Frank Whatley

I'm just an old country boy. I gave my life to Christ as a teenager, and when I think of all that I've survived in the years since, including a perforated ulcer on my portal vein when in high school, a bout with lung cancer and the removal of one lung, and then two heart attacks, I basically can tell you I wouldn't be here except for God. He's saved my life over and over. I knew He'd take care of me. He does what He says He'll do.

But my life doesn't just consist of the health difficulties I've survived and the way God has had just the right people at the right place to help me in emergencies. It also consists of my wife Nellie, with whom I just celebrated a 50th wedding anniversary in June, our three children, five grandchildren and one great grandchild.

It consists of my love of and dedication to education and kids, keeping a sense of humor and my ability to entertain children with funny "duck talk." It consists of the students I've taught math to through the years, not just in Tulsa at Booker T. Washington, but after early retirement in Oklahoma, also in Texas, New Mexico and Alaska.

It consists of the simple prayers Nellie and I have prayed to a God we know can do anything, and the faith we've grown as we've learned to surrender our dearest dreams, deepest hopes and each other to God for whatever His will is for us, in spite of what we'd like it to be. It consists of the peace we've known after that.

And God has never disappointed us. I'm just amazed at how He can make things happen. I marvel at how effective He is with even little things. Why, when Cancer Treatment Centers of America (CTCA) asked me if I'd make a commercial for them, I never thought about how God was in that until I had strangers tell me I'd saved their lives by what I shared on that commercial. That's just God and what He does.

My personal cancer journey began in 1993, when I struggled with a persistent cough that continued to worsen. After testing, I was given a diagnosis of lung cancer. But, like I always do, I talked to God about the situation and told Him that while I really wanted to live to see my grandchildren grow up, I was surrendered to His will for my life.

I didn't hear any bells, whistles or thunderclaps, but when I woke up the next morning, I just had the assurance God was going to give me a full recovery if I could just have that lung removed.

Nellie and I had been teaching in Gallup, New Mexico, but being Oklahomans by birth and still having a home in Tahlequah, we decided to head back to Oklahoma and Tulsa to familiar doctors and to get a second opinion.

Back home, my family doctor made an appointment with a cardiovascular surgeon and a pulmonologist. The surgeon felt confident he could operate and take the lung, thus removing the cancer. Surgery revealed a 10-centimeter primary tumor in the left lower lobe which was a squamous cell carcinoma. Several lymph nodes tested positive for metastatic disease, and the surgeon reported the tumor had been attached to the heart sac and had to be peeled off. I came through the surgery with no complications and by mid-afternoon was sitting up in ICU drinking a cup of coffee.

Because there had been positive lymph node involvement, I learned I'd need chemotherapy and radiation. To decide where I'd have treatment, my daughter, La Nell, a nurse, coached us on the important questions to ask such as, "Is the chemotherapy administered through a port?" and "How is the body not being radiated protected?" and "What diet should be followed and what supplements should be taken?"

At one of the places considered, I was told there would be no port and little protection from the radiation for the body. I was also told I could eat anything I wanted, and that supplements and vitamins werent needed. When I went to CTCA and asked those questions, I was told I'd have a port; there'd be protection from the radiation for my body; I was given a nutritious diet regime to follow and told which supplements and vitamins would be beneficial. I chose CTCA.

I completed treatment in February 1994 and have had no reoccurrence of cancer since. These days, I try to remind people, as often as I can, how much God loves them, and I continue to make kids laugh and to enjoy being Nellie's husband (I knew the minute she walked into my history class in 1959 that she was it!) as well as a father, grandfather, great-grandfather and survivor.

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