Life is Beautiful…

I have a confession.

My faith is extremely timid. Maybe frail is a better word. Three weeks ago I sat in my neurosurgeon’s office expecting to schedule a 4th brain surgery later that week. His reply of “your tumor has spread into the Corpus callosum; there’s nothing I can do surgically” did nothing to remove my timidity.

Fortunately for me, my wife doesn’t fill the prescriptions doctors so easily give out on the length of life. However, that’s a lot easier done when you aren’t the one personally receiving the script.

And so her last three weeks have been a whirlwind of phone calls, faxes, and internet-searches for any treatment, clinical trial, or blood-red orchid that could be my fountain of life. My job has been to avoid any more violent and debilitating  seizures – like the one last Tuesday that resulted as a misstep on the narrow 6 carbs a day, high fat path to ketosis.

These things are what I call “Life-Capsizing” events. This is when the vessel of your surroundings becomes so turbulently unstable that it actually flips over, dumping you and your life out into open water. And when this happens you better learn to swim real fast. And I’ve learned a lot.

I’ve learned to spend as much time outside as possible because I smell toxins that others don’t, and I can’t handle the headaches. Some sort of viral “environmental disease” that seems to be connected to my tumor. I’ve learned to chug coconut, flax, or hemp oil with my meat and veggies each meal as this fat is my main fuel source.I’ve learned to plug my nose when I vomit each day to keep from getting a bloody nose.

I’ve learned it costs a hundred bucks to have some university doctor look at your scan and call to say you cannot do their clinical trial. And I’ve learned how beautiful it is to have friends and family that love you and care for you.

But these are the easy things to learn. The hard things are how to grow some guts and get rid of frail faith. How to truly trust. Or as my sister reminded me last night, how to truly quit trusting in yourself and put your life in God’s hands. How to rely upon  “A righteous man may have many troubles, but the Lord delivers him from them all; he protects all his bones, not one of them will be broken.” ~ Psalm 34:19-20

* I’ve been dictating my last few blogs with the help of family as my health has declined. I will be getting a MRI this Thursday and ask for your prayers as to what the next step should be. Please pray and feel free to join the prayer support team at prayfordaniel.com