Carried Through Cancer: Five Stories of FaithNäide

Alex’s Story

Alex, a retired Lieutenant Colonel in the USAF, was deployed twice in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

One night, on the ground in Iraq, she ran for shelter as mortars flew overhead. She knew if she didn’t make it to a safe place, she might die in that desert. Pictures of her oldest son, just two at the time, and of her husband, flashed through her mind as she ran the gauntlet to shelter. It was a scary moment, and her life was in danger, but for her, a cancer diagnosis was scarier.

“I’d faced my own mortality before. I was in Iraq.”

She signed up for the military, knowing the risks. She did not sign up for cancer.

As Alex sat in the radiology exam room trying to come to grips with the fact that her life was now tied to breast cancer, her mortality stared her in the face once again, and she had a frank conversation with God.

“I [said], ‘Okay, you’ve chosen this for me for a reason. And like every other challenge you’ve put in front of me, I’m gonna be a leader.’ That’s my strength. That’s what God has given me. The ability to lead.”

But what does being a leader mean in treatment for Invasive Lobular Carcinoma (cancer that originates in the breast lobules.) For Alex, it meant fighting well. It meant not bowing out of life as she fought. It meant showing up at her 5 a.m. exercise class and doing her best while in the midst of chemo. It meant sitting at her twelve-year-old son’s baseball games, knowing the Neulasta on-body injector (a shot to counteract chemo side effects) taped to her arm would inject itself halfway through the 5th inning. It meant daily walks with her boys and her dog, even in her exhaustion and pain.

But it also meant embracing the sadness. It meant bawling the entire thirty-minute drive home from the radiologist. It meant crawling back into bed some days when it was all just too much.

“Just because you accept the path God has you on doesn’t mean you don’t feel a plethora of emotions. It doesn’t mean life is all sunshine and roses. Or that you don’t get angry, or you don’t cry. I still did that. And that’s okay.”

Alex knew that God created her to be a leader, but in cancer, she was not immune to weakness and days when it was hard to get out of bed and fight. But in her weakness, she was blown away by the nearness of her Savior. During times when life really sucked, she could still step outside and find joy in small things, like green grass and sunshine, and feel a strength for the day that she knew she was not mustering up on her own.

“Rarely are you so dependent on God. But that is where He is,” she said. “In my weakness, is where I found his strength.”

Prayer: Dear Father, Thank you for your strength that is made perfect in my weakness. And for my weakness that points me to your strength. Continue to provide the strength I need when I can’t provide it for myself. Amen.

Reflection: What gifts has God given you? Are you seeing your strengths as an asset during your cancer journey? How has God shown himself to be strong for you when you don’t have the energy to be strong for yourself?