Cara Lobaugh

I work in health insurance sales and I’m known among my  co-workers to be brutally honest with the people who are looking for help.  It’s never ceased to amaze me that people who want my help can  be so rude to me and so dismissive of my time when I’m only trying to help them because they ask for help.  I’ve been working on tact for a while and yesterday I asked God to speak through me so that I wouldn’t be so brutal.  Well, it didn’t work.  Then I would tell God, “I ASKED you to do the speaking.”  Then it would happen again.

God has often told me through scripture to “wait upon the Lord.”  Things happen in his time and I think that he wants us to learn lessons about ourselves this way.  I don’t think he wants to do everything for us; I think he’s always with us supporting us and when we can’t handle certain situations he will step in.  I think God was cheering me on yesterday telling me I can do it myself.  Instead of getting frustrated, I will look towards God and know he is with me.

My verse for the day has to do with peace.  We all need it.  It’s a horrible feeling not to have it.  Philippians 4:7  And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

We cannot even comprehend the peace we can have with God.

Fierce passions
discompose the mind,
As tempests vex the sea;
But calm content and peace
we find,
When, Lord, we turn to Thee.
– William
Cowper

He who climbs above the cares of the world and turns his face to his God, has
found the sunny side of life. The world’s side of the hill is chill and freezing
to a spiritual mind, but the Lord’s presence gives a warmth of joy which turns
winter into summer. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Reasons why I decided to commit to memorizing these bible verses:

1.  I don’t have a good memory and since all that chemotherapy I got, my head is quite often in a fog.  I really have to sharpen my mind.

2. Dotie Osteen was diagnosed with liver cancer and told she only had a few weeks to live.  She continuously quoted these verses of hope, faith and prayer. 30 years later she is still alive.

3.  I haven’t memorized many bible verses.  This is a good start.

4.  I believe this will give me peace for my next scan.

Reasons why I do my best to run every morning:

1.  I feel like I’m running for my life literally

2.  I’m getting back into shape

3.  The exercise sharpens my mind

4.  I like it.

Verse for the day:

Hebrews 10:35  You can have confidence in God and His Word.  Therefore do not cast away your confidence, which has great reward.  NKJV

HOPE

I remember this like it was yesterday.  When I found out the 1st time that I had cancer, I wanted the doctor to tell me how bad it was.  She couldn’t tell me, she had no idea.  She said we would have to wait until I met with the Oncologist.  She told me that the pathology report indicated cancer in my uterus, but she didn’t know if it was scattered there from the leep procedure.  She said they have to test to see if the cancer may have spread to the pelvic wall.  Anyway, she told me she was hopeful.  I didn’t like that word hopeful.  It sounded like I had a possibility of living.  Just a possibility?  I wanted to hear, “don’t worry, we will take the cancer out and you will never have to worry again.” Most of the time when I say, “I hope so” usually it means I’m doubting it will happen but I hope it will.  I can’t imagine anything more scary than being told you have cancer.  No matter how great or how small, the fear is the same.

Anyway, hope IS a good thing.  Without hope there is nothing to look forward to. In the Bible, hope is never a static or passive thing. It is dynamic, active, directive and life sustaining. This is everywhere obvious as we read the Word.

1 Corinthians 15:19 If in Christ we have hope in  this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.

Yesterday I began a commitment to myself.  Since my chance of living according to  statistics is only 20%, I find it very important to trust that God is going to save me.  I’ve already beaten the 5 year survival rate from my 1st diagnosis which gave me a 50 to 70% chance of surviving 5 years.  So I’m planning on continuing to believe that God does have a future planned for me like he told me 5 years ago.  Since I haven’t done a whole lot with my life in the last 5 years, I figure I have a lot more time.

Yesterday I mentioned that I’ve been praying to God for strength. I sometimes feel like I’m emotionally weak and just can’t do what I need to do to move forward with my life.  As I was doing my daily devotions I found this: Psalms 46:1 says “God is our refuge and strength, an ever present help in trouble.”  It dawned on me that what I should be doing is looking to God and ask Him to be my strength.  Nobody can do everything alone and why do I have to work so hard for strength and courage when I can just depend on God for all that.  He will take care of everything so I don’t need to worry about developing more strength.

Joel 3:10   “Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruning hooks into spears; let the weak say, I am strong!” NASB

Since my cancer diagnosis  has me at a 20% survival rate, I’ve had a lot of struggles.  I feel like I HAVE to do everything to save my life NOW!  For instance, I have to learn how to eat a cancer free diet.  I have to excercise hard.  I have to always have a great attitude.  I HAVE to have complete faith now that the cancer will never come back.  I can never worry. etc.

Lets face it, I’m a human being and trying to do all of this has me failing completely.  I really want to have that life style and I’m doing my best but if I eat candy once in a while, it’s ok.  If I have a panic attack once in a while, it’s ok.  If I don’t run or excercise everyday, it’s ok.  I’ve learned that I’m putting way too much pressure on myself to do absolutely everything and it’s just not working.  I admire the people that can but I’ve come to a new conclusion….

God loves me and when I was first diagnosed with cancer, he spoke these words to me.  “For I know the plans I have for you.  A plan to prosper you.  A plan for good and not for harm.  A plan for a future.”  These words were spoken to me as if he were physically next to me.  Well, since then, 5 years later I’m still alive and at this moment I’m cancer free.  So far God has lived up to his end of the bargin and it’s a fact that I’m one of the 5 years statistics that has lived.  To anyone reading this, God has honored his word.  I believe there’s more to it though because God has continually spoke to me about hope.  Especially since my last diagnosis in November 2011.

I truly believe God has a great future planned for me.  I’ve been struggling this year thinking I’m so weak and I keep asking God to make me strong.  I read today in the Bible, (I can’t remember where but I wrote it down) God works best in us when we are weak.  I didn’t like that because who wants to be weak? Nobody.  But then this bible verse says to let God be our strenth.  Then I thought, wow.  That’s the answer.  I don’t need to be strong and I don’t have to worry about anything because I gain my strength through God.  That makes me very strong.

Based upon everything I’ve struggled with and leaning on God for so long, this is what I’ve come up with.   I have a long list of healing scriptures and everyday from now until my next cat scan in March, I’m going to memorize a verse.  Everyday I will say the verses I’ve memorized along with the new verse, so tomorrow I will have memorized 2 verses.

I would like people to do this with me so that I’m not doing this alone.  This is my committment to myself.  Here is the 1st verse for today:

Psalms 118:17  “I will not die, but live, and Tell of the works of the Lord.”

Back again.  I’ve been gone for a long time.  While I was going through the cancer treatment I struggled with the blog because everything took effort.  Making a simple phone call took effort.  I found out that I had cancer again on November 17th 2011 and my final treatment was June 7th.  Basically my life as I knew it stopped during that period.  Since then I have moved from California to Washington State which has been a huge adjustment.  I’ve lived 39 of my 47 years in California and Washington is the polar opposite of California, so it’s quite a change.  I never realized it would be so hard getting back to normal life after the treatment, but I guess it was the same way back in 2008.  The difference is this time is more serious.

I can honestly say that this has been an incredible faith building journey.  Cancer is terrible but it forces you to make a decision.  Do I want to live or am I good with dying?  I can go 3 different ways.

1. I can sit down and be scared and sad and feel sorry for myself and expect everyone to do the same.  This will be my death sentence for sure.
2. I can continue my life and live normally.
3. or, I can be positive and actively figure out what it is that I need to do to save my life.

So I know I need to excersice daily, and eat right.  I also know that I need to be calm and as happy as possible.  It’s been proven that people who are not happy die much sooner from cancer. From there I’m not really sure what I really need to do, so it’s the good thing that I’m a Christian so that I can give the rest to God until he shows me what I need to do to save my life.  Thursday I’m going to a natropath doctor so I’m hoping that will also help.

Anyone who is reading this can expect to see me here on a daily basis for now on.  My nephew Ben really wanted me to do this blog.  He thinks it will be good for me and helpful to others, so I’m just going to start and see where it goes from here.

Hello Everyone!

Last Thursday I got my 5th round of chemo at Swedish hospital in Seattle.  They gave me a lot of extra medications so I was there for over 5 hours.  One of the medications they gave me was an antihistamine, benadryl.  Wow!  That was terrible.  I’m going to ask them not to give it to me next time.  I don’t even know what the purpose was, but it made me very dizzy and I thought I was going to black out.  I was so tired I couldn’t think straight, then I had to drive home.  Ben hung out with me, but he lives out there so he couldn’t bring me home.  I guess next time I’ll be smart and have someone with me.  Since I had the benadryl, my good three healthy days were shot and I’ve done nothing but lay on the couch since.  (I should explain that I’m usually feeling fine the 1st 3 days after chemo, the 4th day I usually begin feeling extremely tired and nauseous). Tomorrow I have to go for blood tests to make sure the RBC, WBC and platelet count are good.  I have a feeling I will need a blood transfusion before the next chemo round, but we’ll see.  If anyone is reading this, you can pray that my blood counts come up.

As some of you know, I don’t have high speed internet right now because there are no towers where I’m living now.  I know it’s rediculous.  It makes it a little more challenging to do my blog. 

I’m so thankful or all the prayers I’m getting from so many people.  It really means a lot to me.  Most of you know that the odds are not in my favor this time around according to the text book statistics.  I still haven’t told my story that I keep promising, so you don’t know everything but I believe with all of my heart that God has a plan for me and I’m going to be ok.  Here’s the thing I’m struggling with…I know that all I have to do is ask and God will give me the desires of my heart.So I’m wondering why the cancer came back.  I hope I’m not misreading God.  Its much easier for me to believe that I’m going to live than to believe I’m going to die.  I’ve also be reading the “Purpose driven Life”.  It talks about how we are not put on this planet for OUR purpose but for GOD’S purpose.  I don’t know, it gets confusing to me.  I hope I’m not just believing what I want to believe.  Most of the time I don’t even think about it, especially since I believe I’ve gotten so many promises from God.  It’s just not always easy living with cancer, but after I’m still alive in 5 years I’m sure my purpose will definitely be clear.

Hello Everyone,

I know, I’ve been gone for quite a long time.  I’ve recently moved from California to Washington and staying with my brother and family for a while.  It’s sad leaving California which has been my home for most of my life.  That’s ok, it’s time and it feels right.

I had my 4th round of chemotherapy Monday April 16th.  As soon as I was finished, Ben and I were in the car on our way to Washington.  I enjoyed the trip most of the way, although the last 6 hours were pretty tough for me.  I was ready to stop for the night, but with the chemo, it’s best just to get there as quickly as possible.  I’ve been feeling pretty good with this last round.  My energy was completely zapped for a few days but yesterday I started feeling like I’m on the upward swing back to feeling healthy again.  I will probably be weak for a few more days but I should get progressively better everyday.  Today I got out for the 1st time that I’ve been to Washington, so it’s been a week.

It was sad saying goodbye to my Doctor but for those of you who don’t know, she helped me find my new Doctor in Washington.  The new Doctor is a good friend of hers and just so happens to have been vote one of Seattle’s top Doctors for the past 3 years.  So I feel like I’m in very good hands.

I know I’ve been promising to tell some stories and I’m not following through.  With all the sickness and the changes and the craziness I haven’t had much of a chance to come on here.  I really want to make a difference in the lives of others who have cancer so as soon as things settle down a bit I will be on her regularly. 

Hello everyone,

I’ve been gone for a while but I’m back.  Last week I was in Washington State for a week and I didn’t have Internet where I was.

Right now I’m sitting in a library in Huntington Beach waiting for some work to be done on my car.  This library is the biggest and nicest library I’ve every been to before.  It’s a library and a cultural center with water everywhere.  A person could easily hang out in here all day long.

It seems as though I’m feeling better now.  I’ve gone so long without exercise and have been laying around so much that my energy level is still pretty low.  I’m sure it’s going to be a while before I feel normal again, but I haven’t been feeling so bad thanks to all of your prayers.  Your prayers are getting me through this.  When my treatment is over I will continue needing your prayers because we are praying for my life to be saved.  I really want to be the one that can go around speaking to support groups to give other cancer patients hope.  In 5 years I want to be a testimonial to my doctors and I want to make them so proud that they saved my life when they told me the odds were not in my favor.

I’ve heard a lot of questions about what stage my cancer is. That’s a little tricky to answer because my first doctor told me the stage doesn’t change, but realistically I guess it would be considered stage 4 because the cancer metastasized to some lymph nodes in the abdominal area.  My situation is not text book because it’s nothing like the way cervical cancer spreads.  Tomorrow I will tell you all about that.

Most of you know that I am moving back to Washington State.  I’m back in California to tie up loose ends and I will be on my way to Washington April 16th right after chemo treatment.

Yay, my radiation was completed yesterday.  It was bitter sweet because I love everyone that works there and will miss them.  I was ordered that I couldn’t come back again unless it is to say hi and to tell everyone how great I’m doing.

I’ve noticed that I’ ve gotten very weak from the radiation and much more nausious.  I’ve been spending a lot of time just laying in bed not wanting to do anything.  That’s ok, because I know what it feels like to be truly sick and this is not it.  I felt truly sick during my 1st and especially 2nd round of chemo.  Nothing will compare to that thanks to all of your prayers!!

I know I keep saying I’m going to tell my story.  Well please be patient.  I have a two week break between radiation and chemo so I should be able to build my strength back up and do more.  In two weeks I get my blood tested.  If all is well I will get my chemo the next day.

Today I am staying home and trying to rest, although I have a ton of things to do.  Most of it will have to wait.