Monday, November 21, 2011

God's got my back.

There is nothing more annoying to me than someone coming up to me and claiming that with prayer they know God can heal me, then praying for me, laying hands on me, then feeling disappointed or even accusational of my lack of belief therefore causing the prayer to not work. Now before you go calling me a villain for saying something like this, hear me out. It's definitely not annoying that people care enough about me to pray over me, and it's awesome that they have such faith to believe that God can heal me. What's annoying is that people somehow think that God is so small minded that if I am not healed right there, BOOM on the spot, God has said no. People have said, God is keeping you sick for a reason, and while I don't necessarily believe that God is saying, SaraBeth! You must suffer because if you don't your future will be ALL jacked up! Because I don't think that's how this God of ours works, I do think is that while people are praying for my health, the whole time God IS saying, "I'm already on it". Here's why: From the beginning of all this, by beginning I mean my diagnosis, I believe that this is all coming together so intricately that no person could ever have planned it this perfect. I met with Dr. Patrick Cobb this week (my doctor who will be taking care of my while in Billings, MT) And yet again I was smacked in the face by a big fat "I got this" sign from God. To bring you up to date on the whole "Gods in control" thing I'm ranting about, here are some key points. 1) The fact that my parents made the decision to move to Fort Worth Texas, was extremely huge in getting me diagnosed, as the hippie doctors in Missoula, mt told me I had Colorado tick fever and it was nothing to worry about. 2) going to the hematology/oncology clinic the EXACT DAY that Dr. Boxer, the head doctor over the Severe Chronic Neutropenia registry at the time, was visiting the hospital. What could have taken days or weeks to happen, happened in one afternoon, allowing me to start neupogen (the injection used to treat my disease selling for 300-500$ a shot) free of cost because I was so quickly added to the study of Chronic Neutropenia. 3) Bryce landing the job in Kemmerer, WY, thus prompting my move to be closer to him and moving in with my parents in Rangely, CO, bringing me to Grand Junction CO for a hematologist. 4) This hematologist setting me up with the one transplantist that comes up from Denver, who happened to do his fellowship with the SAME doctor who diagnosed me. 5) the doctor asks me to come to Denver for a CT and possible PET scan, and days later, Bryce gets an email telling him that he gets to take an OSHA certification class in DENVER for four days in January, meaning he would get to be with me since he technically wouldn't be taking off of work. 6) Dr. Cobb, my new doctor, transplanted kids in San Antonio Texas with the same doctor who did my first bone marrow aspiration when I was ten. 7) Dr. Cobb's wife's best friend has a daughter who is my age that also has Severe Chronic Neutropenia. In case you don't realize how nuts that is, let me throw some numbers at you: there is approximately one case of my kind of disease in every 1,000,000 people. I have only one other time met people with my disease and that was at the convention for chronic Neutropenia. This doctor was not only well studied in my disease, but he had read my medical history before even meeting me as a person. It is rare to come accross a doctor who has actually taken a peek into my massive file of medical history before meeting me. This guy cares about his patients. He then proceeded to give me his cell phone number in case I get sick because the answering service is not very good at the cancer center. This means even more to me because I have spent countless nights sick as a dog trying to get ahold of whatever doctor that is on call to tell me to go to the hospital. I realize we have a long way to go before I am healthy, but all of this coming together just adds to my faith that one day, one very soon day, I will know what it's like to live a normal, sickness free life. Moral of the story? Don't always assume that because things aren't working like you think they should, God has said no. God sees the big picture, a picture too big for our minds to see even if we tried. I am a blessed woman.