Hey all!
How is your summer going? Mine has been so busy! Yesterday we finished printing the redline copies of The Key to Her Heart, and some of my beta readers got their copies, finally! It's a funny feeling to hold in your hands a print copy of something you have been working on the computer forever. It is like it is real. And you realize in that moment that you made it happened. That moment you become geddy and a little crazy. You feel like jumping up and down, and finally you give a little squeal out of pure delight. It is happening! Wow! How could it be? Then you think again and say it once more to yourself, "I did this.". It feels indescribably awesome. The other thing that goes through your mind is that this was the easy part. Now comes the really hard stuff.
Getting this book out there by November fifth is going to be no sort of a miracle and actually having people buy it and read it, that will definitely be a miracle. But hey, I'm up for interventions from God-- That's kinda been my life.
This book is no less in need as I was. Maybe that's the coolest part. I can't do this on my own. In the middle of editing it my life fell apart, and my body rebelled, and once more it was God who put me back together again.
I don't know how much I have shared about my life, but from before birth my life has depended on God taking over and overcoming what 'should' have happened to me. I've fought illness since being in utero. By all rights I should have been miscarried.
After birth, my parents had me at the doctors at least once a week, and that is not an exaggeration. I carried a bacteria that antibiotics just didn't get rid of and I was sick.
As a little child I was abused-- not by my parents. Later as a young adult faced other forms of abuse (not smoking, alcohol or drugs even though that is in my genetics), but then at twenty-three I decided no more, and I became a survivor.
At twenty-five I married the most wonderful man on the face of the planet, and at twenty-nine found out I was in liver failure. Deciding to go completely natural was a complete gamble, but I was up for it, so I dived in. Three years later, and about ten thousand dollars later, the good news was my liver, while it would never be completely better, was more than functional.
Five years after that I had a colonoscopy and found I had over a thousand tumors. It's something called FAP. It's genetic, and my kids had a 50% chance of having it. Again God come through (if you couldn't see he has already several times in this story) none of my children inherited it from me.
For six months I did everything out there, I could find, naturally, but when my doctor checked me again I just had more. At that point the choices were grim. If one has 100 tumors they are said to have 100% chance of cancer. I had THOUSANDS and had no cancer.
But remember the liver-- The chances of me surviving a 6 to 8 hour surgery where about 50/50. When you have four children and life those aren't the best odds, and then you are talking about me-- Miss super non-interventionist and don't like needles (and they don't like me either) and don't do medical model anything and like my all natural organic lifestyle. Heck at this point I hadn't taken an antibiotic in more than eighteen years! I wouldn't even take an aspirin or pain reliever.
But the problem was if I didn't have the surgery my chances of surviving five years were nil --as in there was a 90% chance I would be dead before forty. This time it took some real praying. I had prayed and watched God heal me many times. I lived on God interventions.
God and I have always had this interesting relationship since when I was a kid and facing things-- you don't want to know about. He kinda took over my upbrining-- I can't explain it. It's kinda neat - kinda weird, and most people would think I was making it up, but I'm not. It was God that saved me out of the abuse and began directing my life even when I fought him-- which I always did. I guess it's just the way he made me or something... I don't know. He can judge. If he tells me to change I will otherwise I've got other things to focus on.
Anyway, back to the story, by this time I'd been praying for nine months, and my body wasn't better. In fact because of the poisons my colon was throwing off I couldn't eat, and other organs were starting to have trouble-- including my liver. I prayed like no other, but God was only saying one thing. Have the surgery and trust Him to take care of me.
Believe me! I needed ALOT of convincing. I knew a few people that had had their colon removed. I knew I would lose the ability to digest my raw veggies that I loved so much. I'd have to be on an absolutely fiber free diet for months. You have to understand, I am not on the Standard American Diet.
I am a vegetarian.
I LOVE -- repeat LOOOOVVVE raw vegetables-- that, nuts, seeds, and popcorn are my favorite foods. My other favorite food is strawberries. I do some kefir and greek yogurt, and cheese. That's my diet. Let me explain. I knew that I would have to give up all these foods and possibly never be able to have them again. Surgery to me was not an option. Nine months is how long it took to convince me, and even then I was shaking in my shoes.
I drove my doctors crazy along the way. My doctor here in town was brought to tears as I explained my reservations. He's the one that showed me the statistics. He explained at any moment one of the tumors could become cancerous, and then it would spread quickly and my life would be over. My doctor at the hospital was so frustrated because I refused to do an epidural when I finally did agree to surgery.
I'd given birth to three children, and there was no way with them I was going to do medicine. Why the hell would I let them stick a needle in my back for this? I stuck to my guns, but in June we went on a trip to my home state-- California. While we were there, God got real clear with me. He told me in no uncertain terms I either did the surgery or I died. No one else could really get that in my head. "Alright God," I bargained a little, "But you have to have me survive, first, and second I don't want to do it until August. Give me the summer to enjoy the fruit trees and my veggies. And it has to be done my way-- No cancer because you know me, and you know I won't do chemo or radiation. You have to give me help for the kids. God the real big thing-- There's no way their going to put that needle in my back!" Now mind you I was so sick I could barely eat a fresh peach without total pain. I still did. I still had all the strawberries I could get my hands on, and then I'd spent the next hours running into the bathroom twenty to thirty times and my stomach going in twisted circles.
Actually I was never without pain. Even knocked out at the colonoscopy back in November I about jumped off the table when the doctor hit one of the tumors and from that point on I watched the screen in horror seeing there was not a place there wasn't a tumor. I knew in that moment what I was going to have to do.
So fast forward to August 14, 2007. I arrived at the hospital before eight in the morning. They had to poke me seven times, and finally decided to half way knock me out to get the I.V. in. The doctor came in cursing because I had refused the epidural, and though I was suppose to be out-- I wasn't quite. I got to hear her! "She really doesn't know what's she doing." She groaned in her brash way with a few swear words thrown in for good measure. If I had been more awake I probably would have snickered.
By the way I knew exactly what I was doing, and if I was going to do this, this was how it would be done. Oh I forgot to mention I am allergic to just about every pain medication out there-- all except morphine! And the times I'd been knocked out they really had trouble waking me up, and I'd never been put under for as long as six hours, let alone the nine the surgery ended up taking. So this was a huge chance on my part, and for the doctors everyone knew there was a real chance they would have an allergic reaction on their hands. That was probably the biggest risk of all, and the scariest thing for me. I'd had reactions all my life. There were reasons I did not take medications and stuck with my natural lifestyle. Simply put it was much safer!
Believe it or not, ten hours later I woke up without pain with a morphine drip that I could control by button on my I.V. I was not in pain. Let me say that again. I woke up without pain. That fact alone shocked everyone including me. Six o'clock that night after fifty stitches in my belly, and more than that in my putatis, and stitches inside me I was not in pain.
Three days later I could move and sleep and walk without any medication. Four days after that I came home.
Six weeks later the pain of them taking the stitches out of my butt almost made me pass out! But I made it through. For three months I was fiber free. I ran strawberries through my Vita Mix and then ran them through cheesecloth so I could drink them. I made veggie juice with my juicer, and then slowly between three and six months began adding foods back in.
Six years later I've been back to my normal Cat diet for years-- nuts, seeds, popcorn, all the veggies I can eat, cheese quesadillas on corn tortillas because I am gluten intolerant, and strawberries! And I am so stoked because since that summer my peach trees haven't had peaches until this summer! Oh, I can't wait! Think of it, a peach without pain! Oh! I am so looking forward to that.
My point for this story-- is God directed me and brought me through that just like now. Do you really think it was my idea to do this? I am a complete techno fob! Crowds are not my thing either. I am a quiet little (well not so little either) opinionated homeschooling mom who just happened to write stories that 'someday' I would publish-- maybe. Then once more God kicked my butt. He really has a habit of doing that-- It's for my good, I know, but it's not so fun-- Except this time, well it is alot less painful-- so far. The rest of this journey? I have no clue. He told me to do this. So He's the one that has to direct me. I am just here, obeying. Sometimes I even smile about it. And the biggest surprise is you. Actually reading my posts. Who would have thought? That always gives me a smile :) <-- That's something new I learned recently. Have an awesome day! Keep reading! I'll keep you up on the journey.
And God for his part will intervene like he has always in my life-- except this time it might even be fun!
Cat out.
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