Paranoid What-ifs/Peaceful Trusting

I found out yesterday that the Neurologist does not (nor did he ever) intend to remove the Ommaya Reservoir from my head.  He intends for it to remain in me forever!!  This is the Ommaya that I wrote about a couple blogs ago...the "port" in my head that I dislike greatly!  Well, we spoke on the phone because he had called and left me a message earlier in the day saying we needed to, "discuss your idea of removing the Ommaya."  I should have known by that comment what I was in for, but I was SO ready to schedule surgery to remove it (and I thought it cool that a doctor would call me personally instead of making his nurse call) that I called him back prepared to mark my calendar.  But instead of asking me for a convenient surgery date, he said it is not necessary to remove it and is not medically wise to do so because the possibility exists that my leukemia could return and if it does, a third brain surgery to reinsert another Ommaya would be required and why risk that.  Oh poo!  That's not how I expected the conversation to go.  I told him that I'd think and pray about what he said and he graciously said that if I concluded that I simply could not stand to have the thing in my head, he'd go ahead and schedule surgery to remove it.  (Removal is much easier than insertion). 


Now, I had just seen the Oncologist a couple hours before this phone call and we talked about the issue of my A.L.L. returning.  Apparently with leukemia, if you make it one year without it returning that's good; if you make it two years the chances of recurrence are very low.  Given the fact that I achieved remission back in February after just one round of chemo I'm in a category with a bit less risk of it returning than are folks that did not achieve remission until they'd had several rounds of chemo.  But of course, neither the doctor nor medical protocol can guarnatee it won't return no matter what category I'm in.  God alone knows the number and essence of my days.  But in most cases, if it is going to come back, it returns within the first year....the first 6 months especially.  That is why we will be leaving my chest port in for at least the first year.  That way we can use it for my monthly blood draws, but also have it there and in place in case the leukemia returns and we need to resume chemo.   Yet despite that whole conversation, the Oncologist said I could certainly go ahead and get the Ommaya removed, so I was not expecting the neurologist to say otherwise.  


I was very discouraged as I hung up.  But as I muddled through all of the thoughts swirling within me, I had to admit that I could see the good reasoning behind his not wanting to take it out and risk another surgery later.  So rather half-heartedly and somewhat sarcastically, I said, "Your will not mine, Lord" and then uttered a very whole-hearted, "Oh poo!"   


Have you ever noticed that once you begin to crack open the door of discouragement and doubt Satan quickly sticks a foot in there and soon has you rushing headlong into the pit of paranoid what-ifs?  Boy, I've experienced that; especially yesterday.  Suddenly I wasn't just pouting about having to leave the Ommaya in, I was fearing the return of my A.L.L.  "Maybe the Lord is having it left in because He knows I'm going to get the A.L.L. back.  But I wonder when it'll come back....I don't want it back...I mean, I'll fight again, but..."  See how quickly I fell into paranoid what-ifs instead of living in peaceful trusting?  Geesh!  I battled such thoughts for much of the day until I remembered the verse I had sent to a friend earlier in the week, "And He will be their peace."  (Micah 5:5).  He is my peace!  Yep, I'd much rather live in peaceful trust than paranoid what-ifs. 


The battle to live in peaceful trust without any paranoid what-ifs may prove harder for me than my battle against A.L.L., but I intend to fight just as fervently because I seriously and whole-heartedly believe that His will, not mine, is the best thing for me.