June 21, 2007 – Miracles Still Happen!!

(Posted with permission from a dear friends Diary)

The past week has literally been miraculous, so I decided to write down the details while I remember them clearly. The background info is that I had my last round of maintenance chemo on Tuesday, May 15th, and PET/CT scans on Wednesday, June 6th, which was supposed to verify that I had no cancer cells and that I was in full remission.

On Thursday, June 14, my husband and I went to my doctor’s office to hear the results of my PET/CT scans. I had wondered why he had us come in instead of telling us the results on the phone. Let me just say that I was surprised and my husband was absolutely stunned when the doctor said the PET scan showed that I had a tennis ball size mass on my left side by my stomach.

My doctor said he was really surprised at the test results because my blood work hadn’t indicated anything unusual and he hadn’t been able to feel anything unusual. He told us that my options and left my husband and me alone for a few minutes and then came back. We told him that I would have surgery but we didn’t know yet when. He had me fill out the paperwork I would need for surgery at that time so that whenever I decided to have the surgery, I wouldn’t have to go back to do paperwork and he gave me the prescriptions I’d need to prepare for the surgery.

Out of curiosity as we were leaving, I asked the nurse if I decided to do the surgery ASAP when my doctor would have time in his surgery schedule. She checked and said that he’d just had a cancellation for the following Monday. That took my breath away. But after going home and talking about it with several people I felt like I should take that appointment so first thing Friday morning I called and the slot was still available so I took it. I was scheduled for exploratory surgery with removal of mass on Monday June 18.

Sunday was Father’s Day. I went to another ward’s sacrament meeting instead of mine because I needed to start the bowel-cleansing procedures at noon. When I arrived I walked in with a sister I knew. She said she had heard I was having surgery and asked if I’d had a blessing. I said not yet and she said her husband would be available later if I needed him to help. I had wanted a blessing but hadn’t gotten around to asking anyone yet. I went into the chapel and sat near the door. A Counselor in our Stake Presidency was visiting and stopped and asked how I was doing. I told him okay but that I was having surgery the next day because my cancer had returned. He asked me if I was going to have a blessing for that particular surgery. I gave him a non-committal answer but knew then that I needed to just ask someone to give me a blessing.

I saw a family from my ward sitting a few rows ahead of me and asked the father he said yes. So afterward, we went into a classroom and he and his son gave me a blessing. I don’t recall all of the words but I know I was blessed that I would live, and that my doctors would have the skills needed to perform the surgery, and that God loves me and knows my circumstances. Also, I was told something to the effect that the things we suffer help us become more like God. Anyway, it was very nice and really I felt very good the entire weekend. I had so many people praying for me that I felt at peace.

Sunday afternoon was spent drinking LOTS of liquids including the yucky pre-op stuff prescribed by the doctor and eating popsicles to get rid of the bad taste; enjoying my family members that live nearby; and running to the bathroom often. I wasn’t supposed to drink anything after midnight. I went to sleep before then but my phone beeped with a wrong number at 11:52 which was great because I woke up, saw the time, drank a pint of water and went back to sleep.

Monday we got up, got ready went to the hospital at 11 a.m. Eventually the anesthesiologists came to talk to me and gave me something to start me off in my IV. I kissed my family and they went to the waiting room and I went to surgery. I was “out” before getting to the surgery room door. I sort of woke up several hours later and felt awful. At about 7:30 p.m., I woke up for real, and my husband told me the good news that I hadn’t had a mass after all and things were good. A little later I felt well enough to eat two little cups of jello.

Wednesday morning my doctor came to see me and he was all smiles. He explained in more detail what had happened with my surgery. When he opened me up and didn’t find the mass where it had showed up on the PET scan and he couldn’t find it anywhere, he left the operating room and talked to the Radiologist. They both looked at the PET and CT scans on the computer trying to figure out what the scans meant. The Radiologist said he stood by his diagnosis that what was on the PET scan was cancer. My doctor told the Radiologist that there wasn’t any visible cancer in my belly. They were baffled. They said maybe the PET scan was a false positive. My doctor said perhaps my stomach, which has an extra curve in it, had folded over on itself to make it look abnormal, but he said that still didn’t account for the fact that on the scan, part of my stomach looked normal and the other part looked cancerous. He’d wondered if the cancer was inside my stomach but he’d flattened it out and there wasn’t anything there. So he scrubbed up and went back into surgery. He completed the exploratory surgery by looking through all my folds of tissue and examining my organs and lower abdomen and taking small biopsies here and there and doing three “washes” which meant he filled my abdomen three times with saline and then drained it off and sent everything to the pathology lab to be checked for cancer cells. I told him then that I had a lot of people praying for me and I felt like THAT is what made the difference and that it was a miracle.

All I know is that the cancer was there when the scan was done, and when my doctor operated on me it was gone. I’ve always believed in miracles and now I’ve experienced one myself.

I wanted to mention that besides the Priesthood blessing, my ward members fasted and prayed for me on Sunday, and many of my friends of other faiths and family members also prayed for me. And my name was placed in several LDS Temples. Plus, today I remembered the promise made by President Ezra Taft Benson that my daughter told me about when she was a missionary at the MTC. He promised if you read the Book of Mormon for 30 minutes a day, you would have miracles in your life. I’ve done that regularly since then so with all of that, all of the prayers, the Priesthood blessing and promises in my Patriarchal blessing, I believe the promises have been fulfilled and I experienced a true miracle.