12 years and 4 lessons

 

 

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And my wife said to me… “you know what, there are plenty of women out there who get breast cancer and they handle life just fine… grow up”. To which I replied, sorry I got colon cancer hopefully next time I get for breast cancer. 

Isn’t cancer fun.

 

 

Hey I just celebrated 12 years of a cancer journey… it started in 2008 with a tumor the size of a grapefruit and colon cancer… spread through out my lymph nodes, I got c-dif, then liver cancer with a tumor in my anus, and then a brain tumor… yeah I know - some people are just lucky.

 

So todays podcast I am going to be a little self indulgent and talk about me. And give you some insights that I learned along the way.

 

First lesson: life is a battle for everyone. I am no hero. You might be going through a bad marriage, a business failure,  a kid who is on drugs, or a million other things… but regardless Jesus is still your number one hope. He is your source, your help, your peace and your secret weapon. 

But even while you are going through it… the stress is felt by everyone else around you. I opened up with the conversation my wife and I had… she was burned out, worried sick, literally, about me dying, and had to take care of everything during chemo… I didn’t have to have an attitude check… I could be a pain in the butt because I had cancer- but she had to pretend to hold it all together… and when she didn’t - that was ok.

Remember there are others on this journey with you. 

 

Lesson #2: you will panic, you will lose it, you will get ticked at God…. and he can handle it.

Ride home after hearing you have about 2.5 years to live.

Panic, Paralyzed, pissed and prayed up. There are phases and you will get through them if you better understand them.

 

 

Lesson #3 Focus.

So in the middle of my chemo for liver cancer I had some tests… they came back saying I would not most likely make it to the next year. I freaked out, went back to my doctors the next day to talk to him about it. I did not have an appointment, but I just waited… he was always walking through the chemo room among the patients and I knew everyone so I just waited. When He came out I jumped on him… he could tell I was freaking out literally over the percentages. He got mad at me… he said there are only 2 choices   “Live or Die”, what do you want to do? I said Live - he said “then Fuck percentages and focus on living”. 

Focus! 

 

Lesson 4

The one thing I could call on through out this whole ordeal was that I understood (because of the way my father raised me and the example he set) was that I chose to serve God in whatever role he put me in. Did I think it would be the role as a cancer patient? Nope… but that does not change my understanding of what it means to be a Christian. I was reminded by my parents that people come and go in their commitment to Christ… but thats not how it works. You serve him wether life is good, bad or flat… you serve him because he is worthy, he is worth it- PERIOD. Life is not measured in time… time is limited. God sees time as a slice in the middle of eternity. My real role is how I will serve him in heaven. Life is just practice, it is a drill an obstacle course if you will. I get that, I have a deep understanding of that. So I choose to never give up, slide back, get luke warm, change scripture to meet my insecurities or change Gods word to meet my foibles. I will serve God even if he filets me and serves me on a gold plate to satan. He is still worth it, he is worthy.