April Witkowski Breast Cancer Questions, Discipleship

Why Keep the Faith

Some have wondered why I didn’t abandon my faith after receiving my diagnosis.  On the one hand, I like the Apostle Peter would have to say, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life” (John 6:68). And on the other hand, I have wrestled hard with the truth.  I have cried out to the Lord in anguish asking if He heard me. It is with deep conviction that I hold on to what I believe.

Hebrews 11:1-3 says, 

“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it the people of old received their commendation. By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.”

I came to saving faith in Jesus before I was seven years old.  I knew the Bible stories but they didn’t yet mean anything to me (at least not more than the ABC’s and 123’s). One Sunday night at church while my father (Ray Gentry) was preaching, I sat listening intently. The Holy Spirit brought conviction to my soul for the sinner that I am. I wanted to be perfect in my own strength. I was always trying to obey the rules so that things would go well for me. Yet I failed time and again. I couldn’t achieve the standard I had already set for myself at an early age. I started crying before I could even understand all the thoughts that were running through my head.  But I knew in that moment that Jesus had died on the cross for me. All the things I had heard about Jesus were real and true. That night I confessed my sins and need for a Savior to God. I prayed for Jesus to forgive me. And He did! I was changed and I knew it. From that point on faith was alive in my soul. It has been slow at times in my life, but God began a work in my life then and He has been faithfully growing me since.  Building truth upon truth, I have desired to live a life pleasing to God (Hebrews 11:6).

Since God opened my eyes to the truth, I can’t desert it for a lie. And with every hard season of my life, the same truth proves steadfast and unmovable. It is my strength for today and the hope of what is to come.

April Witkowski Discipleship

What About This……Treatment?

Please know that all treatment options for breast cancer are not appropriate for me.  We have genetically sequenced my cancer tumors twice.  So we know which treatments are best suited to combat my specific form of ER+PR+HER2- breast cancer.  We have been sent information from many friends with treatment ideas. We do discuss many of them with my doctors, but most do not address my cancer and therefore would prove either less effective than my current treatments if not completely ineffective.  For instance, immunotherapy that has had success in other cancer settings is still not an option for me because the genetic makeup of my cancer is resistant to the treatment. For a drug to be effective it must target ER+PR+HER- breast cancer and the particular subset within that larger group which contain the ERS1 mutation.  

April Witkowski Discipleship

Why Didn’t You Have Surgery/Mastectomy?

I have been asked this question in various forms more than any other question since my diagnosis. When doctors diagnose breast cancer at earlier stages, they often encourage their patients to get a mastectomy because the procedure promises to remove most if not all of the breast cancer cells from the patient’s body. Because my cancer was diagnosed after it had metastasized (the cancer cells from my breast tumor had moved into my blood stream and travelled all throughout my body), surgery would provide me with no substantial benefit. Even if the breast tumor was removed, a whole army of tumors would remain in my bones and liver.  There was no stopping my cancer through surgery by the time we knew it was there. 

And if I went under the scalpel today, I would also risk my cancer growing because I would have to stop all other treatments for weeks prior and after surgery.  We don’t want to risk letting my cancer grow unchecked for any prolonged period of time.