A friend of mine once told me that as long as the doctor doesn’t call you the next day after you’ve had an MRI or other diagnostic test, then you’re probably okay and don’t worry.
Four years ago, I had an MRI done on my back. I was the last appointment of the day. Remembering what my friend told me, I waited the next day for that phone call. I made it through the morning and thought I might be safe. But at two o’clock that afternoon, the doctor’s office called.
A few days later I was sitting in front of a computer screen while my doctor flipped through a digital copy of my MRI. I had been complaining of pain shooting down my legs and the doctor had discovered some weakness in my big toe and ankle. The MRI showed my spinal cord stretched out vertically on the screen like a black inner tube. As the doctor clicked through the images, a white spot appeared in the center of my spinal cord and with each click, the spot grew larger and larger.
“That’s not supposed to be there,” the doctor said, pointing to the spot.
“What is it?” I asked.
He looked at me. “It’s a mass, a tumor.”
As I write this, my prayer for you is that neither you nor anyone you love ever has to hear those words. In my case, even though I had a tumor, I turned out to be one of the lucky ones.
Based on its location, the doctor felt it was either something called an ependymoma or lipoma. These are benign tumors. They rarely metastasize. That was the good news.
The bad news is that they almost always grow. And as they grow, they twist and worm their way through the spinal cord and cause direct damage to the spinal cord or cause weakness and paralysis due to compression of the cord itself.
I was told the tumor had to come out.
That was about the time I started to pray. And I don’t think I stopped praying for the next year and a half. Because every doctor I saw said that the tumor had to come out. It was no easy operation. One doctor told me that it was the equivalent of removing gum from someone’s hair, only in my case the hair was actually nerves that could be damaged during surgery, causing irreparable harm.
My choices were take the tumor out and risk paralysis if something goes wrong during surgery or leave the tumor in and risk paralysis if the tumor continues to grow.
I was terrified and I had no idea what to do. Even though every doctor was telling me to have the tumor removed, I kept feeling in my gut that surgery would be a mistake.
So, I prayed. I remember driving home one night, crying in the car and begging God to tell me what to do. I had seen doctors in Brevard County, doctors at Florida Hospital and every one of them told me to have the surgery, but I couldn’t get past the feeling that surgery was the wrong move.
And then I got angry because I felt that God wasn’t answering my prayers. I felt like He was ignoring me. Why was He so silent? Why couldn’t He just tell me what to do?
Here’s the cool thing.
He was telling me what to do.
That gut feeling I had to wait … that gut feeling came from God. Because while I waited, I had more tests done and I went to more doctors, this time in the Cleveland Clinic down south of here.
And over the next few years, we saw that the tumor, miraculously, wasn’t growing. In fact, the last MRI I had showed the tumor had actually shrunk the tiniest of fractions. At which point my doctor in Orlando actually dumped me and told me I didn't need to see him again unless my symptoms changed.
I don’t know what would have happened had I had the surgery. I don’t know what my future holds, if the tumor will decide to grow again, but what I learned from this experience is that God is always talking to us.
Let me say it again: God is always talking to us.
The question isn’t “Is God listening?”
The question is … are we?
We want God to speak to us in words. Do this, don't do that. But really the most effective form of communication God has is to speak to our heart. That way our brains don't get in the way.
Don't ignore those "gut feelings." They could be God impressing something onto your heart.
