The Story Continues...Miracles To ME!

Isaiah 26:9 (NIV) “My soul yearns for you in the night; in the morning my spirit longs for you. When your judgments come upon the earth, the people of the world learn righteousness.”

Miracles to ME

The staff that I had surrounding me during my hospital stay was quite amazing. My office oncologist paid me a quick visit when I first got to my room after the femur surgery. I would then be turned over to his colleague oncologist who works at the hospital, Dr. Biscuit. (I will not use real names!) 

Besides Dr. Slim, the surgeon who did my leg, one of my miracles was my oncologist who showed up at the right time in my journey. Remember the ER doctor gave me an oncologists name? It was Dr. Biscuit, I did not see him for my initial consultation. Dr. Bradley was the office oncologist who put me on oral chemo. Dr. Biscuit was all about IV chemo being the ONLY healer and I only met him AFTER I was in the hospital and already a patient with a protocol with Dr. Bradley. 

Dr. Biscuit and I never saw eye-to-eye in the beginning. His philosophy was one thing (slaughter/drugs/chemo), mine was the other (natural)! And you know who was whom, and you probably get a picture of who won. Dr. Biscuit is the one who WRONGLY put me on a stool softener, a steroid, something for indigestion, just a bunch of unnecessary drugs! After a bad night of stomach upset, (I won’t go into the gruesome details) I had a talk with the nurse about the DRUGS I was taking, she then put me in touch with Dr. Biscuit to straighten this pill mess out! 

I DID NOT need a stool softener! I drank tea in the morning, a NATURAL stool softener. He also had me drinking Ensure, another form of laxative! I told him NO, along with my pain meds, I wanted my vitamins A, B12, C, D3, and my oral chemo, that was it! It got changed very quickly I might add. Too many people just accept that the doctor knows what is best. A doctor DOES NOT know your body OR how it will respond. My body KNEW something was wrong with all the drugs and it let me know, too!

Then came Dr. Leeb, he was a radiologist. After a lengthy discussion with Dr. Biscuit, my husband, son and myself, Dr. Leeb would be the administrator of the radiation. NOT TO MY BREAST, to the spreading pain/cancer in my shoulder, and hopefully put a halt to what was spreading in my hip, the one that had surgery. The other hip, so he says, is too far gone, but we’ll start. Okay, all in agreement! Five days of dragging me across the bed to the gurney (in pain) to the x-ray table, then drag me to the radiation slab, then back to the gurney and back to my bed/room. This was hell in itself, but I endured. I’d also endure ten more days of radiation on my leg, from the nursing home.

My room number was 3203 by the way - my birthday - 3 23. Another top question was, ‘what is your pain level?’ On meds it was a four-five, on the dragging me all around days, the pain was at a 7-9. MY BOWELS ARE FINE!  Yeah, I was tired of that one but… little did I know, a reaction to the oral chemo I was taking, was vomiting, diarrhea, lack of appetite, and skin changes. Peeling ugly pink skin. NONE of which I had, and that PUZZLED the doctors. I was in the rare 30 percentile of ‘not affected’. Good to know two weeks into the DRUG intake.

After the doctor and I were on the same page, we got along better. He came in one day with his how are you doing, any changes banter, then he said something, yes, to ME a miracle was taking place. His exact words were, “After reviewing the x-rays and bloodwork, and upon physical inspection, it seems that the oral chemo is working. Whatever we’re doing is working.” My lymph nodes were shrinking, my tumor was shrinking, my x-rays were showing physical signs of my leg healing also. All was good. Little did they know that not for one moment was I attributing the Chemo drugs to being the reason I was healing. 

You see, all of that was happening BEFORE I started the Oral Chemo, but the OC I believe sped up the healing, along with my vitamins! I may be onto something. We had a discussion about my protocol and he had mentioned that the people in Europe reacted the same way to the Oral Chemo as my body was reacting. In America, 70% of people were having adverse reactions and THAT is why they were not recommended. I told him it all had to do with my diet and nutrition! His comment? “Are you going for a Nobel Prize here? A conference of doctors have already surmised it was the diet but we hit a dead end.” HA! I’m onto something friends! Believe it or not, I was having a positive effect on him also. His final words to me on his last visit was ‘Godspeed’! 

Another incident I had was with a wound care nurse. She was sent to change the dressing on my breast. As I had told you all in previous posts, that my breast leaked and therefore after bathing it with saltwater, I placed a non-stick gauze over it to protect my garments. Since entering the hospital I had not changed the gauze and I knew I was in the best place for it to be seen and taken care of. I told her it was ugly before she proceeded to take off the gauze. She said, “Oh my.” I was taken aback and asked, “Is it that bad?” She replied, “Not at all, it looks GOOD. What were you doing for it? I know you were taking excellent care of it, that’s for sure.” A deep sigh of relief washed over me. I told her about the saltwater bathings. She agreed that it looked well taken care of and that she had seen much worse case scenarios with breast cancer patients, so yes, to keep doing what I was doing. We’ll take the best care of it we can here, she said, and they did take the best care THEY could. 

Then there was the Palliative nurse, Jan. She was the nurse sent to be on my side and didn’t allow the doctors to bully me, but remember she works FOR the hospital. She was a semi-tall sweet woman with short bobbed blonde hair. Her voice was very soothing and relaxing and I felt comfortable telling her anything. She visited me daily, allowed me to cry on her shoulder, offered options to heal, and didn’t allow doctor Biscuit full reign of the floor.

One day I was sitting in the recliner (as opposed to being bedridden) and Jan upon seeing me, smiled, she was pleased with my progress since seeing me the day before lying in the bed. She said to me, “I have a little something for you,” she put out her hand and offered me a small book and went on to say, “This randomly fell onto my desk yesterday out of the blue as I was going through stuff on my shelf. I looked at it and thought 'who would benefit from this, Joni' that’s who.” It was a book of daily prayers and affirmations. I smiled, I cried and offered her a hug. Such a dismal reason to be in the hospital but God saw to it that Light was brought to my door on a daily basis! I tried to offer the book back before I left the hospital, thinking it was on loan but she said, “Oh no, you keep it, that book was meant for you when it fell on my desk!”

Then there was the visit from a clown. Yes you read it right, my mother-in-law and I were just sitting there chatting and my husband had gone home to shower and in the room walks a clown. “Would you like a visit from me and my friend?” She was holding a stuffed monkey. I had tears in my eyes and exclaimed, “YES! I need a visit to cheer me up, no offense, mom.” Daisybug the clown went on for twenty-five minutes of corny one-liner jokes to make my day. God really does know me and knew what I needed to cheer me up!

The list goes on and on of the miracles that happened those twenty days I was away, and this list is just some of the ten days I was in the hospital! I had wonderful physical therapists who visited daily and would leave me with exercises to do myself and I would leave them with laughter and smiles. That is what made me so strong in ten days to be released. I had attentive nurses and one day an intern stood for an hour detangling my long hair that had gotten itself knotted in just a couple of days.  I was being transformed from immobile to mobile, from bedpan to commode mode, from weary and teary to beautiful laughter and smiling. It was now time to be released. A single flower from my vases was handed to nurses, doctors, interns, physical therapists, home health aides, cafeteria workers who brought me food, and even the cleaning ladies! Anyone who helped me in any way, I gave to them a smile and a gratitude flower. My work here was now complete.

Psalm 95:1-2 "O come, let us sing unto the Lord: let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation. Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving, and make a joyful noise unto him with psalms."