Faith Tested

A close friend once told me that bad news seemed to roll off me like water off a duck's back. Apparently, I always appear so calm and even quite cheery despite all these years of struggling with my cancer.

Well, I can only tell you, it's not me, it's God. It's His strength, His peace and His grace that support me and Alex all this while.

I'm quite a simple person. I trust in God's power to heal me, but IN HIS TIME. This means He may heal me in my lifetime, or He may heal me in eternal life, where we will all be made perfect! Also, I believe that God uses doctors and modern medicine as His healing tools. So I always trust my doctors to give the best recommendations for treatments, and so far, I've been truly blessed with very caring and efficient doctors and nurses who show genuine concern for me.

So once I sorted those things out, I just try to get on with normal life. No need to worry about seeking strange alternative treatments, or trying to attend all the miracle healing rallies in Singapore.

But over the past few weeks, my faith has been severely tested. Somehow, the radiation treatment to kill the cancer cells in my lumbar region has triggered off some unexpected side effects. Because the radiation beams were shot through my stomach, they destroyed quite a bit of stomach/intestinal lining. This made me perpetually nauseous, some days worse than others. To me, this is one of the most traumatic things that can ever happen - not being able to eat or enjoy food, aarrrrghh!

I also started to feel more tired. Going out for lunch and simple grocery shopping will wipe out my energy for the day, and I'll have to take a 3-hour nap to recover in time for dinner. I've not checked my emails for a month. Even watching TV tires me out.

What's more, I can literally feel the tumours growing bigger in the left lobe of my liver, because it's stretching the diaphragm and straining the rib cage/muscles. This causes more pain and the weight of the enlarged liver presses down on me when I lie down, so it's almost impossible to find a comfortable position to sleep. The tumours also cause internal inflammation so my fevers are back with a vengeance. I have to pop 2 panadols every 5-6 hours to control it, even waking up during the night, or the temperature will just shoot through the roof...

So I was definitely not a happy baby over the past few weeks. I was harbouring all kinds of dark thoughts in my mind and feeling sorry for myself, asking God many questions, mainly "Why me"?

The last straw came when 2 nights ago, I actually threw up after taking panadol. Somehow, this aggravated the lower back pain and the stressed liver, and caused so much discomfort that I couldn't sleep the whole night. Poor Alex was quite worried and ran off first thing in the morning to get a stronger painkiller from my GP.

Thank God! After taking the medicine yesterday, I had the best sleep ever in a long while! I woke up today feeling so rested that we actually went out for lunch (Alex decided to work from home since yesterday to make sure I'm ok, so sweet, right?). And I could finally find the energy to switch on the PC to check my email and post this blog : )

So again, I can only say this, BY GOD'S GRACE, I have overcome this moment of weakness and depression in my journey of faith. And I constantly give thanks for my long-suffering partner on this journey - my dear hubby Alex.

Before signing off, I just want to share some thoughts from a good friend Mr Foo:

"God wants us to draw strength from Him daily. It’s a reverse spiritual principle that nonetheless is true: We get beaten down so that Christ might rise in us. It’s the whole idea God has of avoiding confusion. See, he doesn’t want people confusing human power and achievement with his power and what he is achieving in and through our lives. If all Christians were super-Christians, people would be impressed with us. As it is, God wants people to be surprised at us, not so much impressed – surprised that we can keep on believing, given what has happened to us. Surprised at us – impressed with God. That’s the way it should go. It’s important to know this so that the things that happen don’t throw us into a tailspin. Paul wrote 2 corin 4:8-10 that troubles, confusions, knock-downs, and drag-outs are all to be expected in a life of faith, and they are not just something to suck it up and endure, they are what will actually release the power of God in our lives. We encounter death-like experiences so that Christ’s life-like nature may clearly be seen in us, despite what is happening."

Thank you to our family and friends for your prayers and support, and big thanks to all the lovely people who just happened to read our blog and left such encouraging and heart-warming notes. May God bless you!

PS: I'm still waiting for the hospital to call me with an appointment date for the pre-clinical-trial tests, so don't know when I'll be starting on the trial yet.