be thought of as the Ten Commandments, or the “two greatest commandments”: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind,” and “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Have I done evil, or have I failed to do the good I had the means to do?
2) It is a gift if I allow the guilt to bring me to repentance.
3) It is a gift if after repenting, I freely accept forgiveness.

Guilt can be a gift like a cancer diagnosis. You did not perhaps know you had cancer until the doctor informed you. Now that you are informed, things can be done to destroy or remove the cancer. The guilt is the impetus, like the awareness following the diagnosis, to take action.

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