Compared to eternity, even living to be a century old is nothing. I had truly self-sacrificing full of wonder nuns who taught me through eighth grade. In fifth grade, one of these special ladies, Sister Mary Margaret, told us to imagine a dove that flew by the earth once every thousand years and one of its wingtips grazed the earth. When that dove has worn the earth down to nothing, she said, eternity is just beginning. I do not remember if she was impressing us with the extent of all the happiness we would have or if she was directing her thoughts to some of us male urchins who were blest to be disciplined by her.
Diagnosed with Cancer
When my wife, Karen, was diagnosed with cancer the second time [first time: colon; second time: skin and breast], I thought about eternity. The reason I did, as we walked out of one of the best, if not the best cancer hospital in the world into the Texas sunshine, past row upon row of gray living corpses in blankets, many drinking a Coke, waiting for the next treatment, was that I thought her eternity was much closer.
We were told about a woman in her condition who did not pursue medical advice who was dead in six months. The doctors told Karen she must check in “tomorrow” for a regimen of chemo and radiation (to shrink the largest tumor for surgery), surgery, and then again chemo and radiation. I was surprised at her reaction, actually a non-reaction. I thought she was in shock, but when we exited the building, she looked at me and said, firmly and calmly, “I will never set foot in that place ever again.” My immediate thoughts were that I know this woman, I know her iron will, and I know she is not lying. And then I thought of her eternity. I thought she would die. Implicitly I discounted her faith in God. For her, I believed, that dove had worn down the whole earth.
Pray
I asked her what she was going to do. She told me she did not know, but she knew that what she had gone through before was not the right way and that she would never do that again. She said she would pray. At this point, she knew nothing about natural medicine, God’s medicine, and she was resigned to whatever was going to happen. I was not. Prayer? Prayer for a cancer cure? Give me a break. The reason they market cancer treatments with five-year survival rates is that they know that many ten year rates are infinitesimal.
By accident, a few days later, she got some information on “non-modern” cancer treatments – and she was on her way to learn about detoxing, system boosting, no-sugar-no-carbs-no-processed-food diet, essential oils (yes, frankincense etc.), chemical-free environments, Rife technology, and pure water to bathe in and to drink. She began learning about this beautiful body God gives us along with everything we need, nonprescription, to keep it gloriously healthy.
Beating Cancer Naturally
Long story short: that was over fifteen years ago now. Not eternity, but a heck of a lot longer than six months. It took some years, but the skin cancers were gone, the large mass in her right breast was gone, and the identified-as-malignant tumor in her left breast was shrunk dramatically (on screen it had looked to me like an evil octopus covering her right side and going into her lymph system) and it was on its way out, being out processed naturally. She is still here today to tell me not to wear socks with sandals.
Natural Detoxing
This was not easy for her. Some of the natural detoxing were not pain-free. After a few years, I asked her one time was she doing this to be here with her children, to be there the night of our granddaughter’s prom, to celebrate Christmas, and weddings and baptisms. She got this funny look on her face, she laughed out loud, and said, “No, I am doing this because I love you.” I think by her tone there was an implied “you dummy!” in there. To say I was stunned does not capture what this did to me. This woman who had borne our seven children (two now with God), who had loved me with a love that cannot be reckoned, who had endured the endless calls and letters from the hospital and the obloquy and condescension of family and friends for pursuing what they saw as quackery, had just said “I love you” in a way beyond imagining.
God’s Gift
She was and is God’s gift to me, as was her cancer. This gift bore not only physical fruit but spiritual fruit as well. I had not got “on board” with all she was doing, periodically going out alone for “whatasized” burgers with fries or two breakfast burritos and two huge sugar-coated cinnamon rolls. Eating Velveeta. Consuming far more than the national average of carbonated beverages. So, after that “I Love You” message, I tried to clean up my act, and in trying I learned what she had gone through. Sugar is more addictive than many hard drugs – and I learned this in spades; and it is in almost everything I had enjoyed (just check out the labels of most of what is on the shelves in the grocery store, and don’t miss “corn syrup” and any word ending in “ose.”). For her now, I tried to live the diet and I began detoxing. One day in detox it hurt so bad I could not believe it – and it was a kind of pain I had never felt. I realized she had done all this and more for me – I didn’t even have cancer. I am now in my seventieth year. Neither she nor I have seen a medical doctor in over fifteen years, since that day she walked out of the hospital, nor have we in that time taken any prescription drugs. Since that time fifteen years ago, both of us have lost about forty pounds. I had it to lose. I have said several almost tearful farewells: goodbye bread, goodbye ketchup, goodbye doughnuts, and goodbye pasta.
Cancer is Evil
In the beginning, I thought right away in terms of myself. God was going to take her away from me. I was right there at the theodicy/cancer intersect – the theological “problem of evil” gets real real when the evil is cancer, not yours, not one you can suffer with, but the “cancer evil” of the one you love. But Karen did not do this in anger at God or in helplessness. She did it in faith and hope and trust. I tagged along in her faith journey, continually amazed at her, what appeared to me, complacency. Then there were her prayers.
Prayer Life
The effects on our prayer life and our relationship with God, God who gifts us with cancer, have been profound. They say there are no atheists in foxholes and, similarly, I cannot fathom a cancer patient not talking with God. In the face of cancer, something over which we usually think there is no control, no avenue except so-called “modern medicine,” in helplessness one naturally turns to God. Cancer is not a morning coffee break, or a nine to five job, or a two-week vacation. Not only is it omnipresent, but I thought about it all the time. Which also made me talk to, at, and with God so much more. As it turned out, in these talks/prayers, I started discussing so many other folks, so many other things. Karen’s cancer taught me how to pray.
This may not make sense, but because of Karen’s pain and suffering, the Holy Sacrifice Of The Mass became so much more spiritually meaningful and eternity-directed. First of all, we began to go more than just on Sunday. Now we try, with some success, to go every day. So many words of the Mass take on a whole new, fuller meaning when you or someone you love there with you has been given the gift of cancer: e.g., “in You, we live and move and have our being;” “this is my body which will be given up for you;” “Father, calling to mind the death your Son endured;” “I leave you peace, My peace I give to you;” and of course “deliver us from evil.”
Tell No One?
I am reminded of the folks cured by Jesus whom He admonishes to “tell no one;” then they go out and broadcast their good news to the world. God help you if you ask Karen about what she did, why she did it, or “why do you use that stevia stuff instead of real sugar?” Just a little bit, I can talk this talk; but Karen has walked the walk and she knows, in her very core, in her soul she knows that God’s medicine is God’s love; that He did not make our bodies with a “tamoxifen deficiency” [a cancer treatment drug the World Health Organization classifies as a “human carcinogen];” and that this body God gave us can be detoxed, strengthened, nourished, and rejuvenated to fight any disease, including cancer. When people ask her questions, she says “Do you really want to know?” because what she has to say about what she did and has done are, for many, some “very hard sayings.” Still, she shares whenever she can. I have seen her again and again, wherever we are, talk to someone l she has never met for the better part of an hour. I know she has been God’s messenger, His “cancer evangelist,” for several people who are healthy today. Often she begins with “Do you believe in God?”
The Gift of Cancer
Right now I can write a plethora of comments which will be posted about all this, pooh-poohing natural medicine, real medicine; asserting that the only “god” who might help is “modern” medicine; and surmising that Karen “just had great genes,” or “God smiled on her.” To this, I would say check it out, do some research, talk to those who have done what Karen has done, and, unfortunately, follow the money.
The gift of cancer has made me love my wife more and more. It has also let me know God. Please allow me to conclude with a verse of a poem inspired by Karen.
from Friends One Flesh
“I’ll be that someone who tells you forever,
That someone who sees you’re never alone.
That someone who says here now together,
That someone who says you’re at home.”
(Catholic Lane; Sept. 8, 2015; Copyright Guy McClung; reprinted with permission)
Guy McClung, the author, was formerly an associate vice president at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center.
7 thoughts on “Cancer God’s Gift”
Dear Christine Mulvihill, I have read what you wrote twice now. And it hit me- your words and my words are not said in isolation and others read them and they learn this: we are not alone and there is a God who loves us, and there is hope-and we truly will not cease to exist. Our bodies will die, but then there will be a time, outside of time, when our bodies, these cancer-ridden, poor eyesight, broken-bone-mended bodies will be glorified. 7 days before my sister dies of cancer that had gone to her brain, the pain ceased. She spent that last week talking and as happy as the circumstances permitted. The pain will stop. I have, curiously, been reading the Book Of Job over and over – it is about the ‘theodicy’ problem I mentioned – the problem of how can God be good and there be evil, like cancer. There is no answer as such in Job, but there is Chapter 36, verse 15: “God saves those who suffer through their afflictions and He teaches them through their distress.” You and yours are now daily in my prayers. Read Job, at minimum begin at Chap 32 to the end. There is always hope. Guy, Texas
What did I do wrong? Why does my life always get f**d over? Why is it that all my dreams always fall to pieces? ….All these thoughts ran rapidly through my head as the glass bottle containing my special dried flowers crashed to the floor of my bedroom.
Memories can be good things, and sometimes when it’s over they are all you have left. I was blessed with an extremely vivid memory which I am grateful for, but every time the glass shatters I remember what I lost over 10 years ago, all the times the glass has shattered and all the struggles of faith that the sun will shine again for me.
I get angry because all I can seem to think of are the times I had everything, but was too blind to see it, and how it was taken from me, and now at times I feel I have nothing.
This clearly is a bad angry day. There are a lot of these when you are in my situation.
When I was about three my summer and childhood was cut short when I was diagnosed with Leukemia. I can’t remember all the details or even how I got to the hospital but I was with my grandma and she noticed the lack of color in my face, and just like that I went from normal little girl to a small body in a hospital bed with lines and tubes running through my body.
I had no idea then just how much this would impact my life.
I remember the day before I was brought into the hospital I was at my old cottage, my favorite place to be as a young carefree little girl. I remember we were at my favorite beach, I was wearing my favorite pink top, that was of course weather inappropriate, but I was a very independent little girl, I had perfect, curly, golden blond hair, but I never let my mom or dad do my hair or dress me. Even in our family photo I woke my big brother and insisted on wearing my christening dress. I was as wild as my hair which I hated being brushed, yet seemed to keep its radiance even in the wind of our common boat rides and open hooded car rides in out old Firebird convertible. I was just an untamable and happy kid.
My childhood …well what I got from the first three years, apart from being punished for my random acts of boldness; was the best time of my life. I always look back and think about the life I had and could have had. I thought nothing could stop me …boy was I wrong!
Although I was happy and content being in the hospital, it is not every kids dream to be diagnosed with cancer and told “you may not live”. There were times I lied restless in my bed, tired of being tired and tired of being weak. After a point in time I was allowed in the playroom with another little girl suffering from the same illness, her name was Sarah. We became friends almost instantly since we were both not allowed around the other kids. The people at the hospital still made us feel special, they let us in the kitchen to make pizza and our parents took us on visits to see each other since we were only two rooms apart. Of course things were still hard for both of us and I always had to fight the doctors to take my most despised enemy at the time; prednisone.
Sarah was such a gift to me, I had never had someone who understood so much and shared all the physical and emotional pain of the countless needles, spinal taps and loss of freedom knowing you have an IV connected to your chest 24/7. I think although so young we needed each other. When Sarah passed, part of me went with her and part of her stayed with me. Although I was unable to attend the funeral, I still think about her all the time. I believe that she died so that I could live and because of that I never gave up. All through my life she has given me the strength to hold on.
“Sorrow is not forever ..love is”
During my never-ending search to find myself, I hit rock bottom emotionally. I became extremely depressed and drove people away. I became so alone, shut off in my own world of insanity, I became so desperate for a way out I became suicidal. My world became a dark place and the only way I could get out my emotions was with poetry. I wrote many poems, some about misery, depression, pain, life and poems about death. Here are some of my poems.
I Once Was Lost
Here I am drowning in the sea
A sea of everything I don’t want to be
A sea of all my failures and mistakes
A sea of my tears and splitting headaches.
Waves of sorrow wash over my face
I go under with a silent grace
I fall down deeper in my depression
Deeper and deeper into my obsession
I’m overwhelmed with all my faults
My skin is burning from the salts
Salts of what I could have been
If only I could have seen
What the future has in store
How soon I would reach the shore
How my storm dried up in the sun
Maybe I am a lucky one.
Now I’m walking on water because I have Faith
This tortuous dungeon I have escaped
I hold his hand as he walks me to land
I bend down and kiss the merciful sand
So happy to have found happiness again
Now the sun overpowers the rain
Amazing grace how sweet the sound
I once was lost but now am found.
——————————–
I Will Not Die
I used to think the world was fair and that life works itself out
But now I’m confused and my heart’s filled with doubt,
The threads of this dream are starting to unwind
I’ve come to learn the world is unjust and fate is unkind.
I always thought you were real but my perception was blind
You’re blurring my vision and playing with my mind,
Slowly like the sands of time you’re ripping away at my soul
You’ve taken all I have, all that makes me whole,
Driving myself crazy trying to fill that empty void
But I can’t pull it together, my confidence you’ve destroyed.
You’ve taken my happiness and replaced it with hate
So much hatred and anger I just can’t take.
You’ve poisoned me enough, I’ll break down and cry
But never will I give up, no I will not die.
You will not take me down, you will not conquer me tonight
I will not lie down in my grave I’ll stand up and fight,
I maybe bleeding but take off that smile if you think you’ve won
A knife through my heart is nothing, the battle’s just begun.
There is warrior inside me that you failed to see
A strength you missed while you were judging me
She will not give up as easy as you think
I’m drowning in depression but she will not sink.
Through all the pain and criticism she will stand tall
When pushed passed the limit she will not fall,
I will take whatever you give to me
And with god by my side I will be free.
I won’t bow down to you and just take the abuse
You can’t break my faith, don’t try there’s no use.
So you can turn that smile into a frown
Because this is one girl that just won’t go down.
———————————————
What If Faith is Not Enough
When reality finally hits you it hurts
When the truth comes into focus it’s brutally painful.
Hope isn’t always enough
It’s not always a happy ending.
What happens when faith is not enough?
I get hot flashes
My depression splashes
My soul is cold like stone,
the fear of being alone.
So now I lay me down to sleep
I pray you lord my soul to keep
Don’t let me die before I wake
I pray you lord my soul do not take.
I barely have a past
And may have no future
— Empty pages of a book
— A story left unwritten
— A life left unlived
=== A hope left in the dust.
Please don’t take me yet
Your mercy you won’t regret
I am down on my knees
Begging you please
Don’t take me away.
At night I dream a misty graveyard
A tombstone the name I cannot see
A flashlight in the darkness
A figure so lifeless I cannot breathe,
Then I awake not as fearless as I may seem.
If this is my future
And if it comes to pass
And this breath be my last
Then this thought to you I cast.
What if faith is not enough?
Then life would be rather tough
With nothing to believe in
And nothing to justify
Nothing to keep you sane
Nothing to grasp when you fall
You will have nothing,
nothing at all.
Sometimes that is how I am
Falling in the darkness
With nothing to take hold
This feeling leaves me cold
hearted, soulless, empty.
All I feel is the pain of being unreal
No one knows how this life feels,
when you are so lifeless.
So now I lay me down to cry
I pray you lord you can’t let me die.
Now I lay me down to sleep
Close my eyes without a peep
Never to be opened again.
——————————–
Read my whole story at: http://www.childhood-cancer-survivor.com/
I recently found out that my cancer returned as stage 4 and would very much like to be in touch with you and your wife to discuss a faithful Catholic way to beat this, especially since my husband is so distressed and I homeschool our youngest, who is 12. You can contact me at 631-424-1126 or 631-827-2510 or jschiano_2000@yahoo.com. Thank you so much.
Wow, what an amazing story! My husband and I are currently cleaning up our eating habits – we started on Ash Wednesday 2018. So far, we have lost almost 100 between the two of us and are feeling (and looking) much better. I’m not sure I could display the pure faith your wife had. Cancer speaks loudly within my family. BJ
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Thank you for a wonderful inspiring article Guy. Cancer is an illness unbearable. But it can also mean a gift of suffering. Through suffering in this life we are lessening our suffering in purgatory. It can also be a wake up call to always be close to Jesus and our Blessed Mother and live a prayerful life. Our goal should be heaven and the life of suffering can be lift for heaven.May God bless you and family.
You deserve the Nobel in Literature, Guy.