Two months and many prayers after learning a mass on my ribs was likely cancerous, I’m ready for phase two of the treatment which hopefully results in a cancer-free body. In phase one, the doctors surgically remove the tumor along with a small but noticeable chunk of my rib cage. It’s a painful surgery, but thankfully God grants us the grace to get through difficult things. A successful surgery impacts the outcome in a big way. My surgery appears successful. (A skilled surgeon removed the tumor with good margins, but some cancer cells were found on one rib — also removed.) However, my treatment isn’t complete. As one of my oncologists says, “Sarcomas are not well-behaved.” (Oh, the impudence of these nasty things!)
Choosing the right treatment boils down to numbers and predicting outcomes: What are the odds of cancer returning with or without this procedure? And what damage does that procedure do to the patient? Surgery alone offers a 30% chance of the spindle cell sarcoma returning locally (original site). Then there is another number to consider, sketchier and harder to pin down: What is the chance it will show up somewhere else, referred to as metastasizing? The chance of it metastasizing is lower than the 30%, but it does happen. Praying, praying, and praying that this doesn’t happen. However, opportunities to metastasize should drop even more if the cancer cells are removed from the original site. (This assumes that cancer cells have not already escaped from original site and gone to distant places.) So begins the next part of my journey – radiation.
Radiation begins on Thursday of this week. My radiation is designed to kill cancer cells at the site of treatment. The treatment site includes the surgical and nearby areas. As of now, I’m scheduled for 33 daily treatments. I do get a reprieve on weekends and holidays. Hooray for that! I’ve already had scans that pinpoint the areas being radiated. With the guidance of a physicist and my radiation oncologist, the radiation team shoots radiation into my lower chest area. They try to limit the exposure to surrounding areas, but a small dose of radiation does hit my lungs and other nearby areas. I’m thinking my liver is likely to get some stray doses because of the proximity to the tumor site.
While radiation is a bit scary, it seems much easier to deal with than chemotherapy. I’ve prayed that chemo wouldn’t be necessary, or that I would be strong enough to get through it if it was necessary. I am so thankful that God did save me from chemo, at least for now.
The radiation oncologist has given me some idea of what to expect. At the beginning of my radiation treatments, I won’t notice much. As we get further into the treatments and the radiation builds up in my body, fatigue becomes more and more pronounced. A bad sunburn develops at the site. The damaged skin becomes very sensitive. I can’t wear any restrictive clothing or undergarments. Basically, I don’t want anything to touch that area. So, I have been searching my closet for loose non-irritating fabric that I can wear for the next seven to eight weeks.
Tomorrow, I surrender myself to a group of really smart people who will shoot a toxicity into my body. (Radiation can also cause sarcomas.) The irony of this isn’t lost on me. To kill the cancer, the really smart people kill the cells near the tumor site, healthy and unhealthy ones. Yet, this cancer-causing radiation offers me the best chance of survival. And, I’m grateful for these really smart people who seem to know what they’re doing.
Once again, I’m cautiously optimistic. Neither doctors, specialists, nor statistics can truly predict the outcome, only make an educated guess. None of us knows what tomorrow holds. So, once again I am going to put all my fear and uncertainty into God’s hands; only He has control. He has been good to me and gotten me this far. It’s been amazing how He’s helped through each difficulty. But do you know the most beautiful part of this realization? He is willing to do that for all of us. We just need to ask.
Awakening Lazarus 