For the past year and a half, I have been receiving maintenance chemotherapy for recurrence of pancreatic cancer. Every week for three weeks, I would go up to our local hospital and get a Gemcitabine drip and then head home again for a fourth week off chemo. For the most part, I was well and functioning in a way that enabled me to live life at a good level. For this, I was truly thankful! We continued to ask God for healing every day, declare the truth of scripture and stay close to Him. Scans remained unchanged, all the disease was stable and under control. Another point of thanksgiving.
But life didn’t continue to run smoothly. By November 2023 there were some early warning signs in my blood tests that the long term chemo was having a detrimental effect on my bone marrow and kidneys. The kidney problem caused my blood pressure to start to climb, something I had never had a problem with in my entire life. I started to feel significantly more tired. Life was beginning to feel more of a struggle, along with the daily adudjustment needed at home as my husband had just been diagnosed with early onset vascular dementia. Our world felt like it was turning upside down. And yet, we still trusted, still prayed, still stayed close to the Lord.
By January of this year, my kidney function deteriorated further and so chemo was stopped- but things continued to deteriorate so quickly that I ended up in critical care with kidney failure and dangerously high blood pressure. After about 10 days I got home, after a bit of a medical struggle to get things under control again. And I started to slowly recover. And the recovery was so much more than I could have imagined. I began to feel really well. I had renewed energy. I started jogging at our local parkrun. It was amazing and truly wonderful. What a blessing. Thank you, Lord!
It was around this time that my newly assigned oncologist phoned me to say that the kidney damage was so severe that it would be too dangerous to give me any more treatment. He was sorry, but this was the end of my treatment. I received the news with peace. I was totally in God’s hands now, and it felt OK to be here- such was the transformation that God had brought about in me over the past nearly four years. The closer I grew to Jesus, the more I believed He wanted me healed. I had a confidence that it would work out.
‘I dont think we need to bother with our planned next scan, Jenny.’ my oncologist said.’ It’s going to either show that the lymph nodes have stayed the same size or they will have started growing again. And it wont change our management. I will be discharging you and asking palliative care to get involved. ‘
‘Not if the Lord shrinks those nodes.’ I thought. I had a sense that all the healing God had brought about in me would have to show itself in a concrete way eventually. And so I persuaded the oncologist to do ‘one more scan’. On the 30th April, I travelled through to Dumfries to meet my oncologist for the first and last time. I was to get the scan results and then be discharged.
‘Goodness, Jenny, you look really well considering what you’ve been through. That’s amazing!’ was his opening line.
‘I am really well’ I said ‘I’ve even started jogging again.’
He turned to his computer screen. ‘Ehm, your scan result is strange’. he said. ‘It isn’t saying much’. The oncologist then went on to read some of the result, all of which was totally inconsequential. At that point, I knew something amazing was going on. I asked him straight out. ‘Does that result actually say anything about cancer being present?’ I asked.
‘Ehm, no’ he said, ‘I can’t understand it. It’s so strange. Are you sure you had a recurrence seen on a scan?’ I assured him that there were plenty of scans done in the past that showed growing lymph nodes and a liver secondary. He checked and double checked. ‘Yes, you are right. It doesnt make any sense.’ he said. ‘It makes lots of God sense’ I said.
Wow. The Lord has healed me. Just like that, without any human intervention. That prayed for, trusted for, longed for happening had just happened! Wow!
I love the fact that chemotherapy had to reach the end of its usefulness before God stepped in. Now there is no doubt that He is the One behind this miracle. To God be all the glory!
Abundant Life Strategy 