Colette Mendel

Getting cancer would never have been my plan, but I really think, for me, it was God’s way of getting my attention.

Sometimes, some of us don’t always feel His nudges, and He has to kind of smack us upside the head. I’m not saying He gives us cancer, but He sure can use it for good when it comes along. And, in my life, He used both it and Cancer Treatment Centers of America (CTCA) as a lifesaver, both physically and spiritually.

I was 40 in May 2003 when I started having major abdominal pains. My doctor took an x-ray but then sent me to the hospital for tests as my pains were so severe. As a result of the tests, hospital personnel did emergency surgery. They found a tumor in my colon, and, by the time they finished surgery, I had a colostomy and a cancer diagnosis. The surgeon recommended a local oncologist, and a month after surgery, I started chemotherapy. The chemo was to be one time a week for six months.

After two or three weeks of this, I literally couldn’t function. I couldn’t sit up; I couldn’t go to work. The chemo was affecting me really adversely. I even had to lay down when I went in for the chemo treatment. When the oncologist saw me, his solution to my condition was simply to decide that we wouldn’t do chemo that week. When he said that, and said it, to my mind, with little compassion or concern as to why I was feeling like this, I thought, “Forget it.” I felt wasted and ready to throw in the towel. At the time, I wasn’t involved in church, had no support group and felt completely alone. With no more support than that from him, I wanted to quit.

Sometime during the next week, with a little energy returning, I saw a newspaper ad for a cancer seminar being put on by CTCA in Saginaw, about 45 minutes north of me. My mom and I went and were impressed with what we heard about nutrition and cancer care. I called CTCA, and because they wanted me to be two weeks out from the chemo treatments I’d been receiving, they scheduled me for an appointment the following week.

At the end of July, I drove to Zion, Illinois, had my first appointment and stayed and started treatment. They gave me a fractionated dose schedule of slow-drip chemo five days in a row once a month for five months. They gave me credit for the one month of chemo I’d already gone through.

The treatment I received at CTCA was like night and day compared with what I’d had at home. I wasn’t sick. I missed very little work, and I felt like a weight was off my shoulders. I wasn’t being told what to do; I had a say in what was going on with my treatment. I didn’t feel like it was an inconvenience to the doctor when I asked questions. And even though I went to treatment by myself, I felt like the people at CTCA were my family there. I felt like I had all this support. This made me more positive.

A month after I finished chemo, I had surgery to reverse the colostomy, and I did the surgery back home – a big mistake. I should have had that done at CTCA as well, for once again, the contrast between care at CTCA and regular healthcare was all too clear. My incision from the colostomy reversal became infected, and I ended up with a third surgery. The medication they had me on at the hospital made me anxious and hyper, and no one paid attention to me, to my actions and to what was going on with me or the fact that I couldn’t sit still for 12 hours straight. It was a nightmare experience. I should have known better. CTCA has raised the bar for all other healthcare facilities in the care they give.

I now only go to Zion every six months for scans and blood tests, but, so far, everything’s clear. To show you how CTCA cares, how they treat you like a person, I once had a doctor chase me down at CTCA before I left the hospital, so I could know the results of my scans before I left the hospital. He didn’t want me having to wait 12 hours to get results. Twelve hours – at most places, you wait days to get results of tests. CTCA proves that you don’t have to wait, that doctors can spend time with you, that you can be proactive in your care and take part in your treatment.

In all of this, God was at work, showing me His compassion and provision through the people He put me in contact with at CTCA and those that rallied around me at home. One example of this was a lady at work, who I hardly knew, who sent me a hand-made card each week with wonderfully encouraging things on it. Another was a phlebotomist who would even come to my work to draw my blood if I couldn’t make it to where she was, so I’d always have the same person working on my hard-to-find veins.

Within a few months of my last surgery, God guided me to a new job, new church, new town and great support system, gradually drawing me back to Himself in all of this by showing me how He could hold me through hard times, provide for me and strengthen me to be able to make it, no matter how horrible or stressful the circumstances. It’s been amazing, and, without the cancer, I don’t know where I’d be now. Before it, I wasn’t always making the best choices in my life. Now, with His help, I do much better. I do know that God has used cancer and CTCA in my life for great good.

• Email This Page to a Friend
• Print this Page