By: Lacha’ J. Mitchell

I could not shake the feelings of doom for myself. The battle going on in my mind was

a constant reminder that death was trying to track me down as well. Sometimes I felt as if

I were running a race that I could not win. Death was everywhere, and I was in a pit of

sickness, disease and despair.

Breast Cancer had made its second appearance to disrupt my life and now my baby

girl was fighting for her life as well. I was in the process of fighting for my life when

cancer threatened to make a home within my family until one or both of us gave up the

fight. While my body was rejecting me, fighting against me, betraying me, I had to speak

life in order to be there for my baby girl. Not knowing if I would live or die because

treatments were halted due to my daughter’s situation. I was ready to trade my life for

hers if God would only take me and restore her.

Bargaining with God which is what we do, when the chips are down, when we think

our talking impresses God to move on our behalf, or grant our greatest wish. My back

was against the wall, and I begged and pleaded with God to turn the situation around for

us.

Feeling totally drained, with no visible resolutions in sight, moving like a dead woman

walking, I ended up at the sink to wash my hands and then over to RhonShays bedside. I

was afraid to really look at her. Ronnie had no problems doing so, but I found myself

leaning on him as if he were my crutch. Ronnie was my physical strength and I needed

for him to help me keep it together. He stood at the bottom of her bed and I stood on the

left side, looking at the child whose name on the wall was the name of my child, but was

swollen in the face and neck area with tubes in her nose and mouth with a machine - the

respirator keeping her alive. It was her lifeline to this side of the world, but she was

resting because of the heavy sedation. Crying inside because of the deformity of my

child’s physical appearance, screams were begging me to release them into the

atmosphere. My heart crumbled like one who takes a piece of paper and balls it up in

their hand. The context of my heart would never be the same if God did not step in to fix

it.

Half standing, half leaning on the bedrail, I listened as the doctors told us that

RhonShay could not breathe on her own after the biopsy on her chest was done. I knew

that her heart could stop because they forewarned us of the risks and the danger of

operating on her with such a huge mass in her chest. I chose to believe God, that He

would defy the odds against her. As I watched her, I wondered if I did the right thing by

her. Voices and hints of my selfishness began to flood my Eardrums and I wanted to run

from all of the thoughts and just have a moment of peace to think it all through.