Story: Jana Remy, 13-year-old with bone cancer in her knee,
amputation and chemo are recommended by her doctors. She receives her patriarchal blessing and is
promised "You will have the faith to be healed". Jana and her parents
are overjoyed and interpret this to mean that the malignancy in her leg would
be healed and she would be able to keep her leg. Two weeks later, on the day of the operation,
the physicians agree to evaluate her knee once more, if the cancer was gone,
they would not amputate the leg. After
the operation, Jana awakens and to her horror discovers that her leg had been
removed. For several weeks following the amputation she and her family battles
depression, anger, and denial. She
refuses to participate in physical therapy and tells her oncologist that she
wants to stop chemotherapy. One day, her
father coaxes her to take a wheelchair ride out of the hospital for the first
time. Once outside they discover that
they can't even get her wheelchair over to some roses bushes, so she could smell
them. In frustration she breaks down in
tears.
"As I sat there feeling miserable, the desire grew
within me to reach out for the roses, to smell the individual flowers. I
expressed this to my dad, and he tried to move the wheelchair close enough for
me to do so. But the chair was too awkward over the grass and dirt around the
bushes. I started to cry again in frustration that I couldn’t accomplish one
simple task. Dad knelt down at the side of my wheelchair and stroked my hair.
When I stopped sobbing, he took my hands in his and looked straight into my
eyes.
“You can do it, you know,” he said. “It won’t be easy.
Everything—even smelling roses—will be harder from now on. But I know, and you
know, that you can do it.” We were both silent for a long time as I looked into
his eyes. In that moment I realized that I had no choice about the loss of my
leg. It was gone, and I needed to accept it. I also understood that I would
need all of my strength and determination to do the things I would want to do. I
will do it, I thought to myself.
I spent many hours learning to manipulate my artificial leg.
It was awkward and painful, and I often fell down. At the same time, I still
had chemotherapy treatments every two weeks. Because of the treatments I was
bald, weak, and severely underweight. At one point about six months after my
surgery, I was so discouraged that I told my oncologist (the doctor who was
treating my cancer) that I wouldn’t continue my treatments. She explained to me
that if I didn’t finish the prescribed course of treatment, the cancer had a
high chance of returning, and she urged me to continue. I was emotionally and
physically exhausted, but in the back of my mind I remembered my father’s words
and I felt renewed strength to continue with my treatments.
Six months later, the chemotherapy treatments were over. I
still felt discouraged about losing a leg, and I was overwhelmed with fear
about facing the future as a one-legged person. My mind turned again to the
promise given in my patriarchal blessing. I wasn’t healed, I thought to myself.
Why wasn’t I healed? I wondered if it was a lack of faith on my part. Maybe I
hadn’t prayed hard enough or believed that Heavenly Father could heal me as was
promised in my blessing.
As these thoughts ran through my mind, I started to cry. I
curled myself up into a fetal position and sobbed for a long time. As I did so,
I remembered all I had accomplished in the year since my surgery. I had
adjusted to my disability and learned to walk again. I had completed my full
course of chemotherapy treatments and was gaining weight and strength again. My
hair was even beginning to grow back. Then it came to my mind, with a small and
simple whisper, that I had been healed. I was healed of the overwhelming pain
and anguish that came when I realized my leg was gone. I was given the physical
and emotional strength to tackle the challenges of life following the surgery.
Most importantly, I was in remission from the cancer.
With that realization, I bowed my head in prayer. I thanked my
Heavenly Father for the fulfillment of the blessing of healing. I thanked Him
for my father’s wise counsel and for the support of my family and friends who
had helped me through the most difficult months of my life. Most of all, I
thanked Him that I was still alive—for I realized that with or without my right
leg, my life was worth living."
https://www.lds.org/new-era/2001/01/a-promise-kept?lang=eng
