Round 2

1/9/13

      The past few days have been a whirlwind. On Friday night I noticed a knot on the right side of my neck and immediately panicked. Lately I have been obsessed with checking my neck but I couldn't believe it when I actually felt something abnormal. On Saturday morning I woke up and couldn't get the knot off my mind so mama decided to take me to Chapel Hill. We spent the entire day and night in the emergency room at UNC and we left with barely any answers. We were told that most likely the knot I felt was only a swollen lymph node due to an infection. Well I spent all day Sunday worrying because I still didn't have a definite answer. On Monday morning mama called my surgeon's office and filled them in and he said for us to come on up to Chapel Hill for him to check it out, so back to UNC we went. That afternoon I had another biopsy and based off the first set of results everything looked clear- simply just an infection or something in my lymph nodes. Even though he told me the final results wouldn't be back for another day or two this really put my mind at ease. Then, yesterday at 2:45 or so, I was downstairs with Emma when mama came home and gave me the bad news. The knot is cancer. I really think I went into a state of shock for a few minutes. I didn't move and barely said a word. I just cried. I really didn't even know what to do. It was like I couldn't even wrap my mind around it. Mama sat there with her arms around me and I just kept saying "I don't even know what to do," and she said "You're going to fight. That's what you're going to do. Just like you did last time." After the initial shock wore off and I stopped crying- surprisingly this only lasted for about twenty minutes- I did exactly what I did last time. I became calm and am ready to just go through the motions. All I can say is that once again God poured His peace out over me and this situation and I am so thankful! That is the only way to explain how I can become calm during a time like this. Just a few days ago, driving back to Chapel, I told mama that I would rather die in a car accident than have cancer again, but that feeling is gone. That was just satan. He was trying to make me lose hope, lose faith, and forget the power, strength, and miracles of God. Now I have an entirely different mindset. I know the Lord is with me. He was with me the first time I had cancer and He is with me again. No one else can provide this kind of PEACE!

"The Lord gives strength to His people; the Lord blesses His people with peace." -Psalm 29:11