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***MONDAY, APRIL 18***
Gabe, who is undergoing surgery at St. Jude’s this morning @ 8:30 (about 4 hour surgery) to remove from his lungs 2 nodules which have just appeared after much chemo and radiation--- and also hopefully remove a spot which doctors feel may be the beginning of the recurrence of his original mass which is located between his lungs……Please pray for him!
An update from Gabe:
Sometimes I feel like all this stuff I’m going through just can’t be real. Almost like God is intentionally screwing up my life. Sometimes I wake up thinking about the most terrible dream I just had. In this dream my cancer had come back and I had been stuck in Memphis for months and months. That every time we thought we were taking a step forward we always ended up two steps behind. That we’d seen family after family come and go while we were left behind to push on. That we seemed no closer to going home than when we got here. That life sort of sucked.
Realizing that this dream is as real as the heart racing in my chest sets my teeth on edge. I feel scared, alone, hopeless. But slowly I begin to recall the rest of the dream. The part where I went to prom. The part where I sang karaoke. The part where I got to be with my friends. The part where I met new friends. The part where I got to spend time with the most amazing woman on Earth (my mom). The part where, throughout it all, I’m happy. And suddenly all of the other stuff doesn’t seem so bad.
Whenever I tell people my story they frown and get sad. Or they just have a look of disbelief, not able to understand how or why something like cancer would ever happen to someone. They tell me they hate what I’m going through. They hate that this never seems to end for me. But more and more I try to discourage that kind of thinking. I mean yeah, chemo sucks. And yeah, being away from your family sucks. And yeah, I’m certain transplant is going to suck too. But sometimes I think that when people think about all that’s been happening to me over the past year and a half that’s all they see. They don’t see how much I’ve changed as a person, how much I̵ 7;ve grown. Everything that I’ve learned. They don’t see the people that have made a positive impact on my life. They don’t see how close I’ve grown to God. It’s like going to the movies and only sitting through the first half of the film. Where the hero’s life is miserable and nothing ever seems to go his way. But you miss the second half, where everything all turns around. Where he makes the football team and gets the girl of his dreams. So my reason for writing this is to make sure everyone at least gets a glimpse of Act 2.
When Dad first became a pastor in our quaint little Walker church he told the congregation about suffering. And how as much as he would love to preach a moving sermon about a family growing closer to God through terrible things happening to them, he couldn’t. Because he had never truly suffered. And mayb e that’s part of why God allowed for this to happen. Now that Dad’s suffered a bit he can tell you that he still doesn’t know why bad things happen to good people (an interesting saying I’ll get to in a bit) but that something good will always come from it. Even if the good person never even knows half of the good he has done or not, good comes from EVERYTHING (something I have a very firm belief in). Even cancer.
I’ve heard friends complain about how bad things happen to good people, or good things to bad. And for a Christian this is a poor way to look at things. I mean, for one, who is to say that any of us are good people? We’re absolutely not. I mean for our sins and wrong-doings we deserve a heck of a lot worse than cancer. So next time someone says that around you correct them politely for me. And if they get mad tell them I t old you to ;) (Whoa. Sorry for going all preacher-mode on you but hey, this is my update so I can say what I want, right?).
Through St. Jude’s fund-raising branch, ALSAC, Mom and I have been able to share our story to some wonderful and giving sponsor groups. And every time I’m always sure to tell them that given the choice of going through all of this or living a life without ever knowing the halls of St. Jude that I would pick the latter. All of the junk we’ve had to live with has been worth it. Every needle stick, PET Scan, and nurse visit. That’s something Mom likes to say to these groups too. That when we leave Memphis for good we aren’t going to remember the long hospital stays or the endless vomiting or any of that. We are going to remember the Pajama Party, the Karaoke and movie nights, the Target Carnivals and most of all the fri ends. All the bad stuff is going to stay behind when we leave. And that’s something the two of us believe wholeheartedly. And who wants to remember the bad stuff anyway?
So it’s safe to say that all of this has been a tough but rewarding road for the Hilliard family. But it’s not done yet so I guess I’ll go ahead and get on to that fun stuff. As I’m sure you’ve heard, Monday at 8:30am the surgeons are planning on giving me a “sick” scar I can tell people fake shark attack stories about later. So surgery is not standard Hodgkin’s protocol at all but we’ve had a habit of reinventing the wheel in this whole process so we figured, “Why stop now?” Now I like getting sliced open as much as the next guy (which is not at all) but honestly I’m not so worried about this. I mean, sure when I first foun d out we were doing surgery I felt like my jaw was hanging so low I could’ve had my own page in next year’s Guinness World Record. But that passed like it always does when we get bad or frightening news. Its just another thing I can brag about when showing off my collection of scars around the pool next summer. (Yes, Mom, I’ll be covered with gallons of sunscreen! Man, she makes George Banks from Father of the Bride look like an unconcerned, under protective parent! But that’s why I love her!). I figure once they have hooked me up to fluids on Monday either they’ll hook up a very powerful relaxing medicine or I’ll take some myself and it’ll all be smooth sailing from there. I’ll wake up with an epidural and an uncomfortable chest tube sticking out of my side, but happy because it will be the first time since July that I’ve been completely cancer free! And plus, I’ll get to see my lovely inpatient nurses again :)
Ok so I guess that’s all for now, I thank you truly for sitting through all of my incessant rambling. It’s been nice chatting but I’ve got to go kill some people on Call Of Duty now, so goodbye!
Gabe Hilliard
P.S. Thanks for all of the prayers. They mean a lot.
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