Cancer Consolations: God’s Tender Mercies

1—Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow

But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. (Matthew 10:30)

One common association people make with cancer is the patient losing all of his or her hair due to chemotherapy. Before I found out I had cancer, I was a cosmetologist, a hair stylist. Although I’ve never been considered prissy, I’ve loved doing hair ever since I can remember. So especially because I practically lived in hair because of my profession, I cared about my hair and what it looked like. I dreaded losing my straight, thick, blond locks. I knew I would be an ugly little bald specimen, especially with my thin face and somewhat sharp nose. So I committed this dread of mine to prayer. I begged the Lord to help me, and I told him that if there were any way he wouldn’t mind allowing me to keep my hair, I would like to keep it. But as I’ve seen so many times in my life, the verses are true that say, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:8–9, my emphasis).

The Lord did let me keep a decent amount of hair on my head for a while. He graciously allowed me to transition into having straggly little strands that, for a long time, I couldn’t bear to shave off. So where is this huge blessing? Oh, let me tell you all about it!

To preface this story, let me give you some background information. On August 6, 2011, at age twenty-five, I was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. A few days later after having a lump on my neck biopsied, I found out the extent of my cancer. It was stage four. If cancer spreads to either the bones or an organ, it is categorized as stage four. Mine was in both. The doctors informed me that my cancer had already spread to the bones of my legs as well as throughout my spleen. Lymphoma is a blood cancer, which means it’s systemic (in the bloodstream) and also settles into the lymph nodes. My results showed that my little body (five foot two and ninety-eight pounds) was alarmingly packed with cancer, and it was especially concentrated in my stomach and spleen. My spleen (which hides behind the ribs and is supposed to be the size of a fist) held so much cancer that it stretched from right below my ribs to the bottom of my stomach. You could literally see the outline of it through my skin. The test results also revealed that although my lymphoma had begun as a slow-growing form, somewhere along the way it had metastasized (or mutated or broken off) into a fast-growing cancer as well. Its rapid growth was wreaking devastating havoc on my body. We had to start aggressive chemotherapy immediately.

A couple weeks after my first chemo treatment, I moved in with my best friend, Laura, and her husband, Peter. I had previously been living at home with my family, but in this new arrangement, I had my own room. This new situation obviously provided me with more quiet living with a married couple rather than with a family of five. My boyfriend, Tyler, who is now my wonderful husband, had a job that allowed him to take as much time off from work as he needed to help take care of me.

The first time I lost a lot of hair, I experienced it as most cancer patients: I was washing my hair, and as I took down my hands from shampooing, I saw these huge, unnatural wads of my precious hair in my hands. I felt devastated. I quickly finished washing my hair and headed back to my bed. Ty found me there, and I was lying in a crumpled heap, crying my eyes out. He worriedly asked what was wrong, and I chokingly told him. And here comes my special, priceless blessing from the Lord. As I lay in bed (as all I could do was lie in bed, aside from using the restroom and sometimes being able to take a shower), Ty promptly took a small trash can and set it next to my bed. We started to talk, and as we talked, he gently ran his fingers through my hair. Whatever hair came out of my head, he placed into the trash can, and whatever hair stayed on my head remained there for the rest of that day. This became a daily ritual, with Ty carefully stroking my hair, taking the unpleasant task of my hair loss on himself while we either chitchatted or plunged into a heart-to-heart conversation. Thus, the Lord turned my horror of losing my hair into a beautiful memory. To this day, I still think back to those talk times, and I only remember it as a special, priceless blessing that I wouldn’t trade for all the money in the world. The verse is true about the Lord, that “his tender mercies are over all his works” (Psalm 145:9b). What a blessed girl I was to lose my hair! Otherwise, I never would’ve experienced such a precious blessing.