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 It’s so easy to thank God when you are at the top of your career, when you are happily married to a loving husband, when the pregnancy test yielded positive results and you know that in nine months you will be blessed with your first baby. When you have all the good things, praising an ever-loving God is easy. But what if you have to stop working because you got sick? What if the possibility of a miscarriage stares at you right in the face? What if you suddenly have to face the thought of leaving your loved ones behind as dying becomes a real possibility? Will you thank God then?

 I was a 26 year old happily married teacher expecting my first baby when I was diagnosed with Stage IV Thymoma—a rare form of cancer affecting the thymus gland. (Normally, the thymus gland disappears as a person grows older. In some uncommon cases, it doesn’t. It grows and becomes malignant). Though faced with a very uncertain future, I continued to trust the goodness of God. Amazingly, the blessings came pouring in. You see, when cancer came knocking into my life, it did not bring with it demise. Rather, in one of God’s miraculous paradoxes, my cancer brought with it life.
 
By the time I was diagnosed, the mass had grown so big that I had developed all sorts of cardiac complications. As a result, my heart was having difficulty pumping blood throughout my system, making my pulse rate go up and my breathing laborious. As if that wasn’t enough, the MRI Scan also showed that the cancer had metastasized to the lungs and other nearby areas. Chemotherapy or radiotherapy had to be administered soon since lying in bed had become very difficult. I had to sit on the chair in order to get some sleep. However in this position, dizzying and vomiting spells constantly plagued me. My baby was in no better condition either as there were days when I had spotting—a sign that not everything was going well inside my womb.

Under those circumstances, radiotherapy was seen as the best possible alternative since it offered the best chance of shrinking the large mass in a short amount of time, thus affording me some relief. Taking this course of action meant the risk of losing my baby.  My little angel had to receive the treatment with me with only a thin abdominal lead shield placed over my stomach to protect her. But we resigned ourselves to the stark reality of losing our firstborn. We cried our confusion, but trusted God nonetheless—hoping against hope that our little angel would make it through. And she did. Chemotherapy followed soon after. My baby and I were given six cycles every twenty-one days. Still she continued to hang on and fight the good fight with me. 

However, when a congenital anomaly scan was about six months into the pregnancy, we were in for more bad news. Fluid had filled my baby’s heart. My doctor explained that this condition could result to fetal death. Despair set in, but we continued to pray. About a month later, a follow-up ultrasound revealed that the fluid had diminished and my baby was thriving well!
 
At eight months, I delivered Maria Carmela via Caesarian section. For a premature baby weighing only 1.55 kilograms at birth, she had a lusty cry that woke me up from my anesthesia-induced sleep. My fears of a deformed baby were put to rest when the doctors held my beautiful and complete baby girl close to me. Amid the ecstatic exultations of my doctors inside the delivery room—“She has such a wonderful cry! She’s our miracle baby! Do we have a camera?”—I knew that God’s hand was again at work.

Although a month premature, Carmela was placed in the incubator at Neonatal Intensive Care Unit of the Medical City for only twelve days. Now, a healthy baby with a ready smile, Carmela is a constant reminder to us that despite all the seemingly insurmountable odds, God is there. He is only a prayer away. With all these marvelous blessings, how can I not get down on my knees and thank Him? At this eleventh hour, when Big C came to visit, I got my faith back. #       
 
   

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