Hi, Karen!
When I saw your message, I just had to respond (although it's 2:45 a.m., and I should be in bed).
First, Lady, you ain't dead yet! And if you're willing to really fight, you might just live a long life!
My mom has colon cancer. I've been experiencing the emotional roller-coaster of her cancer.
Here are 2 books I bought at Amazon.com, and highly recommend:
A Cancer Battle Plan: Six Strategies for Beating Cancer, from a Recovered "Hopeless Case" by Anne E. Frahm
This author survived despite being sent home to die, after having had all the chemo therapy, radiation and surgery that standard medical treatment had to offer. She got help from a nutritionist and various sources.
Challenge Cancer and Win! Step-By-Step Nutrition Action Plans for Your Specific Cancer
by Kim Dalzell, who's a nutritionist with Cancer Treatment Centers of America. She sounds not only very knowledgable but practical. I'm trying to get my mom to see her ASAP.
This website is able to put you on to more help than standard medicine has to offer. "Standard" medicine is good, but it's NOT all there is!
Obviously, you need more than just books and medical help. We all need to know that, whatever happens, God is in charge, He loves us, and He's not forgetting anything. We have the option of having a relationship with Him. Without Him, we have reason to fear the future. As the song goes, "He's my shelter in the hurricane,.."
What stopped our having a relationship with God in the first place was our turning away from Him, not His turning away from us. What He did about the problem was almost incredible:
- put Himself into a human body,
- got born as a baby
- to a peasant couple
- was born literally in a BARN!
- lived in a small, conquered country on the outpost of the Roman empire,
- and didn't live to see the age of 34.
- He healed incurable diseases, cast out demons, commanded the storm to cease, and it did, and raised a few people from death.
- He spoke with wisdom His opponents never overcame, spoke with compassion to the repentant criminals who were considered the lowest of their society, dared to rebuke the hypocritical, unloving and misguided religious leaders, and claimed to be God incarnate.
- After that, they wanted Him dead! Although He could have prevented it, He allowed men to impale Him on a cross, for the most tortuous death the Roman empire could think of -- because death with permanent separation from God was the penalty for OUR sins, and Jesus Christ took the whole penalty on Himself. He was God, so was able to NOT sin, and was the only sacrifice qualified to really pay for ours. When He died, God had the sacrifice needed to cancel OUR sin debt, forgive us, and make us His children, with an eternal inheritance of Life and hope!
If we accept His payment for our sins, God accepts that TOTAL payment on our behalf, and we then HAVE eternal life! (The Bible, I John chapter 4 or 5)
He won't forget your children, either! If you do have to leave them, that doesn't mean He does! He's a "Father to the fatherless," and gives special care to those who need it. Many stories are told of how God intervenes in our lives. I could tell a few, but... it's 3:11 a.m., and maybe this is enough writing for tonight.
I hope I haven't bored or offended you. But you sounded so desperate, it seemed wrong to not try to help.
By the way, a friend recently told me that she met a lung cancer survivor in the cafeteria at the local CTCA (Zion, Illinois) hospital. Lung cancer is hard to treat, but he's made it for several years, with their help. I'm sure it was an all-out fight.
So don't give up!
Sharon B.