new york city part II

When you get close to Memorial Sloan Kettering there are subtle hints of suffering amidst this city of opulence—requests for donations of blood and platelets, fragments of conversations about cancer, and sick people walking the streets.

When I walked these streets years ago, I didn't see all of this. Then I hammered through my New York life in a fog, wanting to get to the next place really fast, worked up, and unaware of the hardships of a city and people—which extends beyond shopping, finance, museums and restaurants. The things we usually associate with New York. For this sobering experience, I will always be thankful.

Anxiety started to settle over me before the doctor came in. I began to pray for everyone in the hospital—receiving chemo and other treatments or reports. It’s powerful to pray for people you don’t even know in their presence.

So, as the details of my cancer are better left vague here—it mirrors the information I know. While my consult was well worth it, and I now have a treatment direction—a new set of questions and ambiguity have unraveled. Questions are sometimes never answered but decisions do need to be made. I trust and know that God will continue to guide my path towards recovery.

God is still working with me

My doctor called today with the results of my many tests.

I do believe that my cancer has been a spiritual re-birth and I am just not done yet growing. That’s what my doctor told me today when he called...

Well not those words, what he told me is: “the cancer is not all gone yet.”

In other words: I'm not done growing. It’s hard not to write about all the details, but I believe this blog will be a better place if I don’t. Because I do enough theorizing about my cancer, I don’t need another place or a public to do more. I’ve grown since my diagnosis last year and I do see things in a different perspective. I’m coming to terms that after all the tests in the world—things are often times inconclusive.

Doctors can’t constantly validate me, neither can tests. I can’t continually dissect what they tell me and how they do so. I do have more faith with the more experience I get, but I could get a lot more. I will work on that. God and I will work on that.

When I don’t know every single answer, I need to, more than ever—trust in God.

In the meantime, more treatment and prayer are in order for me.

Kissing Monster

I’m a kissing monster. So that’s why this part is always hard for me. I’ve received my tracer dose of I-131 for my scans and I can’t kiss my boys for several days due to radioactive cross contamination (sounds lovely, I know).

How can you resist not kissing this


This…

Or this….


“Be Still and Know that I am God” Psalm 46:10