When our daughter Averie was born, she had a
deformed ear. I asked the pediatrician about it and he said she had what's
called a double-lobe, and basically when her ear was forming, the cells split
and formed two lobes. It luckily didn't cause any hearing problems, it was all
cosmetic. He told us that if it was a huge concern for us, it would be
something that would require plastic surgery when she was old enough to perform
the surgery. I spent hours analyzing that ear, wondering how a plastic surgeon
could ever make her ear look "normal." There was cartilage where it shouldn't
be, and lack of cartilage where it should be. And if they did repair it, there
would most definitely be major scarring.
When Averie was about 3 months old, a
remarkable thing happened. Her ear completely healed on it's own! I started
noticing that it was looking better, but I thought at first it had to be my
imagination. But within a couple weeks, it looked like a normal ear! The ear
had repaired itself - it was a medical miracle!
Was there a reason we had this experience a
few short months before Jared's diagnosis? Was this a reminder to us that
medical miracles can, and do still occur?
I was told by
a man on a cancer forum that I was delusional for being hopeful, and that I
needed to seek help for myself. Statistics would certainly favor his argument.
So should we just give up hope and accept that to be real?
Or is hope
real?
My mom has a friend, Carol, who was told she had 2-3 months to
live. And her cancer was spreading so rapidly that it didn't look good. Her
hope led her to research different treatment options, and Carol is alive today,
ten years after doctors had given her zero chance.
I choose to
believe that our hope is real. We've had too many experiences to deny
hope. And I could lie and say that I've never had my doubting moments, but in
those moments something seems to always happen to shut down those doubts, and I
hear the same words again and again... Where is your
faith?
Jared was given a blessing prior to our knowledge of
his cancer. That blessing had specific promises, promises that seemed
impossible. I doubted those promises in those hours while Jared was in surgery
having the tumor removed. I had known of four people with his cancer, and none
of them lived past two years. So, in my mind, those promises couldn't be real.
Then the doctor returned, completely perplexed that the tumor was encapsulated -
something he'd never seen and couldn't explain. I knew at that moment I had to
move forward with hope and never let myself return to that dark place.
In
December, Jared got an infection, an infection we learned later had the benefit
of triggering tumor-fighting cells in his brain.
In February, we were at
my parents' house watching a movie about a grizzly bear. In the movie, the
grizzly bear had mauled a man, but the man survived with serious injuries. For
some reason the thought came to my head Maybe cancer is like this grizzly
bear. You can be as hopeful as you want, but the truth is, you wouldn't stand a
chance against something that big if you came face-to-face. The thought
definitely depressed me. At the end of the movie, the grizzly bear escaped it's
cage and was out free. It ran full force toward that same man, and I thought to
myself This is it. He's going to prove my point. Then, the grizzly
bear stopped right in front of the man, looked at him for a few seconds, and
turned and ran in the other direction.
In July, we were told that Jared's
tumor would be analyzed and tested as part of a study in hopes to advance
treatments in brain cancer.
A couple weeks ago, Jared was out of town for
work and I was watching one of our favorite shows alone. In the show, a lady
was talking about the joys of becoming a grandma. It made me sad to think that
Jared might not be able to ever experience those joys. After a few minutes of
being really down, I decided that the Lord would know what I needed in that
moment. So I decided to go to a website to read some scriptures. This was a
website I had been to many times before, in fact almost daily. But this time
there was something I'd never seen - a new video right on the home page. (And I
might add that I've been to this website many times since and the video is no
longer there. It was just this one time.) I decided to click on it, not
knowing what to expect. It was a Bible story taken from the New Testament in Mark, Chapter 5. It is a story of
Christ going and healing a girl. Everyone around him mocked him because they
thought she was dead, and they doubted he could do anything to help her. He
touched her and she was immediately healed.
I believe hope to be
real.
