God's Road Signs

After I wrote and published my last post, I started once again to do some research.  When you come to a dead end, you turn around and go back to the beginning.  I went to my “cancer” shelf on the bookcase, and pulled out The Alternative Guide to Your Cancer Diagnosis.  After looking under “brain cancer” in the index I was directed to page 311.  I read a short excerpt titled “Success Story:  Brain Tumor Treated with Magnetic Therapy”.  I liked what I read.  After testing for nutritional deficiencies, hormonal imbalances, and toxic metabolite exposure, Dr. Schachter put the patient on a nutritional program with several oral supplements including shark cartilage (a big one in the cancer world right now), amygdalin, antioxidant and immune-enhancing vitamins and herbs.   He also had the patient wear a powerful magnet placed against his head and held in place with a headband for several hours each day.  Nearly 5 years later, the patient who had originally been told he had 6-18 months of survival was doing well.  The tumor had not grown at all while under the treatment.

I decided to look up the doctor’s website, and was immediately greeted by a photo of Dr. Schachter himself.  I couldn’t believe it.  He looks so much like Adam’s father.  Really he’s a perfect cross between my father-in-law and a friend from Nottingham named Ian Campbell.  Huh.  I decided to find out exactly where this place is.  I brought up Suffern, NY on Mapquest and was momentarily stunned.  The clinic is exactly 15 miles from my aunt and uncle in Stony Point.  Double-huh.  Okay, Vanessa.  Calm down.  Breathe.  Is this where we are supposed to go?  It can’t be.  This is way too quick.  It’s been less than 12 hours since Adam was taken off the antineoplastons.  Could God really be directing us already?  Would he send us a sign this quickly?   I asked God for more signs.  I asked Him to be absolutely clear.  No fooling around.  We need to know that this is definitely from You.

I don’t know if you remember 7 months ago when we were trying to figure out where we needed to go for Adam to start cancer treatment.  We asked for sign after sign after sign.  God was beating us over the head with the endless Houston references, and yet still I begged for assurance.  I could imagine Him with His hands on His hips going, “Alright already!!”  Well, this time I’ve been just as annoying.  New York?  Are you sure?  Well, despite my reservations, He’s been revealing His intentions to us once again.  Twice in two days I loaded up the internet to be greeted with “New York” in bold.  The news headlines have been focusing on the horrible shooting that just occurred there.  I’ve also been reading a memoir about a woman who was a plural wife in a fundamentalist Mormon group.  I noticed yesterday morning that at the bottom of the cover it reads, “From the New York Times bestselling author of Shattered Dreams.”  I went to show it to Adam, and he replied, “Now all we need to see is a Chevy HHR with New York plates!”  I stared at him with my mouth gaping wide.  He looked at me with a questioning look, and I said, “Honey… we DROVE a Chevy HHR with New York plates when we went to Houston!”  Finally, yesterday we were out for much of the day running errands.  When we got home there were a few messages on the voice mail.  Adam was listening to them and suddenly said, “Oh, Father Dobbins called… how nice of him.”  Father Dobbins is our parochial vicar, and has been so wonderful to us since this whole journey began.  A moment later Adam looked confused and said, “Wait, I don’t know who that was.”  He played it again for me to listen.  It was clearly Father Dobbins’ voice, but for some reason it was saying, “This is Timothy from the Schachter Center calling to see how Adam is doing today, and wondering if you had any more questions after taking to Anita yesterday.  If you would like to call me back, my number here is…”  I couldn’t believe it.  Adam said, “We are definitely going to New York now.”  Suffern, here we come!