Category: attitude

Jun 07

Yes, there IS life after cancer!

 

 

 

 

This past Sunday was National Cancer Survivor’s Day— a holiday to celebrate survivors and remind them and their caregivers that there really is life after a cancer diagnosis.

So when do you know that you or your loved one is a cancer survivor? When the scan comes back clear? When the tumor marker is normal? When the treatment is finished? When there’s no evidence of any cancer?

I was diagnosed June 26, 1990, with Stage 3 colon cancer. I still am cancer-free and count myself as a very blessed survivor. But even if the cancer had returned, I would still count myself as a survivor because I agree with the National Coalition for Cancer Survivorship when it labels cancer patients as survivors “from the moment of diagnosis and for the balance of life.”

I didn’t always think that way.

I used to think that you if you lived five years cancer-free after a diagnosis you were a cured cancer survivor.

I remember going in for my five-year oncology checkup in the summer of 1995 (before I started working in Marc’s office) and gleefully announcing to Marc that I wouldn’t be seeing him professionally anymore. (I’m not quite sure how I got that notion, but I hear many others say the same kind of thing. We’ve probably made that association because statisticians often give data on five-year survival rates for different types of cancer.)

“Where did you get that idea?” Marc responded.

It’s five years; I’m cured!” I told him; surprised that he didn’t realize it was such a momentous day.

“Well, the chance the cancer will return has diminished greatly, but you still need to be checked for the rest of your life,” Marc soberly explained.

Talk about bursting someone’s bubble!

I waited five years to be proclaimed a survivor and there was going to be no such official announcement.

Thankfully, a short time after that day I read the above-mentioned survivorship definition from the National Coalition for Cancer Survivorship and proclaimed myself a survivor.

So I hope you’re not waiting for some mythical five-year mark to earn the label of cancer survivor. Anyone who has survived even one minute since diagnosis already is a survivor! Believe it!

Before I retired in 2015, I loved watching and listening to those survivors in my support group who had medically incurable cancer, but still found much happiness. Because of their circumstances others might say these folks have the right to be fairly fearful. But these “incurable” survivors have come to realize—as have those of us who are cured—that we don’t need the right circumstances to be happy, but we do need to believe the right things about our circumstances to be happy.

It’s important what you believe about yourself and your loved ones. When I finished treatment for my cancer, the odds the cancer would come back were greater than the odds it wouldn’t. That doesn’t sound like a situation that would make a person very happy. But what I believed about my circumstances did give me joy.

I believed the truth that I was already a cancer survivor.

For as he thinks within himself, so he is. Proverbs 23:17

And I believed the truth that nothing, including cancer and its treatment, can diminish God’s great love for me.

And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today or our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. Romans 8:38

I also believed the truth that God didn’t need good odds to heal me, that there are people everywhere surviving despite their odds.

For nothing is impossible with God. Luke 1:37

You and your loved ones have survived a cancer diagnosis. God obviously has plans for your life or you wouldn’t still be here. Ask Him to shine His light on your path and then don’t be afraid to follow where He leads.

Will you pray from Psalm 119 with me? Your word is a lamp for my feet and a light for my path. I’ve promised it once, and I’ll promise it again: I will obey your wonderful laws. I have suffered much, o LORD, restore my life again as you promised. Amen.

If the music video below doesn’t automatically load, please copy, paste and click on this link to enjoy  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewD9aRxnzec )

 

May 03

“Some days you’re the pigeon & some days you’re the statue!”

 

 

 

 

I appreciate that many of you have told me you really like the quotes I used as introductions to each chapter in my new book Peace in the Face of Cancer. I spent many, many hours researching fitting quotes and trying to find firsthand sources to confirm their attributions. But there were many more quotes which didn’t make it past the “cutting room floor.” The above title quote from an unknown source is one of the ones I really liked, but didn’t end up using 🙂

So I thought I would share some of these quotes as encouraging today words to the weary. I hope at least one or two lifts your spirits, builds your faith or causes you to ponder your relationship with God. (FYI I’ve verified them to some extent, but not with as much scrutiny as I would if I were putting them in a book!)

“Don’t pursue trials, but don’t flee from them in a panic either.”—Chris Tiegreen, One Year Walk with God Devotional

“The absence of fear is not courage; the absence of fear is some kind of brain damage.”—M. Scott Peck, Further Along the Road Less Traveled

“We must build dikes of courage to hold back the flood of fear.” Martin Luther King Jr. in his sermon “Antidotes to Fear”

“Worry is a cycle of inefficient thoughts whirling around a center of fear.”—Corrie ten Boom, Dutch Christian holocust survivor

“Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal.”—Martin Luther King Jr., “I Have a Dream” speech

“All their life in this world and all their adventures had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read, which goes on forever, in which every chapter is better than the one before.” ― C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle

“Thou hast made us for thyself, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in thee.”—St. Augustine, Confessions

“God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing.”—C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

“Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God.”—Corrie ten Boom

“Don’t waste your cancer.”—John Piper, pastor, written on the eve of his prostate cancer surgery

“If God be our God, He will give us peace in trouble. When there is a storm without, He will make peace within. The world can create trouble in peace, but God can create peace in trouble.”—Thomas Watson, Puritan noncomformist teacher and author

“If I could hear Christ praying for me in the next room, I would not fear a million enemies. Yet distance makes no difference. He is praying for me.”—Robert Murray McCheyne, pastor, Church of Scotland, died at age 30

“It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.”—C.S. Lewis

“The real problem is not why some pious, humble, believing people suffer, but why some do not.” C.S. Lewis

“(God) doesn’t say, ‘Into each life a little rain must fall,’ then aim a hose in earth’s general direction and see who gets the wettest. He doesn’t reach for a key, wind up nature with its sunny days and hurricanes, then sit back and watch the show. He doesn’t let Satan prowl about totally unrestricted. He doesn’t believe in a hands-off policy of governing. He’s not our planet’s absent landlord. Rather, He screens the trials that come to each of us—allowing only those that accomplish His good plan, because He takes no joy in human agony.”—Steve Estes, When God Weeps

“Has this world been so kind to you that you should leave with regret? There are better things ahead than we leave behind.”—C.S. Lewis

Missionary Jim Elliot prior to his martyrdom at age 28 by the Waodani tribe, whom he had befriended and attempted to share the gospel: “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.”

Amen.

I hope you will enjoy today’s song with actual video footage from the life of Jim Elliot, one of five missionaries murdered in 1956. His widow Elisabeth went back to the village and shared Christ with the Waodani–many of whom became Christ-followers. You can read this marvelous redemption and forgiveness story in her book “Through Gates of Splendor.” (The video also shows some of  Olympian runner Eric Liddell–“Chariots of Fire”–who refused to run on Sunday. )

(If the music video below doesn’t automatically load, please copy and paste this link to enjoy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fkeXbti90Y )

Apr 12

An Amazing Story of Beating the Odds

 

 

 

 

 

Are you praying for yourself or someone you love to be cured? Are the odds stacked against that prayer? Or have doctors even told you not to expect it to happen?

I have an amazing story for you today about a man who was given no chance for survival, but is still beating the odds.

When my friend Jim was diagnosed with a glioblastoma multiforme (translation—the deadliest brain cancer) in July 2006 at the age of 59, no one gave him much hope. The golf-ball sized tumor affected his left side and he had to learn to walk and talk again after surgery. When the tumor recurred just four months later, no one gave him any hope at all.

But Jim, a Vietnam veteran with two Purple Hearts was desperate to live as he was caring for his wife Jean, who had advanced cancer. When I saw him in our office, he told me the doctors at Hershey Medical Center thought he might have only three months to live. I suggested he “try to defy the verdict” and set some goals for himself.

“What would you like to be alive to see?” I asked him, thinking he’d choose something happening in the next few months.

“I want to see my son Travis graduate from college,” he quickly replied.

“OK,” I said. “What year is he now?”

“A freshman.”

Uh, oh. I suggested that perhaps Jim should pick a closer goal so we could celebrate sooner (while thinking there is NO way this patient is going to be alive in four years!)  So, we decided on his daughter Abby’s wedding in six months. Realistically, there was no reason to expect Jim to live even that short time, but it was a good goal and I told the radiation tech next door that Jim wanted to walk his daughter down the aisle in the spring.

“I don’t think there’s much chance of that after looking at his tumor,” the tech honestly replied.

Jim got radiation and oral chemo, but the mass persisted. Every time I saw him over the next few months, we talked about the impending wedding and prayed for Jim to be there—even if his hair wouldn’t. On May 12, 2007, the prayer was answered and Jim brought me the wedding photos to prove it!

Then a couple months later, he went on a clinical trial drug because there was no other treatment available and set a new goal of holding his son Ryan’s first child due in October. Both Jim and Jean got to hold that little grandson, and an MRI in January showed Jim’s tumor had decreased slightly. But the joy was short-lived as Jean passed away in August 2008. Our clinical staff bemoaned the fact Jean’s four children undoubtedly would be burying both parents in a short span of time. But Jim continued to defy the verdict. He set another goal of seeing Abby’s first child born (she wasn’t even pregnant yet!)

Bi-monthly MRIs continued to show Jim’s tumor shrinking and in May 2009, he joyfully announced that Abby’s little daughter, Lillian Jean had arrived. Then an unexpected joy came: the next month’s MRI showed the tumor was gone! That fall Travis entered his senior year of college and Jim set his sights on seeing that graduation.

In May 2010, despite all odds, Jim was there to watch his youngest son awarded his college diploma.

But then he faced a new problem.

“What’s my goal going to be now?” Jim asked me afterward.

“I guess you need to see Travis get married and have some kids,” I volunteered.

“Sounds good,” he replied.

And Travis did.

And Jim was there.

As I write it’s been almost 11 years since his diagnosis and Jim remains in an unexplained complete remission. I’ve honestly lost track of how many grandkids he has now and I’m thinking we may need to set a goal of him seeing his great-grandchildren!

When Jim was first diagnosed with a brain tumor, he was angry, disappointed and frustrated, especially over the fact he was told he had such a short time to live. What gave him hope, he said, was hearing about others who had survived brain tumors or had lived much longer than doctors expected.

“I thought if they can do it, why can’t I?” he recalls. “I was most thankful for people encouraging me and telling me there was still hope. And without my faith in God, I don’t think I would be here now.”

 

I can’t promise God will answer your prayers exactly as he did for Jim, but I can promise that He hears the longings of your heart and wants to show you His great love today. He may do the impossible in your or your loved’s one’s situation or He may do the impossible in your hearts about the situation. And as you face an uncertain future, whatever your goals are, “let love be your highest goal” (1 Corinthians 14:1 NLT) and believe that “the impossible is possible with God.” (Luke 1:37 The Voice)

 

(If the music video below doesn’t automatically load, please copy and paste this link to enjoy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKjcyiXAMSs )

 

Apr 05

A Behind-the-Scenes Look at My Not-So-Peaceful Life

 

 

 

 

 

My new book Peace in the Face of Cancer officially released yesterday and I thought I’d share a little behind-the-scenes look at my life—just in case you have any misconception I have it all together!

Last week I had three online podcast interviews.  The first two were on Skype, which I didn’t even know existed the last time I had a book published. As grateful as I am for the opportunities to talk about the book, I’ve concluded I do not like Skype interviews.  Why? Because people can see me!

I have to be dressed in something besides a baggy sweatshirt (although I did leave on sweat pants). I have to do something with my hair and my make-up and I can’t have a bunch of “cheat” sheets helping me answer questions about what I wrote in my book more than a year ago and don’t really remember anymore!

But by the time I got to the second Skype interview, I knew the drill. I moved my big black chair out of my office because I looked too businesslike seated in it. I shoved all my tax papers on the card table behind me out of the camera view. I fixed the lighting and the blinds just right. I spent about 35-40 minutes making sure both the room and I looked presentable before I made the evening call to the show’s producer.

“Uh, could you turn off your video,” was the first thing she said to me.  “It’s only an audio interview.”

Sure, no problem–at least I’ll look good for my husband when we sit in our La-Z-Boys afterward!

I verified the third interview definitely included video and even “practiced” a call with that producer the day before. However, when it came time for the real thing, she said I looked really “grainy” and laughingly admonished her viewers not to complain about the poor quality from my VERY OLD lap top!  (For the records, the graininess helps hide wrinkles.)

 

Anyway, those were the best part of my week. The worst part was that my entire normal “support team” was either knocked out of commission or otherwise occupied:

  • My youngest daughter’s 2-year-old had the flu, her 6-month-old had a double ear infection and her husband and 4-year-old were recovering from the flu.
  • My middle daughter was tending to her 2- and 4-year-olds, both with the flu, following her own (and her 6-year-old’s) bouts with it.
  • One of my oldest daughter’s best friends was struck by a car while jogging and in trauma care fighting for her life (still is!).
  • My prayer partner of many years was recovering from the flu and couldn’t get off the couch or even talk on the phone without hacking away.
  • My closest friend from church was on vacation in another country.
  • My other good church friend was supposed to be home from vacation but totaled her car.
  • While working on my 2016 taxes—much too late this year—I discovered a clerical error made with our tax bills resulting in several thousand dollars of unpaid taxes, penalty fees galore, and a possible lien being put on our home
  • And did I mention that my poor, weary husband still had trouble with his three-month-old knee replacement and could not walk or drive more than short distances without a great deal of pain?

 

Guess who wasn’t feeling much peace? That’s right, the one who’s read every single verse about peace in several different Bible translations and wrote a whole book about how to seek and find peace. As I stressed over deadlines for taxes, FB book launch posts, blogs, magazine articles, speaking engagement preparations, and concern for so many loved ones dealing with such difficult circumstances, peace vanished.

I tried to put into practice what I “preached” in my book and I made efforts to be “good” to myself. I got a massage. I went for walks.  I sat in my hot tub. I ate big bowls of popcorn. I drank a root beer float with the popcorn. But I still wasn’t feeling it.

I prayed. I read my Bible. I listed to Jordan Smith sing “Great is Thy Faithfulness” on my iPhone. But even The Voice Season 9 winner couldn’t deliver my elusive peace.

So I texted my friend Gigi who lives out West, told her I was really stressed and asked her to call me that weekend. We’ve been friends for nearly 39 years and she always can make me laugh.

Within moments my phone beeped (while I was on it talking to the tax debt collector!). I called Gigi back as soon as I finished with the Tax-Man.

“You must be really desperate to want me to call,” she said with a laugh.

“I am!” I responded as the tears welled up.

And then I dumped it all on my dear friend. Everything I wrote about here with much more detail and many more tears. I just unloaded it all into her ears.

 

I’m not going to share exactly how she responded, other than to tell you that she calmly and prayerfully led me into the presence of Jesus so that I could feel His love for me and He could take the burdens I was never meant to carry.

In those few moments absolutely nothing changed in my circumstances and yet everything changed inside me. I trusted that God could do the impossible… and I found peace.

It happened because I put into practice something else I wrote in the new book:  “it will take trust on our part because there are amazing things that only God can do for us and in us.”

So go ahead and come to the end of yourself. When you do, He’ll supernaturally be there with His peace that doesn’t even make sense. He has done it for me time and again and He can and will do it for you, my friend.  And if you need help with your peace-seeking, do as I did, and call a trusted friend with listening ears and a warm Jesus-filled heart. You’ll be glad you did.

 

You will keep in perfect peace all who trust in you,

                All whose thoughts are fixed on you!  Isaiah 26:3 NLT

P.S.  Gigi did eventually make me laugh when she later texted: “I’ll trade you a guy who walks and drives and talks to himself aloud (and a lot) for a quiet guy who doesn’t drive or walk.” (I told you we were really good friends and yes,  I’m still considering the offer. 🙂

(If the music video below doesn’t automatically load, please copy and paste this link to enjoy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttEgZLg-2-Y

 

 

Mar 22

A Sneak Peek at My First Chapter!

 

 

 

 

 

My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive;

and to do it with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style.

MAYA ANGELOU

 

I remember going in for my five-year cancer checkup and gleefully announcing to my oncologist, Dr. Marc Hirsh, that I wouldn’t be seeing him professionally anymore.

“Where did you get that idea?” he responded.

“It’s five years; I’m cured!” I told him, surprised he was unaware of such a momentous occasion.

“Well, the chance the cancer will return has diminished greatly, but you still need to be checked for the rest of your life,” Marc replied.

I felt as if my winning lottery ticket had been declared a forgery. After five whole years of waiting to be proclaimed cured, there was going to be no such official announcement.

Of course, back then I thought there were only two alternatives regarding cancer: sick or cured.

Thankfully, I learned there’s a crucial third distinction: survivor. The National Cancer Institute says that’s what we become “from the time of diagnosis until the end of life.” So survivors include folks who have just found out they have cancer, people who used to have cancer, and those who can expect always to have it. I’m pretty sure that includes everybody who has ever heard those three dreaded words: “You have cancer.”

As I write, there are an estimated 14.5 million people in the United States with a history of cancer, and about the same number of new diagnoses is expected worldwide this year.

That’s an incredible total of survivors, but I wonder how many fit only the first dictionary definition of survive: “to remain alive or in existence”? And how many also portray the second meaning: “to continue to function or prosper”?

Functioning and prospering sound a great deal better to me than simply being alive and existing. If you agree and want to see how you or your survivor loved one also can be a “thriver,” keep reading!

I think bestselling author and poet Maya Angelou’s mission statement is a perfect one to apply to our post-diagnosis lives. I’ve been living as a survivor since 1990, when I was diagnosed with colon cancer at the age of thirty-six. My girls were eight, ten, and twelve at the time, and now I’m a grandmother to six. In the ensuing years, my mission, like Ms. Angelou’s, has been not only to survive, but to thrive, and I’ve dedicated my life to helping cancer patients and their caregivers do the same.

 

Some of the people you will meet in this book are in treatment or have finished treatment with the hope that their cancer will be cured and never come back. Many (like me) were told there was a high chance the cancer would reappear, but guess what? No one on this earth really knows. (I’m still here, cancer- free, defying the 40-percent survival rate given me.) Still others you will encounter here have been told the cancer is “treatable, not curable” or will never go away. Despite that grim prognosis, some of those folks are in remission, and a few even have no signs of cancer!

And all of these survivors and their caregivers are peace seekers.

They are people like you who want to experience tranquility and contentment no matter what the diagnosis or prognosis. I’ll share their peace-seeking, peacekeeping stories so this book can become a volume of “portable peace” for you. Take it with you to read during treatment or while waiting at doctors’ offices or before you put your head on the pillow each night.

You see, I truly believe finding peace requires a two-pronged approach. It will take effort on our part. There are specific things we can do or not do to help create calm in our homes, our minds, and our hearts.

And it will take trust on our part because there are amazing things that only God can do for us and in us.

 

Here’s what I think is going to happen as you read this book:

Because of God’s tender mercy,

the morning light from heaven is about to break upon us,

 to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death,

and to guide us to the path of peace.  Luke 1:78-79

 (If the music video doesn’t automatically load below, please copy and paste this link to enjoy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FPBEyfQVts )