Getting Better Each Day!

Hello to my dear family and friends,
Thank you all so much for the wonderful cards, blog posts, calls and meals! Each day keeps getting a little better as far as energy and strength. I know with each treatment of F.E.C. it took a little longer to recover. So I am hoping in a few more weeks I will begin to feel strength come back that I have not felt in awhile. Many of you are wondering what's next? Right now the doctor is allowing my body to heal from the chemo and let my white blood cells rise again to a normal level. On November 26th and 27th I will have an MRI and mammogram and ultrasound. This will of course reveal God's awesome healing power through my body because WE ARE BELIEVING that the cancer is gone :) After these tests I will visit with my oncologists regarding the results and the surgery. I will also get a PET scan sometime in December which is a complete scan of your whole body. I am just guessing, but I am thinking the surgery will take place middle to later part of December. If you go back to my very first blog entry I remember joking how "All I want for Christmas is my one left boob"!! Well, how things and priorities have changed!! I think my new song is" All I want for Christmas is my joy and peace"! This has been a battle with a capital "B"!!! Not just a battle of my physical body but of my mind. I praise my God everyday that He walks beside me every step of the way because I could not have gotten through what I did without Him!! Thank you Jesus! Oh, the things God has taught me along this journey and continues to show me each new day. I know some of you have wondered if I will need radiation. I will know that after surgery when the surgeons can test the breast tissue and lymph nodes. If there are 4 or more cancerous cells remaining, radiation is needed. I believe with all my heart and because of your many prayers I will be cancer free. So as far as I am concerned no radiation will be needed - Praise God!! During the last treatment I was overwhelmed with awful thoughts of the cancer coming back or that I would die from it. How the enemy loves to attack when we are at our weakest!! What discouragement and lies straight from the pit! No wonder God had given me so many promises through scripture and people before this even began. What I wanted to share with you is how God has shown me just in the last few days what WORRYING can do to us and effects it has on us physically, mentally and spiritually. I read in Mathew 6:25-27 "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is life not more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your Heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? WOW! How many times I have read that verse but this time it means so much more. Based on that scripture alone this is what I got out of it through some study notes in my Bible:

7 Good Reasons NOT TO WORRY:
1) Math. 6:25 - "The same God who created you can be trusted with the details of your life".
2) Math. 6:26 - "Worrying about your future hampers your efforts for today"
3) Math. 6:37 - "Worrying is more harmful than helpful"
4) Math. 6:28-30 "God does not ignore those who depend on Him"
5) Math. 6:31,32 " Worry shows a lack of faith in and understanding of God".
6) Math. 6:33 "There are real challenges that God wants us to pursue, and worrying keeps us from them."
7) Math. 6: 34 "Living one day at a time keeps us from being consumed with worry".

Then my study notes followed by explaining the difference between worry and concern: " worry immobilizes, but concern moves you to action. I was the queen of worry and how God is putting out that fire!! Worry not only destroys our physical bodies with sicknesses but destroys the very purpose of what God is doing in our lives. It takes us away from what God wants us to focus our attentions on at the present moment. What a freedom we have in knowing that the same God who created our bodies can be trusted with the details of our lives! I still have much to learn in this area and OH I am sure that the devil himself will continue with his lies, but at least I have come to realize that God is in charge of it all - all the days of my life! I look sooooooo forward to giving you all lot's of hugs and spending some good "girlfriend time" over a good cup of coffee or tea. Love you tons!

Dana