Short version: My daughter Devon was diagnosed with cancer at 15 (one week before her 16th birthday). She was treated with chemo therapy and surgical removal which created a need for a new knee (prosthesis), and nine years later, through more surgeries, she is considering an amputation at 25 years old. She had every side effect known and many linger to this day which cause handicapping conditions. And through it all she is an awesome testament herself to the love of God in her spirit to handle all of this. Read on if you want the whole scoop....(and my witnessing to God, Jesus Christ, and Mary).
Here we go....(long version):
A little back history: The summer of 2003, is when it all started for us (it obviously started before that as the cancer didn't grow in a week or two but we became aware of our situation in the Summer.) First, we found ourselves in a financial crisis....the property value on the home we built in 1994 had nearly doubled as did our taxes. Two of our largest referral sources for our business had left town and quite honestly I was afraid bankruptcy was looming unless we made some hard changes. Our Accountant was convinced that we could keep the house (with out bankruptcy) if we would cut all of the Kids extra-curricular activities....maybe true since we had four kids! Since the Accountant was my Dad, he knew our intentions when we built the house were to stay in it forever so he was pushing the cutbacks in other areas. I had trouble with this reasoning because although alot of love went into the planning of this house, my kids lives were going to go forward and who knew when our finances would stabilize again. To me....their enjoyment and learning from these activities was more important than my now overpriced home. I felt confident that we could find an equal sized (maybe even bigger?) home in an older neighborhood and fix it up but it was a gamble. As I sat at my vanity, doing my hair, one morning, the stress was too much and I began to cry (not a crier, typically). I was just so frustrated and lost....confused as to which was the right decision - including the concerns of 1.) did I want to have to hear from my Dad for the rest of my life how I screwed up, AND 2.) if we listed the house and tried to keep it clean enough to show - with 4 kids - when, if ever, would it sell in time to pay the fast looming deadlines for the creditors?
So as I sat wallowing in self-pity I decided to ask Mary (yes, the Virgin Mary, Mother of God) what her opinion was, reasoning that she was a mother, what would she do? Again, a little back story - I converted from Lutheranism to Catholicism in 2000 to keep our family unified. I really had no problem with Lutheranism, but had agreed to raise my children Catholic and they were getting old enough to question some things. One of the big differences in Catholicism, of course, is that we pray to Saints and the Virgin Mary to intercede for us - much like when we ask a friend to pray for us. I was not comfortable with this piece of being Catholic yet because, quite frankly, why did I need to ask for intercession when I can go straight to the top myself? I reasoned, if He doesn't want to answer my prayers, then I must not need them answered. However, on that morning, I decide to ask Mary what to do....should I sell the "family" home or cut all the extras?... and no kidding....the doorbell rings! It is Kern Egger, a real estate agent from across the street and she has a probable buyer for my house sight unseen! And she is asking, would we be interested? (She knew nothing of our financial situation or that I was considering selling!) How could we not be after that direct and immediate response to my prayer/question? I believe that would have been the spiritual equivalent to a slap on the Lord's face! So of course...she needs to officially list it and we set an appointment for the couple to view the house. We get an official offer immediately and they want to close in 2 weeks! This is mid July and so we push back to the end of August, after all, we hadn't even looked at the market yet! Within 2 weeks, after a few refusals to our offers, one is finally accepted!
Even this house quest wasn't without drama - we were trying to stay within the kids current school district and we had seen everything available. We were just about to accept an unacceptable alternative when I got online one more time and searched the area. A house came up in the area we wanted but it had another school erroneously listed as its district! I had our agent call the owner and a deal was made - and yes, it was a little larger than the one we were leaving - the growing kids would each have their own rooms! Meanwhile, our house was going through the normal inspections and our buyer wanted us to fix everything - much of it unreasonable - but at the same time, we were getting bids in behind theirs and some were even for more than the appraised price! We were selling this house! (Yes, I think it was a God thing.)
Secondly, Devon had been a ballerina since the age of 4. During June, they do a dance intensive and dance for hours at a time all week long. She started complaining that her "knee" hurt. Well of course it did when you are doing "death drops" in jazz directly onto your knees (without padding). It didn't look different, wasn't red or swollen, and so we had her elevate and ice it every night. She didn't dance in July so it was a good rest period but she was still complaining. However, let me clarify, she was complaining every evening after she had a day at the beach or spent the day running around with friends, jet skiing, being very active...you get the picture and can see why our concern wasn't completely peaked.
So back to the story...we're selling our house and closing the end of August. By the first of August, we decided that we better check out the knee in case there is something wrong that needs to be fixed. We knew it wasn't a break so an X-ray wasn't needed but an MRI might show if there was muscle or ligament damage. Scott took her to a friend that is a local radiologist while I went to work. I remember getting a call from Scott on his way home with her. I was entering items into the computer and really didn't want to be bothered - we were pretty sure it was nothing - and so I was only half listening. The statement that caught my attention was, "We have an appointment at MD Anderson on Thursday." I stopped in my tracks, "Wait, they're acting like its cancer!" "It is cancer!"
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