Power of Prayer

I always knew that prayer can be a powerful thing.  I have witnessed many answered prayers and many of my prayers have been answered in the past.  But this might be the first time I actually felt the power of prayer at such a grand level.  I have been overwhelmed at the people who have been praying for me.  And that is probably the one thing that kept me getting out of bed the last 3 weeks.  I prayed over and over to God to just give me the strength to go through this journey and let me not stray.  I was afraid that I might get to the point where I would lose faith and begin making deals with anybody that would listen.  But several of my prayer warriors told me that they had been praying that the cancer would be gone and several even told me that they prayed that the cancer would be given to them instead.  In the back of mind, I kept thinking that wasn't doing us any good, we know I've got it so let's move forward and go from there.  That is where I have been proven WRONG!!

Tuesday we went to see my drs.  First stop was the surgeon to check out my incision, which by the way looks great.  Well he kind of spilled the beans.  He walked in and looked at me and said "You don't have it and by the way your bone marrow is negative for lymphoma.  Don't tell Dr. Elkins that I told you!"  I knew I had just heard him wrong and said, "I don't have lymphoma?"  We did not know that this could be an option.  He went on to explain that there is a 5% chance that the Fine Needle Aspiration could be wrong.  My head kept saying, he is just a surgeon and he has no idea what he is talking about.  When we left, I looked at Bear and my Mom and told them to not say anything, I was not ready to go "there" yet.  There was not going to be any walls coming down yet.

   For the next 2 hours, we waited for Dr Elkins.  We were in a room waiting and could here hear on the phone just talking and then move on to the next call.  We were so frustrated!  Finally when she came in she explained that she needed to hear some things directly from the pathologists mouth.  She went on to tell us that they had sent my thyroid biopsy to Mayo Clinic where it showed that I had atypical lymphoid cells.  These cells are abnormal and can be precancerous or they could have just stayed in that state indefinitely.  She called the first pathologist and he said that he had enough evidence in "gradient flow" (lab talk) to give the diagnosis of lymphoma cells but he also looked at the new biopsy and the lymphoma cells were no longer there!!  WHAT!?!  They were there, now they are gone??  Makes you wonder...

We knew there had to be more, otherwise she would have been a little more excited and shooing us out the door.  My PET scan showed some areas of concern.  A few lymphnodes under my arms, abdomen, and  groin had a reactive response. They can react due to 1. cancer or 2. inflammation.  Our hope is that it is inflammation caused by my inflamed thyroid-- it is all part of the lymphatic system.  If not, based on small size (the biggest lymphnode was 7mm) and the absence of the large B cells in my thyroid, that if it is cancerous that she is thinking it would be a low-grade lymphoma.  This tends to be less aggressive, slower, and typically easier to treat.  So now we wait until January 3rd.  I will be rescanned and if they react again, then a biopsy will be performed to get a diagnosis. 

Are we thrilled? YES. Are we thankful? YES.  Are we still scared? YES.  I know that this is a true miracle.  That dr looked me in the eye on October 15 and said "You have a malignancy and it is Primary thyroid Lyphoma."  There was not "it is suspected" or "it looks like", it was "YOU HAVE."  And now it's, "You DON'T have."  Yeah, yeah, 5% error.  Whatever!!  It was there and now it's gone.  That just doesn't happen.  God happens. 

I asked a close friend, how am I supposed to go back to everyday life like nothing is wrong and not worry every moment that something is going on?  She gave me the best advice.  She told me that you can't let it consume you.  You have to be thankful for each day and until you get bad news, don't worry.  So that is what I am going to try and do.  I haven't gotten any bad news.  I am not going to lie-- we are cautiously optimistic--I still have a few walls up.  But I have a lot of things and people that make me want to move on and live my life.  And here is a picture of my fun life!  Bear raided Kinson's room for a last minute costume!!