Use of time - purify your life

Since diagnosis we have tried to use the time to best prepare ourselves. We have spent more time with the family, and daughter will visit next weekend.

In preparing for treatment I had see the risks as:

Surgery - very small risk
Radiotherapy - slightly more risk such as damage to heart and lungs
Chemotherapy - really nasty, far worse than just hair falling out
Hormone treatment - nasty effects such as causing cancer of the uterus, but one can stop at any time.

We therefore concentrated merely on emotional / faith issues and preparation for the surgery, ignoring the later treatments until the surgery was complete. We tried to spend about 10 hours in prayer and considering God's provision and goodness for every hour we spent thinking or learning about cancer. It may seem strange, but I think that ratio was correct.

Before surgery one has to face the possibility of death, and spend time in prayer. To do this we reviewed our lives. Some challenges we faced were:

• How can one claim the promises on Malachi chapter three if ones finances aren't right in God's sight
• James chapter 5 verse 16 says "the earnest prayer of a righteous man has great power and produces wonderful results."
  
• John chapter 12 says we must pray according to God's will. We must clear out selfish motives.
• Colossians chapter 4 verse 12 records how Epaphrus "wrestled" in prayer. We need to learn how to pray that earnestly.
  

John Piper says "you waste your cancer if you treat sin as casually as before". Only when we were clear on these issues could I peacefully allow Jan to go to surgery. Between surgery and the next consultation I want to learn as much as possible about follow up treatments.

So far I only have two regrets:

• We took the decision on lumpectomy versus mastectomy with poor preparation. It was not explained that lumpectomy almost always has follow on radiotherapy. However I suspect we would have made the same decision, but options and relative risks were not discussed sensibly beforehand.
  
• I had not researched surgery options until after surgery started. Only that day did I learn of alternatives such as carbon nanotube or laser surgery, ROLL versus WGL and ELIOT to almost completely remove the risks from radiotherapy. But in discussing with Jan we agreed these were esoteric new treatments for which we would probably have to travel abroad, and even had we known about them beforehand we would probably not have taken them up. I am using initials to save time in this blog. Anyone suffering with cancer can look them up in Google for more information.
  

So we rest trusting in God's support through this, and will continue to place more importance on our fellowship with him than worry about cancer.