Ultimate Upgrade

The past few months have been a wild ride. In the process, I’ve lost a lot of my fear of death. With the diagnoses of cancer, I went through all the typical thoughts:

• Will surgery cure me?
• Will I need chemo or radiation treatments?
• How will the outcome affect the people around me?
• Will I die from this?
• How will we pay for this?
• Then, how sick will I be from the surgery itself?

Then God did something amazing to show me how much He loves me.

On the scheduled day of surgery, I woke up with a blood clot in my leg. I reported to the pre-op, had IV’s hooked-up, met with my surgeon, had an ultrasound, and met the anesthesiologist for my surgery. After five hours of lying around, I was sent home with an appointment to visit a Vascular Specialist. The next couple of weeks were a wild ride, with more ultrasounds, as the clot moved up my leg. The medication to reduce the lump made me sick, and fear of the cancer spreading grew as we waited for the swelling to go down in my leg.

Finally, a month later, surgery was again scheduled. In the meantime, we adjusted our medical insurance, which reduced our out of pocket expenses significantly. I had Christmas at home. God worked all things for my good. I calmed down, and my fear lifted.

The weekend before my surgery, a friend said to me, “I see an angel in the OR watching out for you.” I laughed, thinking what a random comment, but the morning of the surgery, my OR nurse introduced herself – “I’m Angela, your OR nurse. Think of me as your angel watching out for you during the operation.” God’s sense of humor strikes again.

Then the anesthesiologist for my surgery came in, and it was clear that God is in the details. I fear anesthesia because my body reacts negatively to the drugs. To put this in perspective, I had shoulder surgery three years ago. It took six hours for me to wake-up (in the end, a recovery nurse stuck an alcohol swab under my nose, so I would wake-up enough to go home), and I spent two days nauseated. However, a year later, when my other shoulder needed surgery, the outcome was different. The anesthesiologist, standing in front of us, worked a miracle, getting me out of the hospital within two hours without nausea. God postponed the first cancer surgery so that I would have this doctor taking care of my anesthesia.

I came out of surgery with little to no nausea. Amazing, considering that there were six incisions in my stomach, one of which was extra swollen because they needed to cauterize a vein. After leaving the hospital, I never took narcotics for pain, and a week later, I found out that they got all the cancer with clear/clean margins.

I realized, that for me, having cancer is less fearful than surgery and that cancer treatment is scarier than death. I know without a doubt that God has the number of my days perfectly planned. In fact, I now see death as the ultimate upgrade – free of pain, rejoicing in heaven with Papa God, having finished the race that was set before me. Where are you in your journey? Are you ready for your ultimate upgrade?