melanoma wife: Are you a Christian?

LEARN THE ABCDEF'S OF MELANOMA!!! EARLY DETECTION IS THE KEY!

Monday, September 20, 2010

Are you a Christian?

So today I cleaned out Marcus' truck, put new tags on it and was attempting to get it ready for his dad to borrow...but it wouldn't start...so we will have to work on that later...but the whole time I was cleaning all his stuff out I was fine...until it wouldn't start..then for whatever reason, that is when I got upset and started to cry..why I have no clue...so I cried sitting in the driveway for a few minutes, got myself under control and drove-headed home with a Sonic cheeseburger and tots and cherry, vanilla dr.pepper and began my quiet time...when I opened my Daily Devotional for today I was so amazed....today it is about "What is a Christian?" you can read by clicking the link here... http://cotr.com/Devotions/september/sep20.pdf
Since Marcus has passed, I have felt so torn inside about the Christian journey. Before his death, I was always so focused on him and prayin he would get well, I never really paid attention to anyone else, but it seems that lately I am so frustrated with people who claim to be Christians, but show no Christ like qualities outside of church or bible study. I know Jesus is my Lord and Savior and I strive to live for Him everyday and do what He says...I am not perfect, but I try to be obedient and I pray that people see Christ in me. It just seems more and more I am seeing people who claim to be Christians, but they are constantly negative, gossiping, judging or condemning others....and I think they are missing the boat. That is why I love the song attached by Amy Grant...the lyrics truly say it all..so please take the time to listen. Each one of us has the opportunity to begin a new history today and start new...clean slate....Phil 3:13"Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead."

When I meet someone I want them to see Christ in me and know, without a doubt, that I AM A CHRISTIAN in every sense of the word. I want them to know that I will love them like Christ does, and I will lead, guide, help, etc...without judging, condemning or gossiping about them behind their backs...and I will try everyday to be obedient to God-as He instructs in the bible. None of us are perfect and we will make mistakes, but I think if we all just tried a little harder to be Christ like in every step, we would bring a lot more people to Jesus.

Thank you again to everyone that calls/emails/texts to check on me and the girls. Your support and prayers always mean the world to me. I know we are loved and I am forever grateful. <3

1 comment:

Unknown said...: Mindy, Mindy---I really don't know why I ever even bother to respond to your post because I always say the same thing: You are such an inspiration to so many people! You were when standing by Marcus side - and even now! You are that wonderful amazing person that GOD chose you Mindy - chose you to be with MARC until death, but more important to have his children, because He knows you are and will, even with Marcus in Heaven, continue to be the wonderful person and Mother that you have been. The one that Marcus chose and God chose to be that same special someone.
I love you and I believe in you! Hugs and kisses to you and those precious girls.....and this post just may be 'why' Marc's truck didn't start today.
I love you always - no matter what.
Aunt Kel; September 20, 2010 at 9:45 PM

Post a Comment

how it all began-the "mole" story

well, just for those that don't already know-here is how this journey began. it all started with a little mole that marcus had since birth, on his thumb. in early 2007, i noticed that it had started to change-it was bigger and part of it was black and part was brown-i really didn't know much about melanoma, but i remember the way it looked-it reminded me of the mole on my niece's foot that a dr. removed when she was small, because he said if they didn't remove it, most definitely it would turn cancerous when she went through puberty. ANYWAYS, so i began nagging sweet hubby to go get it looked at. of course, he kept saying, "it's no big deal, i have had this mole since i was born-it's fine". so life went on.

well, hubby works with his hands since he is a machinist, and he bumped the mole-it bled-it grew bigger. a few months later, he bumped it at work AGAIN-it bled-it grew bigger-and now it actually started to bother him. it was sensitive.

one day out of the blue he called me from work-and asked me to make an appt. for him to go to the dr. to get the mole removed. THANK GOD! so of course i got right on that phone and made him an appt. first call to his current primary care phys. was a joke-they couldn't see him for at least another week or so because they were only seeing flu patients on fridays (the only weekday hubby has off) and didn't feel his mole was anything to fret about! well, i sure thought it was and called my primary care phys.-she had no problem seeing him on friday like he wanted!

sure enough, once he saw her, she didn't like the looks of the mole and immediately sent him to a dermatologist. and only by God's hand guiding-did she decide to NOT wait 3-6 months for a dermatolgist in beaumont to get an opening-but she sent him to a dr. in mid-county-that she didn't even know-she had just received his business card in the mail the week before-and decided since he could work hubby in so quickly-that he was the ONE!!! THANK YOU GOD!!!!

well, the next week came-marcus went to the dermatologist-wanting to get that mole removed!! to his surprise-the dr. wanted to biopsy it-he didn't like the looks of it either. (do you see a pattern here? sweet wife was on to something !) he talked the med. asst. lady into cutting as much of the mole off as she could-and she did-we later found out that she removed all the cancer from the thumb with that biopsy! one week later, we were told that the biopsy showed malignant melanoma and they sent us straight to MD Anderson in Houston!!!! talk about scary!

the medical oncologist explained that the type of cancer he had was called superficial spreading melanoma-and it liked to spread to the lymph nodes-so he suggested a partial amputation of the thumb-to make sure he got all the cancer-and a sentinal node biopsy-to see which, if any lymph nodes had cancer- Marcus wanted to save his thumb-so that is what they did. the dr. removed the margin around what was left of the mole-and took a skin graft from the side of his stomach to rebuild the thumb. this all healed very well.

they did the sentinal node biopsy and found that there was one lymph node under his arm that had cancer-it ended up having 20 cells in it-so they suggested he remove all the lypmh nodes from under his arm. he did this and all the other nodes came back CANCER FREE!!!!!!!

now they also suggested he do 4 weeks of high dose interferon to kill any cells that may have gotten loose from that node-to prevent this monster from coming back. they also want him to do 11 months of the interferon shots-but we don't know how far he will go with those. all depends on how sick they make him-and if they are anything like the high dose-he may only go 2 weeks.**MARCUS COMPLETED 4 WEEKS OF HIGH DOSE INTERFERON AND DID THE SHOTS 3/WEEK FOR ABOUT 3 MONTHS BEFORE HE STOPPED**

we later discovered that once the cancer has spread to lymph nodes closest to the mole, it is considered stage III-no one ever really told us this-we had to learn on our own.***UPDATE-8-31-09 LUNG METS WERE DISCOVERED SO MARCUS WAS UPGRADED TO STAGE IV***
***AFTER IL-2 AND SEVERAL CHEMO COMBOS, MARCUS LOST HIS BATTLE 4-1-2010. MELANOMA SUCKS!!!***

this is a brief outline of the "mole" story-hope it was easy to follow-and hope it makes everyone think twice about their moles!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! PLEASE LEARN ABOUT MELANOMA-IT IS NOT "JUST" SKIN CANCER!!!!!

melanoma wife

OUR FAMILY

LEARN THE ABCDEF'S OF MELANOMA!!! EARLY DETECTION IS THE KEY!

Learn more about Melanoma and share the knowledge with others

Monday, September 20, 2010

Are you a Christian?

1 comment:

Facebook Badge

About Me