Part 2

“God is preparing you for greater things.”

(Disclaimer: If you haven’t read part one of this story, then you should probably scroll down and do that first)

            Before I start the second part of this story, I just want to say a few things. I hope you don’t let some parts of this story change your viewpoint of me as the person I am now. Some parts of this story I am embarrassed about, and I am embarrassed by some of the thoughts I had as well, but without these parts of the story and thoughts that I had, I wouldn’t who I am and where I am today. I wouldn’t change anything about this story because it shaped and molded me into the person I am now, and there is nothing that I would want to change about that. I would just like to reiterate that this is my blatantly authentic story and my walk with Jesus. It gets ugly. It definitely is messy. My life isn’t the least bit perfect. I just want to show people it’s ok to be wrong and be someone who has made mistakes. It ok to be someone who knows failure, and its ok to have moments of pure weakness. Because, get real… everyone has made mistakes, everyone has been wrong before, and everyone screws up every once in a while. I don’t want my story to go unheard. Not because I want attention, but because I want it to be life changing to someone beside myself. I want my story to benefit other people… or another person, even if it were just one, then posting this would be worth it. I believe that everyone’s story has a purpose, no matter how embarrassing some moments are. God didn't intend for us to live our lives and be quite about the things that have shaped and molded us. And that's not want I intend to do either. I don't want to be quite about the things God is doing and has done in my life, and this is my way of shouting it to anyone who wants to listen. So as we continue, please keep these things in mind.

“We all have chapters we would rather keep unpublished.”

            So cancer. Can I tell you guys a story I am ashamed of? I think about this story almost every day, at least once a week. Let me take you back to a time before I knew I was sick. It was my freshman year of high school, so just a year before this all began. I was participating in a group project in my marketing class, and we had to come up with a superhero or villain. Then, we had to try and sell this superhero or villain. Well, my team wanted to be different, so we decided that we were going to come up with a villain. A bad guy. Someone who creates misery. The worst thing we could come up with is a villain that gave people cancer. Yeah. No joke. This was one of my class projects in high school before all this happened. Oh, the irony. My heart is racing even just thinking about other people reading this part of the story because I am so embarrassed that my group chose this as a villain. This concept was probably the most brilliant villain. It was awful and mean. I tell you this story not to embarrass myself, but because it is an essential step in the transformation of my heart, the transformation of my life. We should be scared to tell people things that we are ashamed of. We shouldn’t be scared to tell people things that we wish we could change or to tell people about mistakes that we have made. I wish there were more honesty in this world. It was change the whole course of everything if people were just honest with each other. Instead of communicating with a “he said/she said” mentality, we should communicate directly to one other what the problem is. This is getting a little off topic, but I do think it is important to say. I think we should be able to tell each other every excruciating detail of our embarrassing lives without being judged, without fear. And even if there is judgment, who cares? The one judgment that matters is the judgment of God, and he’s not going to judge you for wanting to share a mistake you made. I’m rambling, so we are going to refocus here. Back to the villain. I used to be so focus on the bad; I wish that we had come up with a superhero that cured cancer instead. Wouldn’t that be nice?

“He must become greater. I must become less.”

Radiation treatment started finally started when I got my food tube removed, which was probably the most disgusting thing I have ever experienced in my life. It is kind of a funny side story and what better way to start off part two than with a funny story. So, when someone has a food tube, most of the time they “eat” overnight. There is a machine that pumps a protein nutrient milkshake into your stomach. Because it pumps this through the tube, you have to flush everything out at the end of each “meal” so that nothing dries up and gets stuck in the tube. Well… what do you think I did? I forgot to flush the tube in the morning. I also drank water through this tube as well, so during the day, when I went to “drink” water, the water wasn’t going down the tube. I was so confused, and then it hit me… I forgot to flush the tube, so now I wasn’t going to be able to get anything down the tube, and seeing as this tube was pretty much keeping me alive, it was time to panic. What ended up happening was that my mom had to pull the tube out… the only possible way for this tube to be removed was pulling it out of my nose, so some of the contents of my stomach were going to be pulled up through my throat and nose. I guess this is more of a gross story than a funny story. Sorry about that. For a second, a very long second, I tasted all of the contents of my stomach as she pulled the tube up through my nose. Probably the grossest thing I’ve ever tasted and maybe too much information for you, but oh well, its part of the story.

“Though the mountains be shaken, and the hills removed. Yet My unfailing love for you will not be shaken, nor My covenant of peace be removed says the Lord who has compassion on you.”

Anyways, back to radiation. During the first appointment, I had to get a plastic mask molded to my body that started at my collarbone and covered my head. It was strange. This mold was used to attach my to a table so that I wouldn’t move during treatment. It was kind of like a restraint and reminded me of something out of a horror movie. I guess this mask would be a good representation of how I felt at the time. When I wore this mask, it was hard to breath, I couldn't move, and I couldn’t think. This was pretty much my life at the time. I felt like I wasn’t moving, stuck in my cage of a body. I felt like I couldn’t breath because I was scared for a while that it could be my last breath. I was never as close to dying as I felt I was, but when you’re going through something like this, every day feels like it's the end.  And I couldn’t think because the word cancer was embedded into all of my thoughts. My first radiation appointment was probably one of the first times that it really sunk in that I had cancer. This is really happening. This isn’t a dream. I guess at this point I was almost a ghost in my own body. I felt like I was watching myself live. I didn’t feel anything. I didn’t care. Of course, to family and friends, I had to look like everything was ok. I had to give answers to the questions I heard millions of time like “are you ok?” or “Is there anything at all we can do for you?”. The answers I gave to those questions were always yes and no, respectively, but what was I supposed to say? No, I’m completely falling apart on the inside. No, I’m not ok, I don’t want to do this anymore. No, I’m not ok with any of this. No I’m not ok with God. No, I’m not ok that this is happening to me. I didn’t want to make anyone else feel my pain. I didn’t want anyone to feel the least bit like I did, and I felt like if I shared what I was really feeling, then they would. I didn’t want people to feel bad for me or to pity me because that would just make things worse. And what was anyone supposed to do for me that could make this situation any better or easier? I wish that there was something that anyone could have done for me, but there wasn’t. The only thing that would make it better would have been making the situation disappear or for some magically superhero to come along and cure cancer. After my first appointment of radiation, I wanted more than anything for this situation to disappear. I wanted to wake up from this nightmare, but we all know that wasn’t going to happen.

I was so self-centered when all of this was first happening. I knew so little and didn’t care about anything anymore. I didn’t understand that not every bad situation is a bad situation. I was pretty depressed for probably about the first month that this was happening. Actually, confused would probably be a better word to describe how I felt. Looking back on all of my days of radiation, its pretty much a big blur. Of course, I remember going everyday and I remember waiting in the waiting room for longer than I wanted to, but I don’t really remember how I felt. I think maybe I didn’t feel. I know it sounds weird, but I think that I wanted to numb myself so that I wouldn’t be upset anymore. The only downside to this is that numbing yourself doesn't only mean you don’t feel sad anymore, but it also means that you don’t feel joy. I eventually realized that if I would rather feel intense sadness than not feel joy at all. Pure joy is such a healing feeling.

“You are confined only by the walls you build yourself.”

Everyday after school at 3:15pm for the next two months, my mom drove me to Northside hospital in Atlanta, which is a 45min-1hour drive from our house. It was exhausting. I was weak and sick, but I also had to keep up with my homework and classes. They say junior year is the hardest year in high school… well that was an understatement. I wasn’t prepared for this, and even though I had a great group of friends, there wasn’t much that they could do to make this any better. In a way, I felt defeated. I didn’t let it show because I didn’t want to be, but I was so defeated. I was done. I was more tired than I had ever been and I wanted to be done. No matter how hard I tried not to, I drifted far from God. I was still a part of the youth group, and I put on a happy face, which made it seem like nothing had changed, but I was far away. I was a ghost. I was mad at God because I didn’t understand why this was happening to me. Then, one day one of my youth leaders gave a talk about how God’s power is made perfect in weakness. God’s power is made perfect in all of our weaknesses. I was so weak, but in that weakness, God was healing me. Healing me in so many different ways. My heart was changing into a heart after God rather than a heart after this world. I started to realize that maybe this whole cancer thing wasn’t such a bad thing that happened to me. In a worldly kind of view this might be the one of the worst things that could happen to someone, but I didn’t want to be a slave to this world. In a Godly view, this whole experience saved my life.

I remember the moment everything changed. The moment that I came alive for this first time since my first surgery was on a mission trip in Mexico. I went with a group of people I didn’t know super well on purpose. I didn’t want to be the cancer girl even though that's what most people thought of me by now. I didn’t want peoples’ view of me to be cancer. I didn’t want that to be all they could see, and I didn’t want them to pity me. I was actually tired of feeling sorry for myself. I came to a realization that I am not going through something that I can’t handle. I think of all of the persecution that Jesus had to go through, and I also think about the persecution that people in non-Christian countries go through every day. Then I think about me, and I think… How selfish am I to feel sorry for myself. I live in a place were I can proclaim my faith with almost no consequences. How selfish was I to feel sorry for myself…

“God reached down and rescued me.”

Part 3 coming soon