When God Answers Our Prayers

It’s been a hard past 24 hours. I ended up having pretty severe back spasms, to the point where I was in tears and repeated over and over that I just couldn’t do this anymore. I was ready to throw in the towel. Of course the nurses were there to encourage me to keep going and get the help I needed. I finally was given a stronger pain med and the spasms subsided. But I was left with a sore body, a mind wondering how can I keep doing this, and me wondering why God wasn’t answering my prayers when I was in so much pain? I kept saying, “God, you see your daughter, please help me!” And He was, just not in the way I thought I needed help.

We learned that these spasms and nasty headaches are probably the result from a shot that I’m receiving as part of my chemo regimen. So today we are taking a break from that shot to see if my symptoms improve. Who knew a simple little shot could do so much damage, and yet we know it’s working because of what I’m going to talk about below.

Today was the day that I realized all of the side effects, the lengthy stay in the hospital, and all the hardships have been worth it. First of all, today was the first day that my counts (white blood cells, hemoglobin, and platelets) went UP, instead of down! That is a sign that my body is starting to recover from the chemo depleting all of those parts of my blood! It’s going to be up and down yet and I may need more transfusions, but my body IS responding, and it’s a START.

Second, I want to explain something about leukemia. When I was diagnosed with leukemia, the “blast” percentage was 27%. This means that there were large clusters of abnormal white blood cells in my bone marrow, and not enough red blood cells and platelets. So basically, these abnormal white blood cells reproduced uncontrollably, preventing the production of good cells. That meant that 27% of my bone marrow was filled with these blasts, which technically is a very LOW percentage when leukemia is found. Often leukemia is discovered when they are 90%-100% in a person’s blood, which would make one pretty symptomatic. The doctors believe I’ve only had leukemia for 2 months, 3 months at the most. Mind-boggling to me. This is why it is a true miracle that my blood was retested during my ablation because if it wasn’t, a month from now I would’ve been one sick woman and we would’ve assumed it was my heart failure. It could’ve been a very different story.

Now to the good news! I had a recent blood test and instead of the blast percentage being 27%, I am down to 8%! EIGHT PERCENT people. You are considered to be in remission at less than 5%. I do need to have a bone marrow biopsy to get the true test results, but regardless, this number shows that the chemo is WORKING. Not that the side effects determine the effectiveness, but I feel like in this case they do. THE CHEMO IS WORKING.

I started to cry when my nurse told me, but this time it was tears of JOY and GRATITUDE. The past few days there have been tears of pain, frustration, and wanting to throw in the towel. But today reminded me that God is working behind the scenes (in my bone marrow and blood), using His mighty Physician’s hand to do a wondrous work that I can’t necessarily see. All I see and feel are the effects that are painful and at times, debilitating. But often it takes pain to see the true beauty on the other side.

So please praise God with us that it looks like the chemo is working. With the type of leukemia I have, it is 100% treatable with chemo, though if the chemo doesn’t work, then a bone marrow transplant is needed, which I can’t have because of my heart. So we keep praying the chemo works and that God would work mightily in my body to rid it of ALL the leukemia. Even if I leave in remission, I will still need to come back to U of M for 4-5 months for treatments, a week at a time each month, but if it means the likelihood of it not coming back is greater, sign me up. It’ll be a long haul and we have a long road ahead of us, especially when I come home, but today reminded us that despite the hardships through this stay, GOD IS STILL WORKING.

Why did I ever doubt?