I am in my fifth day of recovering from my bilateral prophylactic mastectomy and reconstruction. The surgery was longer than expected, but was more than I could have asked for or hoped for.

I had two major God-sized prayers for this surgery: one of them was I hoped to have the breast implants put in on the same day as the tissue removal. Normally, tissue expanders are placed in the breasts after tissue removal to give the skin time to heal, expand, and breathe. This process can be painful,  lasts about three months, and requires a second surgery where the surgeon then replaces the tissue expanders with implants. Most people who walk in the bilateral prophylactic mastectomy path have at least two surgeries.

The second major God-sized prayer is more of an “I will tell you when I see you in person” kind of thing and not really a blog post kind of thing (sorry).

But I can tell you both of the these God-sized things I hoped for were things my surgeons were not sure they could do.

My surgery began right at 830am and I started waking up on my way to post-op recovery around 5pm. You all, that was a long day for my husband.

In post-op recovery I learned that both of my God-sized prayers were answered. The implants were able to go in the same day as the tissue removal, and my other hoped for outcome went better than the surgeons hoped for as well! I will only need to have one surgery, and I am praising the Lord!

The breast surgeon also needed to remove three lymph nodes. All my breast tissue and the three lymph nodes were sent to pathology to be thoroughly checked for pre-cancerous or cancerous cells.

My pathology report came back just yesterday and all my breast tissue and lymph nodes were cancer free. I am praising the Lord for this too!

As I thought about writing this update to let you all know how I am doing and thank you all for your prayers, emails, texts, flowers, cards, gift cards—I just kept thinking about how amazing it is that God cares for us in the little things. A bilateral prophylactic mastectomy and reconstruction was a hard decision for me personally— I was angry, I was scared, and I was really sad. But God cared for me in the little things all along the way.

This is not because I have an outstanding or perfect faith, I have been human and I have been a hot mess. God has cared for me in the little things because of who He is and He is faithful. God cares about the little things because He is an intimate God who knows what we need even when sometimes we don’t know what we need for ourselves.

O Lord, you have searched me and known me!
You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
you discern my thoughts from afar.
You search out my path and my lying down
and are acquainted with all my ways.

Even before a word is on my tongue,
behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.
You hem me in, behind and before,
and lay your hand upon me. (Psalm 139)

I can feel God’s hand upon me because I recognize that He is showing up in the little things and He is weaving a beautiful redemptive story for me in all of this.

He knows what I need and He has been faithful to provide for me. Tonight, as I write this post, I am just so full and so grateful.

How you can continue to pray:

Pray that I would be a good patient and find joy in sitting on the couch and recovering well. As a task-driven woman this is a tough thing for me.

Pray I would be patient and kind to my family if the kitchen countertop has a drinking glass or two on it or when I happen to see an iPad lightning cable lying on the ground. Personally I spend too much time caring about the little things—in a bad way.

Pray for healing, the story is not over yet for my two God-sized reconstruction requests. I need to heal well.

One of my prescribed medications has been giving me some really terrible headaches. I have been given the okay to stop the medicine causing the headaches, but please pray the headaches stay away. It is difficult to rest with the headaches I have been having and difficult to sit in a room with any kind of light or sound.

Please pray for my husband and my children as we adjust to a new normal. My husband is still recovering from foot surgery to repair a torn ligament in his right foot four weeks ago.

Thank you for connecting and caring in the big and the little things. And thanks be to God who cares in the big and little things too.