Sucker Punch

One of my sweet friends described it best. Yesterday felt like a "sucker punch"-one of those blows that catches you completely by surprise and knocks the wind out of you. My OncoType Dx Score came back very high, actually higher than my Oncologist expected. The positive of that is that there is no question that Chemotherapy is needed and will in fact reduce the recurrence rate of my cancer by about 20%. The bite comes in the fact that the Oncologist is now torn between giving me the chemo regimen (TC) we discussed during our previous visit and the one that does include Adriamycin ("The Red Devil"). So now the decision becomes ours to make. We plan to ask some more questions and make a final decision by tomorrow. Please pray for this decision. Whichever Chemo regimen it will be does begin on Wednesday 9/28.  

I struggle even writing this entry because I like to always be as positive as possible. I have had a rough 24 hours as the reality of Chemo has been setting in. I don't think I entirely know why God has allowed this sucker punch but I think He wants to know "Kara, do you really mean what you are writing in this journal? Does your hunger to know Me and be transformed by Me exceed your dread of suffering?" So I go back to a conversation that Blake and I had with some mentors/friends of ours in which I was asked "Would you trade this experience to have everything the way it was before your diagnosis?"  My answer at the time was beyond a shadow of any doubt "NO." It was "No" because of how I have experienced God in a completely new way.  It was "No" because my relationship with Blake is different.  It was "No" because I see life with a whole new perspective. The fact that the Cup wasn't taken from me and that the Cup might be worse than I anticipated means He is not finished with me. The transformation is not complete, and that is what I will cling to.