Friday, August 20, 2010

God's Neverending Hand in My Life

On Saturday, we attended a "Brain Tumor Survivor" conference at CHOC and one of 
the presenters was Dr. Loudon, Lily's lifesaver and neuro-surgeon. We hadn't 
seen him in about a year and BOY did a flood of emotions come rushing back. He 
is very straightforward and tells it like it is, so when he did his 
presentation, I got a slap of reality and facts that I guess I had swept under 
the rug and didn't want to think about. Also other presentations, talked about 
the many after-effects of chemo like infertility, fatigue, vision loss, memory 
loss, etc and then they had a lunchtime panel of cancer survivors along with 
their parents. It was a very informative conference but it was also very 
sombering. There was a lot for me to process especially the new fear that there 
is a possibility that Lily could have a secondary cancer, a small chance but not 
something that I hope I will have to deal with in the future. So I was feeling 
kind of morose after the conference and on Sunday I went to church and BOY was 
God looking out for me! I was sitting there at church and this family went up 
for the offering and they looked SO familiar and it turned out the mother and 
daughter were at the conference and were part of the lunchtime panel. So after 
church I walked up to them and asked them if they were at CHOC yesterday and 
introduced myself and told them a little about Lily. The daughter, was diagnosed 
with a brain tumor when she was 5 and is now 15 and in remission! She is such an 
inspiration! The mom shared her journey with me and when I was telling her about 
Lily, she offered some insight since she knew exactly what I was going through 
and shared some of her experiences, as much as a 15 minute conversation could 
fit in. She gave me her phone number and told me that if I ever needed to talk 
or had questions, to give her a call; which I am sure I definitely will. I am 
just SO amazed at how God shows me that He is there and taking care of me and 
when I am feeling low, He makes sure to send me signs to let me know that there 
is HOPE!