I have described the days of cancer as a roller coaster ride. After hearing of my mother’s diagnosis of metastatic breast cancer just two and a half years after my husband’s cancer diagnosis, I felt like Alice falling down the hole as described in the book, Alice in Wonderland. Unlike Alice, my life was no fantasy. The only wonder of my life was “wondering” how I would endure each day.

The year of 1990 had been fairly good for the first six months. My husband, Slick, had felt well enough to enroll back in seminary and even go on a week-long mission trip to Pennsylvania in the spring. We were able to have a fun camping trip in the mountains of Arkansas with cool temperatures in the caves.

Unfortunately, the upward ride on the roller coaster ended; and our descent into that black hole began.

In the fall, Slick’s doctors discovered that the cancer was spreading to other organs in his body. They had tried him on an experimental drug treatment which did not work. So, they suggested another drug. During the previous year, he had endured several weeks of radiation for the two tumors on his lung. The side effects of the new experimental drugs included possible numbness to a person’s toes and fingers. After taking one dose of the new drug, the numbness began. It quickly spread upward from his fingers and toes to the middle of his chest. Perhaps, the radiation treatments he had endured the previous year had done some damage; the doctors were puzzled as to the swift spreading of the numbness. No one knows to this day. Slick went from being able to walk at the end of November to a cane the next week, to a walker the second week, and then to a wheelchair by the third week. He could no longer feel any parts of his body from his chest down. Movement, stability, and bodily functions become extremely difficult when you have no feeling in your body. Longer hours with more personal caregiving was needed by professionals during the day and me after working at my job and caring for our son.

The darkness of his disease fell down upon both of us during those weeks. Hope was being lost for the remission of his cancer. Yet, we held on.

However, he was ready to go home to Arkansas where our families lived.

God is so good to provide for us when we do not even know what we need.

My mother had felt physically well enough, in the midst of her chemo treatments, to find us a house to rent that had a wheelchair ramp already built; and the house was in a good neighborhood.

The agency I worked for transferred me to the nearest office in Arkansas so I could continue to have health insurance and a salary.

The daycare at my mother’s church, Park Hill Baptist Church, in North Little Rock, had an opening for our son, Justin, to attend during the day.

Friends in Texas helped us pack the belongings we would need upon arriving in Arkansas.

Medical providers were found and were ready when we arrived in our home, including home health services.

We settled into our new house and city the best we could in January 1991. The necessities were unpacked in the house. I started my new job. Justin attended his new daycare. Home health came to help take care of Slick.

Then, we fell even further down the deep hole.

Two weeks after arriving at our new home, my father-in-law was diagnosed with colon cancer.

There were no other words or feelings left for this. A new place to live, a new office, a four-year-old, no friends close by, no church home, and THREE immediate family members with cancer.

Can I help you understand all of this? I really hope not, because it would mean you have reached the absolute end of your own strength. And I’m sorry.

ALONE!

That is what I felt.

Even with people around me, I felt alone. I had never faced this much heartache for so many people before in my life. I felt like I had cried all the tears in my body; yet, they continued to flow.

I was responsible to care for my husband and my son. I wanted very much to help my mother and my father-in-law.

There was not one person I felt could understand this much heartache. My daughter had died six years previously, and now all of this! No one in my circle of friends or acquaintances had walked through a journey like this and could counsel me with wisdom. Alone.

BUT GOD!

ALWAYS GOD!

He was there in my darkest of darkest days. I had no words for Him, only tears. But He knew everything I felt. He never left me alone!

“The LORD is the one who goes ahead of you; He will be with you. He will not fail you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed.” Deuteronomy 31:8

“When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they will not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be scorched, nor will the flame burn you. For I am the LORD your God, The Holy One of Israel, your Savior.” Isaiah 43:2-3a

Through the waters, through the rivers, through the fire, and through all three at the same time, you are NEVER alone when God is with you.

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