You can find out, at the age of 30, that you have cancer. Not just any cancer either, but stage 4 colon cancer that has grown through your colon and into your liver.
You can get this news. You can quietly freak out about it while visiting various doctors.
You can cry. You can pray.
You can talk to more doctors. You can learn that stage 4 cancer means that the disease has moved from its original location; it does not mean the loss of all hope like you once thought.
You can decide that the best thing for your family is to relocate back to your home town for as long as it takes to get rid of this disease.
You can be overwhelmed by the kindness of friends, the thoughtfulness of strangers. You can, for possibly the first time ever, physically feel the power of their prayers.
You can make the choice to be thankful. You can praise God for the blessings in your life. You can thank Him that you have a roof over your family's head, an understanding job, and doctors you trust.
You can go through twelve rounds of chemotherapy.
You can have a procedure that cuts off blood flow to the diseased side of your liver so the good side can grow in preparation for surgery.
You can be simultaneously amazed, grateful, and creeped out that the liver can do that.
You can, three weeks prior to the surgery you have been awaiting for nine months, feel not nervous like you thought, but excited. Excited for this final step. Excited to return to normal life.
And you can decide that now is as good a time as any to write about it.
