Cancer

"Jen McManus?"

"Yes"

"This is Doctor So-and-So, I have results from the lab."

This was the moment I had been stressing and waiting for all week long......Four days earlier I had gone to a dermatologist to look at the acne my face insists on having STILL!!?? I also planned on having her look at a mole. This particular mole had changed a lot during my pregnancy. I had had it looked at 3 years ago and biopsied. It came back negative, the doctor wasn't concerned enough to remove it, and so we haven't really thought about it since then. But at a recent physical, my doctor wanted a dermatologist to look at it. The dermatologist literally FREAKED OUT when she saw the mole, removed it immediately, then proceeded to scare the SHI# outta me with lots of cancer talk. For the next 4 days we waited to hear the results.

"Yes?"

"It is a malignant melanoma tumor. You have cancer."

This is one of the moments everyone has probably thought about at least once. When I hear the "bad news," how am I going to react?

Will I.....Cry? Cuss? Faint? Puke?

My reaction: "Okay." A small word, but there was a lot more going on at that moment. When I heard the words: malignant, melanoma, tumor, and cancer, I found myself immediately praying. Just one other word: Jesus! At that moment when the floor dropped out from under me, I found myself clinging, running, burying myself into one thing: JESUS! And because I did at that moment I was just that.....Okay.

The doctor continued with lots of big words, stats, numbers, doctors, surgeries, and other equally scary things. But I clung to Jesus.

I hung up, went downstairs, and told Adam, "I have cancer."

It's been a couple of days now and we find ourselves just moving forward. Cancer will not suck the joy outta my life right now. I WON'T LET IT. (Well, with God's help and strength I won't let it. I'm not strong enough to do this on my own.) Cancer might have my leg, might take my triathlon, might make me sick, or make me sad here and there. Cancer will not win this one, because Jesus already has!!! So, I'm choosing to not just know or believe those words, but live those words.

Here's the 411 on everything we know right now.

I have a malignant melanoma tumor.

It is at least 1 mm thick. (It could be deeper because that is how much of a sample the doctor took or it could just be that 1 mm)

It's on my thigh on my left leg. (Yup, that's my "good knee." And, yup, that means my other two ugly scars from past surgeries will soon be getting a couple friends.)

I will be having surgery in the next week or so to have the tumor removed. The doctor will also take out a couple lymph nodes to test those for cancer. Then he will do a dye test to check to see if the cancer has spread anywhere else. We will not know what "stage" of cancer I'm in until after the surgery.

I feel great. I'm not sick. I'm still training for my triathlon, but now it's just going to have to be a different one. I was supposed to race Mother's Day and obviously that won't happen now. But I've worked hard so far and am going to continue to train. We would love it if I could race on Labor Day in downtown Austin at the LiveStrong Tri (ironic I know.) Today, I rode my second training ride outside and had an 18.4 mile average, which is SOLID. So solid actually, that I had beaten Adam's last ride. He, of course, went out and beat me back with an 18.8 average. But still. :D

Prayer Requests:

Pray Phil. 4:18 over me. "Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things" Satan wants me thinking about all the what if's and other scary stuff. I refuse to do that! But I need your prayers....

Pray for this upcoming surgery. Pray for the doctors, nurses, surgeons. Pray that this freaking cancer HAS NOT SPREAD!

Pray for my family. Pray that Jesus comforts them during this time of uncertainty.

I will continue to blog about this and update everyone as we go.