Day 12 Looking the devil in the face!

Yesterday was my first visit with the colorectal surgeon.  In spite of my ramblings yesterday, I like him, I like his staff and I especially like that he and Dr. Manji had already spoken and discussed my case before I saw him.
I was asked to bring all my medical records with me to this meeting.  One of them was color shots from the colonoscopy.  I have put off looking at those pictures until getting ready for this appointment. 
My sister Jan's late husband who was a physician said that looking at cancer was like looking at the devil.  I agree.  For some reason I always thought of a tumor as just a lump or a bump.  How naive of me.  It's way more than that.  Cancer is ugly and it's black and it's evil and it's rotten and it's invasive and I hate it.  It is living destruction that wants to grow and to consume all that is good and healthy about the body and I want desperately to deprive it of any thing that feeds it's growth.  I want to starve it and hit it with everything I can nutritionally to kill it until it's removed.  It is the devil himself. 
So, initial plans are set for that removal.  First another cat scan and a visit to a cardiologist to make sure the heart is okay to withstand the surgery.  It is.  I am strong and healthy other than that cancer.  Then to schedule a time.  The surgeon will remove a large portion of the large intestine on the right side and reattach the small intestine.  It will require 3 to 5 days in the hospital.  At that time, they will take 10 lymph nodes.  If lab tests show they are clean and the cancer hasn't perforated the colon wall, then I'm good to go.  If not, then there will be chemo involved. 
I have to admit I came home more than a little depressed after that.  Not that it wasn't all real to me before, but when everything is such a whirlwind, the purpose for all the activity sort of gets lost in the activity itself.  Staying busy running from one appointment to another has kept the reality of the fact that I have a serious disease pushed to the back of my mind.  I have been focusing only on what I have to do at that very minute.  I do have a tough time concentrating on much of anything and it's sort of like I don't want to let my mind slow down long enough to let those worrisome and negative little thoughts creep in.  If I do, they might grow and take over and I can't let that happen. 
But God, in all His goodness, chose yesterday to bring my precious grandson, Logan, home from college for the summer.  What a joy to cook for him.  I always have his favorite oven barbqued ribs and marinated cucumbers as his first meal when he gets home.  He talked to me on the phone on his way home, stopped by here first and then I got to visit with him and Mel when I took his dinner down to him.  On his way home he posted on FB, "I walk by faith and not by sight."
Wasn't that a great reminder for me? 

Today I'm asking that you hold up in prayer Jan Ramsey Stark.  I mentioned Jan to you before.  She lives in Wimberley.  After defeating brain cancer and uterine cancer, she is now fighting cancer in her stomach.  Please pray for her complete recovery, that the cancer is defeated in such a profound way that it will never touch her body again.  Thanks Prayer Buddies.

And most of all, thank You, God, for another blessed and healing day.