Looking Back

This is one of my first journal entries.

It is about looking back, and looking forward

Sometimes you don’t see how good things are when you have been in a struggle for a long time. In fact as I was writing this I noticed our old e-mail program and as I looked at the sent mail I found some of Andrea’s old emails from when this journey began in 2003. I read the first e-mail she sent when she found the lump…she wrote “not to worry there is only a small chance it is cancer.” Then I read the letter she wrote after her surgery, “the doctor was wrong, it is cancer, now it is decision time, lumpectomy and radiation or mastectomy.” Then I read her letters after chemo #2, and the violence of her vomiting, and the dreadfulness of chemo. Finally I read her letter about her thankfulness. Andrea was writing about being in church and feeling sick but thinking I have so much to be thankful for, “I found my tumor, I’m only stage II and not stage IV, I don’t have metastatic breast cancer, and I have all of your prayers.”

It made me think of all we have gone through, it was like reading a journal of a trip, after the fact, knowing the answers to the questions already asked. I’m reminded we are still on this journey, we are still writing our journal entries, and I will one day look back on this time with the clarity of hindsight. As with all journeys you are never the same at the end as when you began, and this journey is no exception. Due to the intensity of this journey, there has been an equally immense change in our lives. I have tried to capture some of these changes in my writings so that I will be able to look back and remember not just the highlights of this time but the emotions and most importantly the faithfulness of God. First, let me take you down the path of cancer treatment.