Redux II
(Couldn’t resist that title. Sorry)
Tuesday, March 08, 2005 – The Battle Ain’t Over
My visit with the surgeon who removed my first tumor was interesting. He bluntly asked me why I stopped the treatments. I recounted my reasons for doing so and what I was doing. His response was essentially that if these things hadn’t been written up in a peer-reviewed article published by a recognized medical journal that they have no validity.
In any case, he said the shrinkage is only due to the radiation and nothing else. “You still have cancer,” he said, and took a piece of the remnant in my mouth for a biopsy to prove it.
I should have the results in a few days. But, I am sure he is right. The wound in my cheek is not healing and he says it won’t until the tumor is gone.
God has given me peace about all this so I leave the results up to Him.
Wrestling
I have to admit that I am disappointed with the results of the biopsy. Of course, it could really could have been no other way. Still, I guess I was hoping for a miracle. . .
Waterfall in British Columbia - Photo by my late father.
The problem is, the skin below my jaw seems to be pulling away from the bottom of the tumor exposing it more. This makes it look larger, which is scaring my wife. Not only that, it almost seems like it might be growing a bit inside my mouth.
I was thinking that I, and especially my family, had been through enough. What else is there for me to learn from this experience? Why continue this, if there is no point?
Pretty elitist thinking, isn’t it? What right do I have to expect to suffer any less than – well, I don’t know how many others. What I have been going through is nothing compared to what so many people even I know of have, or are, experiencing.
I have been thinking of reasons for the good and bad that happens to us. It seems to break down into two broad categories – result of events that take place in nature, and the consequences of actions taken. I think the latter boils down to three things:
- Consequences of our own decisions – every thing we do has a result either good or bad for someone. Sometimes the effect will not be apparent for years, and perhaps never to us.
- Consequences of someone else’s action. None of us choose our parents, yet every one of us experiences the results for better or for worse, for example.
- Consequences of the decisions made by the human race collectively. It all started, of course, when God decided to make humans with the freedom to make decisions. Unfortunately, mankind chose to make wrong ones, for the most part, and we all have been suffering ever since. I admit that one could argue that the decision to sin was originally the decision of two people, but I would also argue that humans collectively have continued down that path.
I don’t believe that God needs to initiate something in order to discipline us. There is another power waiting to bring as much evil upon us as is possible. But, there are things we do that remove us from God’s protection, and we suffer the results. Fortunately for us, God limits the consequences to something we can handle, if we accept His strength to do so.
What I am going through isn’t necessarily the result of my separating myself from God. Nor is it necessarily the result of bad lifestyle. No, I think it is the result of life on this planet. If this had happened before I became a believer, I probably would have fought this thing with determination, as I am now, but also with bitterness at the unfairness, and probably rage. As bad as I am to live with now, I would have been worse then.
I have a God-given peace, for which I am very thankful. Sure, I get scared and start to worry sometimes, especially in the middle of the night. Then I have to make a conscious decision to talk to God about the whole thing. I review my all my concerns and give them to Him. I invite Him to fill me with His peace, and He does.