Sometimes life will take a very sharp left turn. So it has happened this past month. My wife had been exhibiting some very strange, but not rare symptoms of not so serious conditions, such as indigestion, pains in the chest and in her arms, headaches and so on. The doctor thought it might be gall bladder. She had it removed. The doctor found me immediately after the surgery and said he found something unusual. Those are words you really don't want to hear. He took a biopsy but it will take a couple of weeks to get the results. (other words you don't want to hear) The results? Ovarian Cancer. (most severe words you don't want to hear)
We had him fax the results to our primary care physician, a friend for many years, to discuss the options. The surgeon had been vague even nonchalant about the treatment possibilities. Our doctor....not so much.. She walked into the exam room with tears in her eyes and sat down across from us. She said, "You know me, I don't beat around the bush" (I like that) "You have stage 4 ovarian cancer."
Now at this point, a bigger hammer would have finished us off, but as we cried with her and then prayed with her, the staggering reality that I might lose my wife, my best friend, my lover, my everything, began to crawl into my brain. We discussed treatment options, etc. and then went home and began to work on it. We now have been in the hospital for five weeks as Tina is this morning preparing to receive her second round of chemo treatment.
I'v almost lost her several times in these five weeks. Three trips to the ICU, many scares, drug reactions and on and on. But here she is, sleeping next to me, fighting this insidious disease that is attempting to take her life from this earth. As she sleeps next to me, I think of all that we have experienced together and I have forgotten anything bad that has happened between us. I have felt guilt for when I wasn't all I should have been as a husband and I have forgiven anything she might have done that hurt me. None of that matters now.
I praise God that He has shown me His light, His love, His unfailing care for both of us throughout this ordeal. I'm not angry at Him, for I know that evil does not come from the One who is love. If she is taken from me, I will still praise Him, but now I own the peace that passes all understanding and am willing to walk that path that places me in a place of giving all I possess or for which I care in order to show it. Quite unexpected.
