Answered Prayer!

Last week we received some very good news as a result of some hard praying!! Back in November my doctor found some nodules on my thyroid that he felt needed to be biopsied. So, on New Year's Eve I went to an endocrinologist to have the biopsies done. During that appointment the doctor felt that my thyroid showed signs of Hashimoto's Thyroiditis. She did some antibodies blood work to see if this was the case. In the meantime, the biopsies of the nodules were fine, but they did discover one of them was actually a lymph node & it came back showing suspicious cells. They asked me to come back & do another biopsy. We headed back to Southaven for yet another round of biopsies. They took several biopsies from the lymph node as well as my thyroid. We found out that the blood work came back negative for Hashimoto's. After doing the biopsies the doctor talked with us at length about what her & the pathologist were thinking. She said that the pathologist was concerned about the look of the cells because they hadn't seen anything like them up to this point. We had many questions about everything & she was very helpful. She let us know that the best case scenario was that it would be the Hashimoto's Thyroiditis and the worst case scenario was that it was Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma. She said that we would get the results in about a week.

Once we got in the car that day Darren took my hand & prayed. We were both scared! I knew enough to know that NHL was not a death sentence, but anytime you hear the words associated with cancer you can't help but be scared! We tried to enjoy lunch & then drove back home. I felt like I was in a fog or better yet that my life was soon running in slow motion! There were times that I didn't know what to feel. Darren was very supportive & understanding. The week seemed to creep by. Last Thursday I was so nervous waiting on the phone to ring. After calling the doctor 3 times she finally called me. (At first I was told they had the results, but I would have to wait until Friday to get them...this did not sit well with me!). She told me the news I had hoped to hear all week! She said the cells were 99% viable, not smooshed & not disoriented. She said that she & the pathologist both felt very comfortable in saying that they were benign cells. She said that they were going to continue to monitor things & wanted to check everything again in 3 months because the type of cells they discovered were new to them (don't necessarily want to be a trendsetter in modern medicine!). She said that even though my antibodies test came back negative that everything else was consistent with being Hashimoto's Thyroiditis. Hashimoto's thyroiditis is the most common cause of hypothyroidism in the United States. It is a condition caused by inflammation of the thyroid gland. It is an autoimmune disease, which means that the body inappropriately attacks the thyroid gland--as if it was foreign tissue. So, if things stay consistent with the Hashimoto's I will be on a pill for the rest of my life, but that sure beats having chemo & radiation!

I am so overwhelmed at the number of people who were praying for us during this entire ordeal! I have never been on the receiving end of so many prayers, but I am so honored! I learned many things about myself, my faith in God (& my lack thereof) & my family during all of this. A few days before getting the results I opened my Bible & I found the following paragraph that I had written in the back of it...it is from Beth Moore & I found it rather comforting:

"We often see ourselves as having such fragile, breakable souls. We live in fear of that which we are certain and convinced we cannot survive. But as children of God, we are only as fragile as our unwillingness to turn and hide our face in Him. Please know that God has a plan for you- "a plan to give you a future and a hope" (Jeremiah 29:11). And until His plan is revealed and realized, He will hold you just the same."