Living While Dying: With Irrational Joy

By Donna Tarrant

On the day Donna Tarrant was diagnosed with breast cancer, December 17, 2002, she was standing at the kitchen counter slicing ham for the twenty-five or so guests that were due to arrive for a luncheon any minute. The phone call left her speechless. The doctor told her to buy green bananas; she would be alive to eat them! Any other time, she would have laughed out loud. Now, she was going to die.

After half a night of research, she knew exactly what she was going to do. After the doctors appointment, she was determined. She would have a mastectomy and tram flap reconstruction, all on the same day. She did not intend to have chemotherapy or radiation. This is when God stepped in and made her realize that she was in control of nothing, except her dependence and faith in Him. She learned very quickly that He is in control and He does have a plan.

She could make bold statements about what she was not going to do, but the truth of the matter was that she had to hand it all over to Jesus, her Lord and Savior. Finally, she received the peace that was missing. She could not attain that peace without giving it all to Jesus.

After surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation, she began anew to live her lifeone of extreme appreciation for the gift that she had been given. Life was so much more precious now and she lived it fully. Then, the unthinkable happened.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Apr 29, 2014
• ISBN: 9781490825595

Donna Tarrant

She has been writing poetry since high school. She is now in her sixties. This is her second book. She is a college graduate, and lives in Lowell, Massachusetts. She is a lector, altar server, and Extraordinary minister of Holy Communion at two local churches. She has been published by a Catholic Publishing Co. in Minnesota.

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Copyright © 2014 Donna Tarrant.

Reprinted by permission. Jesus Calling by Sarah Young, copyright 2004 Thomas Nelson Inc. Nashville, Tennessee. All rights reserved

Reprinted by permission. Jesus Today by Sarah Young, copyright 2012

Thomas Nelson Inc.

Nashville, Tennessee

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ISBN: 978-1-4908-2558-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4908-2557-1 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4908-2559-5 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014904002

1.Heaven-Christianity. 2.Dying-Living. 3.Cancer-Breast 4.Peace-Hope 5.Inspirational 6.Tarrant, Donna

WestBow Press rev. date: 4/28/2014

Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Epilogue

I dedicate Living While Dying

with Irrational Joy

to all souls who have been given a terminal diagnosis,

and I pray you always feel the peace of His presence.

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Romans 15:13

Life application study Bible NIV

Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. and Zondervan

Copyright 2005

Preface

Every morning I prayed for the peace of acceptance of this diagnosis. Before I could continue fighting for my life, I had to first accept why I fight. It seemed to take forever for me to finally feel the peace He had given me. It is possibly like watching water, waiting for it to boil. You want it so badly that you have absolutely no patience for the waiting.

He gave me another lesson in patience. Apparently I need many of those. But when the answer came, it brought the most enveloping, comforting peace I have ever felt. Once I accepted that my life was not yet over, that there were many things left for me to do, I knew why I had to fight for as much time as He will give me. He will let me know when the time comes for me to quit fighting and go home.

I reasoned that if this is the way it must be for me, how can I help others deal with a terminal diagnosis? How do I help them find hope? And most important of all, how can I help them find Jesus if they don’t know Him so that they, too, can live an irrationally happy life?

Every morning it was the same prayer, ’til one day I started to feel this niggling in my brain, telling me I should write a book. How I scoffed at that! I can’t write a book, because I don’t know how. I do know how to read them, but writing … there was no way.

God would not let it go, but I just kept resisting Him. I found out that when He insists, I might as well go ahead and follow His plan right away. It saves me a lot of time and heartache, because God always has a plan. And it is always right.

He used my conscious on me ’til I finally said, Okay, if I am to write a book, what will the title be? What will it be about? He told me instantly: "Living While Dying. Tell others about me that don’t know me. Tell them I am here, waiting for them to come to me. Tell them they must not give up. Live the rest of life on this earth as the precious gift that it is … living every moment as if it is the last second of earthly life. Enjoy what time is left to the max."

First and foremost, get right with God. If you are not living a full and complete Christian life, now is the time to change. Live the rest of your time, however long that might be, with the irrational joy and peace that you can only receive from Jesus Christ.

Make a bucket list, and then set about attempting to complete every item on that list. Love harder, laugh longer. Give forgiveness. Ask for forgiveness from those you have wronged.

Some, on learning of a dire prognosis, simply give up. They sit down and just wait to die. And then they do, without any happiness for the things they could have been enjoying.

God has answered my prayer in a way that I would never, could never, have imagined. Often when our prayers are answered, it is in such an amazing way that we simply cannot grasp the magnificence of the answer. Our mind can never begin to comprehend the answers we are sometimes given.

God is using me as the tool to get His message across. It has been a heartrending struggle at times, but when I faltered, He showed me what to do next. In the end, it has been a joy and a witness to finally be obedient to God’s calling. I am so glad I finally listened. My life is fuller and richer because of my obedience.

Acknowledgments

Without God’s answer to my prayer and His insistence that I be obedient to Him, this book would have never have materialized. He always knows what He is doing and why. We should always listen. So again, I thank Him for his love and constant presence. Throughout this process and the many times of reading and rereading, I have read a line or a paragraph and thought, Wow, where did that come from? That is really good! I have discovered He used my hand many times to write what needed to be written. This just proves what I already knew; if He takes us to it, He will equip us to get through it or do it Himself!

Many thanks are due my sweet husband, who supported me from day one of this venture. He has taken me places I never dreamed I would be fortunate enough to see. They were amazing, mostly because they were shared with my soul mate. Yet coming home was always the sweetest part because home is where the heart is! As I struggled with writing, he had to wait for many late dinners, but being his usual self, he was very patient. These thirty-three years of marriage to the love of my life have been incredible, an adventure I would do all over again.

So many thanks are due my parents for teaching me a work ethic, building in me a good character by their example, and for taking me to church. I believe my mother is my fiercest prayer warrior, and God hears those prayers. From the time I began to rebel until I got back into church, she was a warrior for me. Now she is a warrior for a different reason. I credit Dad with my love of the outdoors. We spent a lot of time together that was very special. My siblings and I are indeed blessed to have such awesome, loving parents.

Thank you both for the love you shared for sixty-five years and for the example you have set for your children. Since I am not a product of divorced parents, I truly cannot understand the issues children must face when their parents divorce. I thank them for showing me how to make a marriage full of lasting love.

Mariellen and Eddie have given me many of the stories that make up my life. I may still give Eddie a hard time, but he knows he is a loved brother. I wish I could have a heart as full of compassion as Mariellen has, but I will just continue to follow her example. Perhaps some of it will rub off on me! She is more than just a sister to me; she is a very special friend.

My niece, Dee, and I share the same quirky sense of humor, and I just love it. I will always keep the last card she sent, because every time I read it I belly laugh all over again! And Jennifer, I certainly did not realize what I was asking you to do when I asked you to edit this book. I had no idea there was so much work involved. I apologize in advance if I missed some of your edits. I also added more, after you had edited, so if you see an error, I absolutely do not blame you. Thank you both, dear nieces!

So many family members have been supportive that I cannot list everyone. My Sunday school ladies continue to encourage and love me. Brother Grant’s sermons are so inspiring that I often went home to check passages he mentioned that gave me ideas of something I wanted to include in this book. Many times I checked with him about the meaning of certain Scriptures. I wanted to make sure that meant what I thought they did. I also need to thank him and his lovely wife for very gently pushing me to do more. It was exactly what I needed.

Brian, I saved you for last. Not because you are the least important but because I am so honored that God chose me to be your mother. Being a mother is a very humbling experience. Being a mother to someone as special as you is pretty amazing! I thank Him every day for you and the loving, caring, and compassionate man you have grown into. Yes, there were a few things that, in hindsight, I would have done differently, but God was guiding me all along, and I think you turned out pretty well! I am blessed that God showed me how to be a parent while you were growing up so that we can be friends now that you are an adult.

Thank you as well for allowing me to write many stories that might be sensitive or even embarrassing. Yet when I called to ask if it was okay for me to include a particular story, your answer was always, Mom, use whatever you want.

Chapter 1

Monday, October 8, 2007, will forever be seared into my memory. That was the day my oncologist told me the breast cancer we thought was cured had metastasized. It had spread to my bones. I was now stage IV. I was going to die.

It started out like every other workday. I had a lot of work to do. It seemed our software program was trying to die a slow death, with our server right on its heels. It was so frustrating for me because I am not a computer tech, and I was trying to find a new technician familiar with our software program. Then it all crashed! Add to that the fact I never did plan on picking up where my husband left off to run this company. After all, I am a gardener.

I have a seasonal wholesale plant business that allows me to work in my garden summer through fall, raising roses, annuals, perennials, and just about anything else that lures me to try growing it. When I add in garden club meetings and shows and Rose Society meetings and shows, I am a pretty busy woman. I also give programs—usually whenever asked. God instilled in me a love for all growing things, even though it took a number of years for it to be revealed. He left out the love of sports that so interests my husband. I have a gardening gene, but no sports gene. Works for me.

To be fair, my husband, Lane, wasn’t ready to give up the day-to-day operation of his business, either. Health issues have a way of intervening in what we perceive to be our perfect life. This first happened to us on June 1, 2001. We arrived home from a business trip to Taiwan on Sunday, and on Thursday, Lane had quadruple bypass surgery with mitral valve replacement. He had never even been in the hospital, and suddenly he was having a major procedure. He barely remembers any of it.

I know in my heart that without God’s divine intervention, Lane would not have survived that trip. His doctor did not want him to go, but he kept insisting he was going. What she did not know was that Lane can be very stubborn. He didn’t really want to believe that he was that sick.

The doctor left the room for a few minutes to give us time for a discussion, one Lane was not particularly interested in having at that moment. His valve was leaky, but the doctor thought he would be okay so she gave him the green light to go.

Well I wasn’t okay with it, and I told him I would not go. He told me that he would go by himself, leaky valve and all. Several minutes of silence passed. I finally said, Okay, I’ll go with you. However, I’m going as a married woman, and I’d better come home as one, not as a widow. Every visit thereafter, she would look at him and say, I don’t believe I let you go to Taiwan!

One Sunday morning after Lane’s surgery, I was waiting at the hospital for visiting time to begin, when an invitation sounded over the intercom. Worship service would begin in the chapel soon. I got up to go to the service. I missed the perfect opportunity to ask if anyone wanted to go with me. I knew how much I needed God’s comfort at that moment. I’m sure there were others who could have used that same assurance. For whatever reason, I failed to ask. Since my own diagnosis, I try really hard not to miss an opportunity to witness in whatever way He wishes, to whomever He wishes. We might never know how He has used us to help ease a troubled soul.

Lane’s surgeon saved his life, and we are forever grateful. Lane chose to have a mechanical valve, because it would last and would not need to be replaced. When you choose this type, you also need to take Coumadin for the rest of your life. We found out quickly how difficult that is to regulate, especially if you are diabetic.

Coumadin helps keep your blood thin, so it will not clot and block the valves. This helps prevent a stroke or heart attack. Since Lane was on Coumadin due to the mechanical mitral valve, the doctors wanted to maintain his INR (international normalized ratio) at a level of 2.5–3.5. PT/INR is simply a blood test that tells us the ‘stickiness’ or ‘blood clotting’ tendency of the blood. The test numbers are an average used to monitor the effectiveness of the anticoagulant. Getting the correct dosage was really hard to do at times. Since some foods can thin blood, Lane had to adjust the amount of leafy dark green vegetables he ate to a consistent amount so that along with the Coumadin, his blood would not get too thin. If it did, he would bleed, and that could be fatal.

Sometimes everything worked well; other times it did not. With a simple sneeze, or for no apparent reason at all, he might have a terrible nosebleed, where the blood just gushed out. It finally got to the point he was losing so much blood he had to have transfusions. For a year, this was a regular monthly event. When he began to need transfusions every three weeks, we knew something had to be done.

Lane’s primary care physician, Dr. Kimberly Bell, was an angel. She