Episode Transcript
It is all too often said that there are no miracles performed these days. Therefore, I challenge this idea with my story of my motorbike and rare cancer. Welcome to miracles in the 21st century.
I'm Corinne Knopper. Along comes 2018. An umbilical hernia appeared to be giving me it abdominal troubles with some distention of the abdominum.
And there were pain pulling sensations when emptying my bladder. Not heard of by my local doctor or the surgeon I visited a couple of weeks later. An ultrasound revealed nothing too remarkable other than a bit of fluid in the abdomen and a side issue of a gallbladder with many small stones.
Oh, well. Fixing both the hernia and the gallbladder at one time is easy, said the surgeon. The operation time on the 15th of May in 2018 was just a little later in the day than scheduled, as someone else needed more operating time than had been allotted for them.
When I awoke from my surgery, no pain and I saw the clock was 5:30pm and I wondered what had taken so long. A quick tummy cheque found a drain tube and on being taken back to my room, there was a bladder catheter in a bag. Oh.
The reason for the drainage tube was there was about one litre of fluid that had been sucked out of my abdominal cavity. What produced that? A tumour. One end of the tumour was attached to the appendix, the other end attached to the bladder.
The appendix was gone and part of the outside wall of the bladder. No wonder emptying the bladder had the cause of pulling sensations. No postoperative pain.
The abdominal drainage tube remained there to see if there was more fluid that could be extricated. Two days later, there was a scan that satisfied our surgeon that I could go home until seeing him a fortnight after the operation and remove that bladder catheter and the bag. By then, the outside wall of the bladder healed very well.
You have pseudomyxoma peritonii. Hmm. I'd worked for a urologist for over a decade and I'd done all sorts of names and never encountered all the medical terminology used.
And there were many sessions of learning medical terminology that goes with working with a medical specialist. You booked into Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney for further evaluation and surgery. This sort of cancer is only treated two places in New South Wales and Australia.
Both of them are in Sydney. You are lucky Sydney is so close. He said.
The visit to the specialist down there in Sydney was really quick. The surgery was on the 3rd of July in 2018. That time frame is totally unheard.
Of cancer, the dreaded C word. Now let me backtrack to the start of the miracles for this situation. I hope you heard the miracles that viruses can't be treated.
Now, here is what happens in my motorbike and rare cancer. My local doctor listened to my wimpy discomfort complaint and the vanity of a swelling abdomen. The surgeon who operated had just been looking into this type of rare cancer, of which only 24 to 30 people in a million in Australia might have in a year.
So he knew what he was looking at. The pathologist who looked at that tumour and the liquid was the best in the Hunter New England medical area. And he had diagnosed a 2006 bug that had caused me many weeks in and out of hospital with vomiting and diarrhoea.
A bug he had not seen in 10 years. And one does not get into RPA in just a few weeks. It's usually a very long waiting of months.
And yet I had further surgery on the 3rd of July in 2018. Now the next little miracles will keep rolling by without anyone realising, including my family. At the visit with the RPA surgeon, there was a specialist medical nurse, a student doctor from the University of Sydney that was right next door to rpa.
The surgeon worked through all the possibilities, but first wished to do her own explorations. Hence another visit to the operating room. Only the sixth person in Australia in 2018 with PMP.
At that point, the duration of the theatre could be hours, but it varied depending on the possibilities that were discussed. And a short time for checking bowel, spleen, uterus, ovaries, peritoneum, etc. Etc.
Along with this, another specialist would remove that gallbladder, which now showed on a new scan, very large stones that would never be expelled. So how did they grow so large from that initial March ultrasound through to July for this. So this second operation once again awoke and there was no pain.
Gallbladder gone, an overnight stay in hospital to cheque the post operative responses and then go home again, awaiting that postoperative visit with the surgeon next week. You're never to lift anything, including not putting that washing on the line. Don't ever do that again with the final instructions on leaving the surgeon's office.
Hmm. That means I must sell my motorbike. Any responsible motorbike rider should be able to lift their bike unaided if it falls.
Now the next question was, how much should I advertise the motorbike for? After checking a few things, my husband and I decided on $2,500. Wow. Without even advertising I had a phone call from a friend two days later asking if I'd considered selling my motorbike to upgrade to a bigger motorbike.
He had two and a half thousand dollars saved up in his cash box, locked away at home, and he'd give it to me immediately. Done. The money banked into my account.
It was then time to go back to Sydney for the specialist visit and to have the surgeon remark on the unexplained total absence of anything further, which allowed me to say, God is in control and I have work to do. Yet a knowing smile crept across her face and her eyes lit up. A gentle affirmative nod was given.
All the pathology was now put together. Yes, it was pseudomyxoma peritonii, or PMP as they called it for short. The tumour is called a mucinous or a mucous tumour, she said, and it pumps out mucin, or mucus as we know it.
This was found so early. The tumour was of the lowest cancerous grade possible. All of the blood tests, including the three tumour markers found.
Two tumour markers were negative. The third one only showed smallest amount of inflammation possible. The little bit of mucinal mucus that was removed in that second operation had no cancer cells, as did the full litre that day was taken in that first operation on the 15th of May in 2018.
Now, it's good to note that for the state of New south Wales in 2020, only 89 people were treated for this rare cancer. That was a bit of a shock. God, I have work to do.
What do you want me to do? The answer came just a very short while later. A praying friend from Sydney came and visited me with a choice of two soft blankets. Her explanation began by saying that the blankets were prayed over by the church ladies group.
Now, when I felt lonely, sick, God was deserting me, was tired or whatever was not going well, wrap myself in that blanket and no, God is wrapping his arms around me and he's hugging me because these blankets have been prayed over. My friend cannot always be here at my beck and call and come to pray with me or hug me and help my family, let alone help around the house with a bit of housework. Sadly, within a week of me receiving my blanket, one of my church friends had a tumour the size of a chook egg in her brain.
My blanket ministry began. No, not mine. The Avondale Memorial Church women's ministries, of which I'm a part, began a blanket ministry.
The ladies purchased and prayed over the many blankets. Another one suggested we make tags to put on the blankets so the recipient could remember what that blanket was for, what it represents. The ladies who have received these blankets have been humbled and accepting of the love that has been given from God, who is tenderly watching over each one who is sick or grieving over the lost one they've loved, whatever their trauma may have been.
God has work for me and you to do to hasten Jesus soon return. So what is your work for the Lord? What are the miracles you've witnessed? If God could close the lion's mouth for Daniel, part the Red Sea for Moses, make the sun stand still for Joshua and open the prison doors for Peter, put a baby in the arms of Sarah and raise Lazarus from the dead, then he can certainly take care of you. Nothing you are facing today is too hard for him to handle.
I want to remember that. Please, let us pray. Dear Father, there is nothing too hard for us to handle with you by our sides, holding us, guiding us, giving us the courage and the strength.
You give so much to us, Lord. And we do not understand exactly why some of these happened to us. But you are always there and I'm grateful, Lord.
Thank you very much. And bless our hearers too, because we ask it all in Jesus precious name. Amen.
