LIFE AT 61 - FINAL TRIP DOWN RADIATION LANE!

FRIDAY THE 13TH!!  Who among you think this is a great day?  It has long been a day associated with "bad luck", black cats, just bad "mo jo", well NO MORE!  Friday July 13, 2012 is a day that will be celebrated as an awesome day.  It was the day that I had my last radiation treatment for the dreaded disease that had the audacity to attack my throat!  I guess that satan did not get the message that I belonged to God and that HE was going to take care of things.  YES I did have chemo treatment!  YES  I had radiation therapy!  HOWEVER God was in control the whole time.  IN FACT the last PET scan showed that I had already been healed before the radiation took place.

So why you ask am I writing about all of this?  Well maybe you need to know about all of this!  Maybe its because this is what God wants someone out there to read and see.  :)  It has been an incredible journey since the end of January.  You know when a Dr comes into the ER room you are in and says the words that everyone wants to hear, "You have cancer", NOT, it can go one of 2 ways.  You can say NO way, or you can give up and do whatever people do that give up.  I politely told him he was making a mistake.  When my personal physician came into the hospital room the next day and said the same thing, I politely told her NO I dont.  When the ENT specialist told me pretty much the following week, and then said I was going to need surgery to cut out my voice box and that I would need a permanent trach tube, and that I would need a feeding tube, I told him NO I would not.  Was I just in denial?  Was I just being a jerk?  OR was I being faithful to what I had been told my whole life, that God is a healer.  Im to this day, not totally sure, but I did believe that God was/is/and forever will be a healer.  I might have been in a bit of denial, I might have been a bit of a jerk, (did not like the Dr's)  LOL  HOWEVER Im thankful to the ER Dr who discovered it and had the forethought to do the CT scan because "something" told him to.  There have been many "strange" things that have happened in the last 5 1/2 months, way too many to name each and every one, but I can see Gods hand in the whole journey.

Just as one of many examples, the radiation therapists were all amazed that the burns on my neck were not worse than they are.  They were amazed that I had not lost my voice.  They were amazed that I had not had to get a feeding tube.  They were amazed that my throat was not more sore than it was.  This they told me on Friday the 13th!!  According to them, MOST people by the time they are into the radiation are losing their voice, and have a feeding tube.  My response was that EVERY day as the table went into that tube, I just said "thank you Jesus" and then I prayed that God would only allow the bad to be harmed and NOT the good!  That is the same prayer that friends at church were praying.  That was way more than 2 agreeing on one thing as the Bible says.

I told the Dr's early on that I did not want a tube and that God was going to protect me.  I knew this because I had/have literally thousands of people praying for my well being.  MOST of them I have never met, but they were asked to pray so they prayed.  Does this all mean that I was unafraid thru all of this.  NO, it meant that I felt Gods hand.  I must admit there were plenty of times I was afraid.  There were plenty of times, including just about 3 weeks before the end, that I wanted to quit.  Now about that.  I have some awesome friends, and 3 of those friends are Dave and Sherri and Sherri's mom.  Sherri's mom had a very similar situation.  She had some pretty radical surgery, that Im sure was not pleasant.  She went thru chemo, and the 35 radiation treatments, and MADE IT!!  She is 78 years old, and is doing wonderful.  She has energy, she has spunk, and she has beauty.  Its amazing what God will do when you let him in to do it.  I remember when we 1st met her she insisted that my wife take her chair.  She hopped up on her bed.  Now this is not the "normal" height bed, it is higher.  She hopped on it like a 12 year old girl.  How awesome is that.  Ive said all of this to say that SHE was also an inspiration to me.  Mr big, tough guy, who did not want to do radiation because of some supposed side effects.  She made it thru so why shouldn't I?  Absolutely NO reason.  :)  The really cool thing is that SHE asks about me and my well being all the time.  HOW AWESOME IS THAT???

As I walked out of the radiation room for the last time, something was afoot!  There was a ribbon strung across the opening and I was hearing music from the Olympics.  I was really surprise that the hospital would do something like that.  WELL as it turned out the HOSPITAL did not do it.  These same friends, conspired with my wife and did all of the celebration.  I was HUGELY surprised and blown away!

Friday the 13th, HA!  Just a date!