(Email sent to family and friends on 8 November 2007)
Dearest Mama and the Prayer Warriors,
Ma, thanks so much for sending in vegetables for Mommy. Just what the doctor ordered! She was so happy when she saw the big bag of vegetables (and was so eager to ask you how to make a salad out of the sayote tops!). Thanks again, Ma, you’re a real blessing.
Today was a great day for all of us. Before parting ways last Sunday (to meet again on the next weekend for church), Bryan and I have decided to focus on Mommy’s treatment and have her undergo a treatment program, not just a pain management program which she was in. Today, with my father, we brought Mommy to see another doctor (of integrative medicine). My boss (who is a Christian, praise God!) recommended the good doctor.
The previous night we decided to go to the doctor early (the doctor is famous that they don’t do appointments anymore; they attend to patients on a first-come-first-served basis), but mommy had severe abdominal pain, so we had to wait until before lunchtime for the pain to subside. And so it did, and she was even able to eat lunch properly, another reason to praise God. Then we went on and my dad drove us to the doctor.
(Before leaving, I had my brother leave a gift on my parents’ bed for my Mommy. It was a Bible, and a book entitled “Finding Comfort,” still based on the Bible. I left a card where I told her that I would be a selfish, ungrateful daughter if I did not share with her my source of comfort, which was God’s Word. I told her that I also wrapped her Bible in gold to remind her how precious it is, and that I chose a small book so that it can fit her small hands that took care of me, and I chose a light book so that she can take it everywhere, since the Lord’s yoke is meant to be easy, and His burden is light. I also wrote Debbie’s (Crawford) suggestion of reading one chapter of Proverbs, the “calendar” of the Bible, for each day of the month, in order to get a daily dose of wisdom.)
We came around lunchtime, with the “Sorry, We’re Closed” sign on the door welcoming us. The door was opened, though, so I just entered and asked if it was the clinic of the doctor that we referred to, with a smile on my face. The nurse at the reception smiled back at me and said that it was, and asked us to take our seats. She gave me the info sheet where I wrote in the details of my mom, with simple guides on identifying any symptoms that she was feeling.
A tall man with salt-and-pepper hair came out of another door behind the reception area, and said a cheery “Hello!” to us. He asked about my mommy, and I told him why we were there. My mom explained that she refused to take surgery, because she felt that she wouldn’t be able to make it if she did. The man said, “It’s good that you didn’t. We wouldn’t want to risk spreading it to the other parts of the body.” (Which was what the previous oncologist told my mom.) He smiled again and went out to lunch.
That man was the doctor. I felt happy inside and I prayed, “Lord, you probably led us to meet him. It isn’t even our turn for consultation and I’m already happy about it.”
We were second in line for the afternoon consultations, and I think it was already about 3PM already when we were asked to go in. He then said, “as you can see, we don’t have 5-minute consultations here.” We brought in the CT Scans and the CT Angiography results of my mom for the doctor to check, and he explained what was wrong with mommy, and the most likely cause that it happened, and how we were going to approach it. He told us that the first 30 days will be critical for treatment, because with my Mom’s sickness, we have to work fast!
He was a very encouraging man. The great part is… I feel like we’re on familiar ground (well, at least I was). He brought up familiar Bible passages that lifted our spirits up. I hope that this is the ministering that we were praying for. Through sickness, a way towards spiritual growth is opened.
And that’s what the doctor stressed, To use illness as an opportunity for spiritual growth. He wants mommy to accept her illness, because accepting it allows energy to be freed for other things in her life. Accepting, according to him, is saying that “I’ll leave it to God,” knowing that the sickness is there, and knowing that it is something that can be handled, and therefore it ceases to be a burden.
(And then) he told us to use illness as a source of growth, and he used a cool analogy… the salamander. He said that if the salamander loses its tail, it doesn’t get emotionally involved, it simply regenerates a new tail. Our primitive nervous system tells us that if we have a loss, we should grow something to replace what was lost. So what he was saying is that if we begin to grow psychologically in response to our loss, we don’t need to have physical illness or growth anymore.
He advised my mom to view the illness as a positive redirection of her life, meaning that she doesn’t need to judge anything that happens to her. Doing this is actually life-changing. Seeing it as a mere redirection gives you peace, and after a while you begin to feel that “Hey, it’s true, I’m merely being redirected.” Then fewer and fewer misdirections will begin to occur in your life because of the person you have become.
When death or recurrence of illness occurs, this will not be seen anymore as synonymous with failure after the above steps are done, but simply as further choices or steps. He said that if staying alive were your goal, then you would be a failure, since everyone will have to die someday. Accepting the inevitability of death just makes you realize you might as well enjoy this God-given life on earth to the best of your ability.
Self-esteem means a lot; seeing yourself worthwhile, believing in yourself, and telling yourself that you are here to give something to the world. The immune system has a funny and fantastic way of reacting to self-esteem. The immune system says, “this person likes living, let’s fight for his/her life.”
He made it important not to make physical change her sole goal. He said that when someone tells him “I’ve come to get over my sickness,” he tells the person that he/she has come for the wrong reason. You should come to obtain peace of mind, acceptance, and forgiveness (but of course he still gives you treatment for your sickness hehe!). In the process, the disease won’t be overlooked – it will be seen as one of the problems we are having, and perhaps one of our fears. Learning about hope, love, acceptance, forgiveness, and peace of mind greatly helps in the treatment process.
And finally… love is the greatest gift of all, and it’s a great way to achieve immortality, and to leave a gift behind. He cited an example of people even deciding when to die, and saying to God, “Thank You; I’ve used my body to its limit. I have loved as much as I can possibly can, and I’m leaving at two o’clock today.” And the person goes. That way you only spend half an hour dying and rest of your life living, unlike when these things are not done, you may spend a lot of your life dying, and do only a little living.
OK… so as you can see we had a long lecture inside the clinic haha! But we were all smiling after leaving. He wrote down the medicines that my mommy had to take, which was focused on building her up, encouraging the production of enzymes in her pancreas and inhibiting the mitosis of the lump, and strengthening her immune system. Tomorrow we will bring in the results of my mom’s other lab tests like CBC, albumin, etc. And we are now supposed to watch what she eats. After buying her meds, we bought her a juicer and and water purifier. (Fresh juice is good for her, said the doctor, juice from fruits AND veggies.) He suggested to continue mom’s insulin shots to control her blood sugar. He gave us his mobile number, even his home number. He even said, “sorry, but my mobile and phone lines are open only from Monday to Sunday, 24 hours a day.” When we ate at a restaurant outside where he also went, he even went to our table and told me “Hija, will you be able to remember to call me everyday regarding your mom?” I told him that I will. He even suggested how to handle and prepare mommy’s food, and that is beyond consultation hours already, how nice of him.
By the way, Mommy hugged me and said that she loved my gift. I’m glad she did, and even told me how complicated it was to be Catholic. (Wow, I hope that this hunger for Christ will continue in her.) She told me how she hated confessing her sins to a priest (who’s also a man, therefore, also a sinner. She believes this is different from “confessing to each other and praying for each other,” since the priest would not confess his sins to her anyway, and she would not be praying for him when they do the confession.). I told her that I was looking at a Christian church near our place yesterday yesterday morning where she might be able to come with me and had my brother get the schedule (which he did… But he came back with the report for Sunday School Schedule, not the worship service! haha! He checked the wrong column.). I’ll let her think about it, and wait when she is much stronger. As in Ecclesiastes, there is a time for everything. I’ll let God do the persuading.
Thank you so much for continuously praying for us. My cousins were telling me how expensive her treatment program was. I just smiled. In my heart I know that if this is the path that God wants my parents to take so that they will know what Jesus really is to them, then He will provide. Bryan and I claim the promise of being “able to make all grace abound toward you, that you always have sufficiency in all things, have an abundance for every good work” (2 Cor 9:8). We’re just merely instruments, and the Lord always equips His instruments with everything that they need in order to do His work. Jehovah Jireh/Yahweh Yireh – our Provider.
Please tell us how you have been, we would love to hear from you… Congratulation to our cousins in Cali, USA (Pastor BJ’s and Aunt Debbie’s kids) for doing so well in school! Keep it up! More progress reports! To our brothers and sisters and cousins in Baguio, we love you; those with babies, praise God! Children are a heritage from the Lord (Ps 127:3), so prize them, love them! Aunts and uncles, God bless you. Pastor Bill and Debbie, missing you and Heather-Weather, and the Church in Dresden. (For everyone’s info, it was Pastor Bill who baptized me, his first baptism in a foreign country where he baptized a child of God foreign to that foreign country! Haha! and of course, a stranger to this world.) Mama, thank you so much again… Blessings, blessings be upon you! We love you, and we praise God for your ability to love so much people, and for giving Angel a home where she can be loved and cared for.
With much love and prayers,
Debbie
