And the Saga Continues... Cancer?

I've spent the last five days writing about the ups and downs and the amazing miracle that our son Rylan has become. I spent time telling about the valleys and the mountaintops where God has showed up and once again been the hero of our story. Yesterday, I rushed things a bit in my post, and sped up the story so that I could write a bit about what happened on Monday. But this time, it wasn't Rylan, it was Marci.

When Rylan was born, our Doctor removed a large mole near the site of the C-Section. I hadn't really given the mole much thought, but Marci sure had. Several times during Rylan's time in the NICU, it was always in the back of her mind. For some reason, I guess woman's intuition that something was wrong with it, and obviously she was scared. I actually asked about it and was told that results would take at least two weeks because they always send moles off to some expert, mole lab place to be read by mole professionals, I guess. So we waited...

On Monday, I was sitting in our TV room with Rylan sound asleep on my chest when our friend Sarah called. She is our Doctor's PA and she was calling to check in on Marci's blood pressure. I told her that the BP was still up a bit, but to be honest, Marci was more concerned by the fact that we had not heard from the "Mole Experts" yet. She promised to call them and get a verbal and would call us back.

A couple of hours went by and she called. Marci answered the phone, it was Sarah. I heard Marci change from her usual bright, happy self, to a scared composure. When she got off the phone, she looked at me and said, "I HAVE CANCER". She immediately got up and dialed her mom. I put the baby down and went through the house after her. As you can imagine, she was a basket case and me being the man I am, was confused. I hugged her and she cried. I asked what did Sarah tell her and she told me the following diagnosis:

Atypical Displaysia with Margins of Melanoma

GOOD GRIEF!!! I thought to myself. What else could we face this week?

I asked her what it meant and she was too upset to say anything. She told me I had to call our surgeon friend that we grew up with because he knew about it and would do the surgery if needed. Of course, I called Eric and left him a message.

For the next half hour, Marci and I had a whole range of emotions. I'm not going to go to in depth here, but I can tell you we talked about everything from "What have we done to be punished like this?" All the way to the other side of the spectrum which even included death and the future. This was a very, very, very dark place that the enemy obviously used to his advantage.

All I could do was start praising God for what He had done for us in the life of our son, and how He's still on the throne and he's not leaving us anytime soon. But, the question always goes back to :

"Why God? Why Me?"

I remembered all too well asking God, why our little baby? But I also remembered God healing him and giving us a miracle.

Marci's mom showed up in a little while, and we all talked about it. Marci was terrified, and I'd be lieing if I said I wasn't. I was afraid of what my wife might have to face which included everything from surgery to chemotherapy. A billion different thoughts and emotions ran through my head at light speed.

About an hour later, our surgeon friend called. The first thing he told me was to not be afraid because this is not as bad as it seems. He told me that this is probably just a mole that may be in transition between benign and cancerous, but it's not a true blue melanoma. It has melanoma tendencies on one of the borders, so that have to treat it like a melanoma and remove 1cm of skin around the entire site. Before he got off the phone, he told me to have Marci at his office tomorrow so he could do the surgery Wednesday morning and be done with it.

After I hung up, I felt a whole lot better about the whole thing. He gave me hope that it really isn't a big deal and he'd take care of it. BUT, Marci on the other hand was still an emotional wreck. The way she saw it, she is a 32 year old woman with cancer cells detected on her body. The sad thing is, she was right. No matter how "Small of a Deal" it was, it was still cancer cells.

On Tuesday, Marci's mom took her to Eric's office while I watched the boys. Eric talked to her and explained it a little better. When she got home, she felt a little better about it, but knew that in the morning, she'd be having surgery.

This morning at 7:30, Eric removed 1cm of skin from the entire perimeter of where the mole was located. The outlook we were given is 99.9% chance of no other cancer will be detected in the excised skin. However, even if its only a 0.1% chance, we still worry, and will be for the next two weeks. So, I would really appreciate your prayers while we wait. I know and have personally witnessed miracle after miracle in the life of my son over the past couple weeks and I know that God will do one here too.

All day long, I just can't help but keep thinking that God is just adding to the testimony that we are living right now. And, I can't keep from thinking that Rylan saved Marci's life because he was born before the mole could turn into a full fledged melanoma and be removed. What if Rylan was born same time next year? What if we had never even tried for another child? Once again, I am reminded that Rylan is not only a miracle baby, but a life saver.