What Cancer Does...

Cancer is stupid.

It tries to control you. It tries to take your peace and happiness away. It tries to change everything you know and throw a lot of unknown crap your way.

I'm not getting my presents for mom, Carrie, and Aunt Kathy finished this year. This is the second year in a row that they aren't done and it's all because of cancer.

It's a really special thing to me that I've wanted to make them. It's a sewing project that says, "It isn't happy people who are thankful, it's thankful people who are happy." It's an 11x14" size. I started these last year (making one for me as well), but ended up putting my sewing projects away for four months because we found out dad had cancer and died 6 days after his diagnosis. I didn't want to sew anymore. I was at the hospital working on this sewing project as dad was in having an MRI done at Riverton hospital when I got the call from Dr. Gilbert saying they got the biopsy results and it was, in fact, cancer. I put my project into my sewing box and didn't get it out until the first part of October. There was too much to do with funeral arrangements and such. And then taking care of filling dad's retirement, military stuff, and such, and I plain just didn't want to sew. That's what I was doing when my world turned upside down for a while. It didn't exactly have the best memories attached to it.

Once I picked my sewing up again, I marked the spot where I had stopped when that call came, and decided this exact one I was working on would be mine. It would show the mark where dad had died, and then my continuing on as I worked through a difficult time in my life. Sewing became very special to me again, so once again, I decided that this would be my project over the next year as I worked to finish these for Christmas of 2015.

Things were going along pretty well. I was almost completely done with the lettering in brown thread on the fourth and last one when my world got flipped upside down yet again by cancer. Jared had emergency surgery Sept. 24th due to a cancerous tumor that had completely blocked off his small intestines. This was a complete shock to us. He spent a week in the hospital, was home two days and then went back in with sepsis and spent another week there. Once he was home, he spent 5 days before he was back in again for another four due to another infection. Jared had a close call with loosing his life twice. We lived at the hospital 18 days. Once again, my life stopped as we focused on what was most important. My husband and our three boys. Nothing else mattered.

My husband has cancer. Seriously, how do you process this?

I'll tell ya. You take it one day at a time. You pray your heart out and then pray some more. You never give up hope. You rely on your faith and the prayers and fasting of others. Feeling the prayers of others is one of the neatest experiences we've had through this. The power of prayer is real. And because of it, we've made it through the last three months. Miracles can happen, and we've witnessed many. My sewing was set aside for a couple months, but was once again picked up. The only thing though, is it will once again be left for next year's gifts, but maybe now it will be for birthdays. Because of cancer and how crazy our lives became, I've misplaced the pattern and one of the actual sewing projects. I've been stressing over finding this the last week so I could get them finished, but tonight I've decided that I don't care anymore. I'm not going to stress over three presents. I'll just buy something for each one of them and enjoy this week with my family instead. Because of prayers and fasting, we've been given a very special gift this year. Jared's biopsy he had just over a week ago actually worked! We finally know what type of cancer he has so they can start treatments. Past biopsies and tests would show inconclusive, and the next step was a more invasive surgery with another 6-8 week recovery. His surgery was cancelled for this past Wednesday which means we got our Christmas with our boys back! What more could I ask for?! So forget stressing over presents, I'm going to be happy and enjoy these next 5 days with our kids, playing and doing what we normally do as a family.

Do you know what cancer does? It can ruin your life if you let it. We all have choices though, and I choose to see the good. I choose to use faith. I choose to look for blessings that come from my Father in Heaven. We all have trials to go through in life. How we choose to handle them and learn from them is what matters. Cancer is not going to break me. It's not going to take my holidays with my family away. I know we're going to have more trials to face that come from having cancer, but I'm going to enjoy the good when we have it. And when we are going through those hard times, I'm going to pray with all my heart for more good times to come.