“The biopsy came back positive, you have cancer of the esophagus” the doctor said as I sat in the hospital bed. The words were unreal. Here is was, 34 years old, with cancer. I had never had anything wrong with me in my life and here I was with word cancer now permanently attached to my life. How did this happen? Was I going to die? Those and a million other questions started to flood my mind.
How it All Started
This whole event started several months back when while eating. While attempting to swallow I felt like the food I was chewing got stuck in my throat. I didn’t think very much of it at the time. I mean who hasn’t eaten a little too quick and had the same thing happen to them? Unfortunately as time went on this happened more frequently.
Most normal people would go to the doctor when things like this happen to them but I didn’t. The first reason for this was that I am not the type that went to the doctor unless I felt like I was dying. The second was that in some weird way I had learned to live with the little catch in my throat and could swallow most of the time without choking. The third reason was that we did not have health insurance at the time and I didn’t think it was all that serious of an issue. I remember telling my wife if I needed health insurance God would make sure I had it.
After a few months of having this issue I got a job where the health insurance would kick in after three months. Perfect I thought, I’ll just wait it out and then go to the doctor. Three weeks into the new job my stomach started bothering me as well. Uh oh I thought, maybe this is a little more serious, I thought that I might have an ulcer. I finally broke down and went to the doctor.
The Doctor’s Visit
At the doctor’s office I proceeded to explain my symptoms to the doctor until I noticed that she didn’t seem to be listening to me. “You look really pale” she said and explained that she wanted to do a quick blood test. A prick of my finger and 10 minutes later she came in and apologetically told me that I was extremely anemic and that I needed to be admitted to the hospital. How could this be I though? I had never been in the hospital in my life. It would be the first of many trips unfortunately.
About an hour later I walked into one of my local hospitals with my wife and was admitted. There they took more blood for testing and discovered that my hemoglobin’s were less then half of what they should be and ordered 4 units of blood to bring me back to where I should be. It was the first night that I had ever spent in the hospital.
The next day they performed an upper GI endoscopy to look down my throat to see why I was loosing blood. Initially they thought I had an ulcer but found a tumor instead. They took a biopsy of it to see if it was cancer. It was.
Where was God?
At this point you may be asking where was God in all of this? I mean this is a Christian blog and the idea of these posts is to share my experience with God. Well truth be told, I wasn’t that close to God when all this happened. I mean I wasn’t what some would call “backslidden” but I wasn’t spending the time with Him that I could have been. The thing is though that even though I wasn’t spending the time with him that I think I should have, looking back, I can see how he was working in the situation.
One way I saw him work was through my doctor. Something prompted her to take that extra look at me and identify the anemia. That alone was life threatening but it is also how the cancer was discovered. It is possible that if she would not taken that extra step that the cancer would not have been discovered until much later.
Another way I feel that He was there is in how everything played out. With being as anemic as I was I could have passed out somewhere in public and ended up in the emergency room. I was fortunate that I got to walk myself into the hospital as opposed to being transported there in an ambulance.
Yet another way that I feel that He was there in the first days was through His peace. Being told that you have cancer is one of the worst things that I think anyone can be told. Yet as bad as it was deep down inside I had peace and I knew God was there. I will admit that I did my fair share of crying in the hospital. I was scared. But when I called to Him he comforted me. I didn’t have all the answers or even know what was going to happen but I knew He was there with me.
I am sure that there were other ways that He intervened during those first few days of my diagnoses that I am not aware of. I guess the point is that even though I knew that I was not necessarily the “model Christian” that did not matter to Him. When I needed Him I called for Him and He was there.
The Bible says:
The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. – Psalm 34:18
and
… I will never leave you nor forsake you. – Joshua 1:5
I really feel that both of these scriptures were fulfilled in my life in those early days.
The Diagnoses – Esophageal Cancer
Previous Post in this Series: Having Cancer as a Christian
“The biopsy came back positive, you have cancer of the esophagus” the doctor said as I sat in the hospital bed. The words were unreal. Here is was, 34 years old, with cancer. I had never had anything wrong with me in my life and here I was with word cancer now permanently attached to my life. How did this happen? Was I going to die? Those and a million other questions started to flood my mind.
How it All Started
This whole event started several months back when while eating. While attempting to swallow I felt like the food I was chewing got stuck in my throat. I didn’t think very much of it at the time. I mean who hasn’t eaten a little too quick and had the same thing happen to them? Unfortunately as time went on this happened more frequently.
Most normal people would go to the doctor when things like this happen to them but I didn’t. The first reason for this was that I am not the type that went to the doctor unless I felt like I was dying. The second was that in some weird way I had learned to live with the little catch in my throat and could swallow most of the time without choking. The third reason was that we did not have health insurance at the time and I didn’t think it was all that serious of an issue. I remember telling my wife if I needed health insurance God would make sure I had it.
After a few months of having this issue I got a job where the health insurance would kick in after three months. Perfect I thought, I’ll just wait it out and then go to the doctor. Three weeks into the new job my stomach started bothering me as well. Uh oh I thought, maybe this is a little more serious, I thought that I might have an ulcer. I finally broke down and went to the doctor.
The Doctor’s Visit
At the doctor’s office I proceeded to explain my symptoms to the doctor until I noticed that she didn’t seem to be listening to me. “You look really pale” she said and explained that she wanted to do a quick blood test. A prick of my finger and 10 minutes later she came in and apologetically told me that I was extremely anemic and that I needed to be admitted to the hospital. How could this be I though? I had never been in the hospital in my life. It would be the first of many trips unfortunately.
About an hour later I walked into one of my local hospitals with my wife and was admitted. There they took more blood for testing and discovered that my hemoglobin’s were less then half of what they should be and ordered 4 units of blood to bring me back to where I should be. It was the first night that I had ever spent in the hospital.
The next day they performed an upper GI endoscopy to look down my throat to see why I was loosing blood. Initially they thought I had an ulcer but found a tumor instead. They took a biopsy of it to see if it was cancer. It was.
Where was God?
At this point you may be asking where was God in all of this? I mean this is a Christian blog and the idea of these posts is to share my experience with God. Well truth be told, I wasn’t that close to God when all this happened. I mean I wasn’t what some would call “backslidden” but I wasn’t spending the time with Him that I could have been. The thing is though that even though I wasn’t spending the time with him that I think I should have, looking back, I can see how he was working in the situation.
One way I saw him work was through my doctor. Something prompted her to take that extra look at me and identify the anemia. That alone was life threatening but it is also how the cancer was discovered. It is possible that if she would not taken that extra step that the cancer would not have been discovered until much later.
Another way I feel that He was there is in how everything played out. With being as anemic as I was I could have passed out somewhere in public and ended up in the emergency room. I was fortunate that I got to walk myself into the hospital as opposed to being transported there in an ambulance.
Yet another way that I feel that He was there in the first days was through His peace. Being told that you have cancer is one of the worst things that I think anyone can be told. Yet as bad as it was deep down inside I had peace and I knew God was there. I will admit that I did my fair share of crying in the hospital. I was scared. But when I called to Him he comforted me. I didn’t have all the answers or even know what was going to happen but I knew He was there with me.
I am sure that there were other ways that He intervened during those first few days of my diagnoses that I am not aware of. I guess the point is that even though I knew that I was not necessarily the “model Christian” that did not matter to Him. When I needed Him I called for Him and He was there.
The Bible says:
and
I really feel that both of these scriptures were fulfilled in my life in those early days.
Next Post in this Series: Another Battle – No Health Insurance