Voices: My journey with breast cancer and God

EDITOR’S NOTE: The following story contains medical descriptions that may be unpleasant or difficult for some readers.

The doctors said the breast lesion was very small and caught early, but surgery lasted three hours instead of the anticipated one. There was lymphatic involvement. I awaken and am surprised still to be alive.

“Good luck. Welcome to your new normal,” they say, as my husband Joe wheels me to the car.

I feel no old normal, no hope for this “new normal.” The world outside the hospital looks the same, and I feel a drain under my arm. My underarm feels very fat, swollen, yet numb. I feel nauseous.

At home, I cannot look at the surgical drain as Joe empties it, measuring the fluid. I can barely stand up. He gives me a bath and pulls me out of the tub. Am I his baby now?

I try to cook us food but cannot stand long. So, we get takeout, and I eat very little. A sweet potato, oddly, was good. Water is good, too.

*******

I turn to God and to my faith, all the while taking medicine and lying on the bed, calculating my chances of survival and imagining my funeral.

Do I hear God speaking to me? Or what is that rushing in my ears like a washing machine?

In time, I am full of steroids and three kinds of chemo.

*******

People bring us food, and I barely remember what happened. I know we moved our big bed to the living room because of a bathroom leak. Life goes on; leaks happen even while I am so sick.

People from church help us. Even if I am confused about spirituality, God works through his people and lets me see it.

*******

I thought about angels and looked up some of their names. Raphael was one. When having radiation, I pictured four angels, one at each corner of my table. I heard their wings and felt cool air surround me. Maybe it was the radiation machine blowing, but I know God was with me.

I was in a passage. It was something I had to claw my way through to get to the other side, to my future.

“Stand in my love. It is warm,” God said. “Float. I am carrying you.”

Fear offered itself and still does, but I had to reject that.

*******

I go through baldness and feel ugly, like everything on my face is too big and bizarre without hair. I feel dried out, like chemo cooked my insides. I feel changed hormonally, and I drop a lot of things with numb hands and feet.

How can my husband still love me? I am an embarrassment. I’m not a pretty woman. I am 65 and old.

*******

I learn to give to God every odd symptom. I keep doctors’ appointments and do my tests. I pray through worrisome moments that often come as I try to sleep. What an absolute, constant lifeline is prayer.

So much about cancer involves lifelines and connection. Spiritually and emotionally, we connect to God, doctors and helpers. We connect to chemo through the IV. Deadly radiation connects to new cells in waves.

I connect to my husband as he steadies my arm and helps me climb stairs. I connect to the Spirit as he helps me fall asleep. Eventually, we are connecting to friends again at church.

Cancer tries to rob us of what is necessary for life, but connection restores. It is a life force Satan cannot snuff out; he cannot touch our love and faith. He cannot touch heaven, and we are connected to heaven in Jesus.

When we begin to grasp deeply what heaven is and even long for it, the hardest work we do on Earth is done.

*******

Going back to work, though hard to walk a long way, keeps my mind off the cancer. Fortunately, my principal takes me off hall duty for fear I will be knocked down. I have lost at least 20 pounds.

*******

That was almost three years ago.

Today, I know with deep conviction Jesus is my hope, my anchor. He is the healer. My surgeon told me medicine does what it can, God heals as he will. Doctors bow their knees to him.

As for us mortals, we take one day at a time, one treatment at a time. We shore up our strength and hold on to the strength of loved ones. We pray and hold to our hearts as gold the prayer of others. As we go through it, we still can reach out to other people and share God’s love.

*******

Suffering makes us missionaries.

I have a testimony, and what a humbling one it is. I truly can say, “When I am weak, even broken, my God is so very strong.”

God will not give me over to sin, to illness, to death. He will lift me on the wings of eagles, one way or the other.

God is a redeeming God. He has redeemed me again to praise him, and to comfort and encourage others on this journey.

He will raise me on the last day. Knowing this, what can my life be but praise?

Ruth Cook is an educator assistant for an English-as-a-Second-Language class and is a longtime Texas Baptist. The views expressed are those solely of the author.