When your dreams get lost in the mist

There have been many starry-eyed beginnings on this long journey to becoming a professor, but today was not one of them. On the last eve before I face a roomful of 100 or so starry-eyed students, sophomores and juniors entering their first semester of the nursing curriculum, I found myself much less excited and much more afraid than I had dreamed. It was an eve of many tears as I realize just how ill-prepared I am for the first day of this journey.

I go out to the porch swing, my personal sanctuary, at 2 a.m., when I should be sleeping, as those students await me at 8 a.m. sharp, with their skills lab packets, ready to begin their pre-testing for which I am the somewhat clueless evaluator. Instead of sleeping, I am shaking in my boots.

And, as He has so many times before, God matches the internal pendulum of my thoughts and fears with a picture in nature to comfort me. The very trees I treasure are hidden from view as a pea-soup fog rolls over our valley and clouds the night in an impenetrable white of hidden hopes and dreams, darkened landmarks of comfort and familiarity. I take a deep breath of the humid, heavy air and I know that the fog will lift in the morning - from this landscape I love and from these dreams I hold so dear and so close.

I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me. Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.” The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him; it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord. It is good for me to bear the yoke while I am young. Let me sit alone in silence, for the Lord has laid it on me. Let me bury me face in the dust— there may yet be hope. Let me offer my cheek to one who would strike me, and let me be filled with disgrace. For no one is cast off by the Lord forever. Though he brings grief, he will show compassion, so great is his unfailing love. For he does not willingly bring affliction or grief to anyone. (Leviticus 3:19-33)

 You have my heart

And I am Yours forever

You are my strength

God of grace and power

And everything You hold in Your hand

Still You make time for me

I can't understand

Praise You God of Earth and sky

How beautiful is Your unfailing love

Unfailing love

And You never change God You remain

The Holy One

My unfailing love

Unfailing love

You are my rock

The one I hold on to

You are my song

And I sing for You

And everything You hold in Your hand

Still You make time for me

I can't understand

Praise You God of Earth and sky

How beautiful is Your unfailing love

Unfailing love

~Chris Tomlin~

There'll be no dark valley

You see allegory everywhere when the world is cloaked in the new mystery again, as things you thought were true crash down about you and new structure is going up and everything is hazy because of injury and loss and grief and pain.  When cancer is back again, bigger each time, threatening; when going to the bathroom at night feels like a scene from "Where the Wild Things Are" (let the rumpus begin); when your heart flip-flops afresh to a mechanical beat like a bad '80's house jam; when you can't squeeze your children or cook your meals or pack your bags for a trip you want to go on/don't want to embark on.  Then daisies in harsh sidelight on your sacred marriage bed are haunted, and you think about the curse and evil, and God and good, and discipline and persecution.  You see the vivid yellow and you see the yellow shadow, and you see the black holes of the hand-built bed your brother made you and they feel like eyes that have been watching and judging and see you now and know you know.  The oak is something solid to die on when head hits as heart stops.

And then your realize the daisies are fake, and the milk bottle is just an old treasure, and the bed is a place of comfort.  And go to get your camera anyway.  You realize that the allegory, and the persecution, and the constant debate between good and evil that is like two vivid voices in your head right now...it's all just distraction.  Put hand back to plow.  Quit looking so deep and find a way to healing.  Daisies in harsh sidelight will be gold streets soon enough.  Stomp down the fear that comes creeping, and turn on the nightlight in your bathrooms so you don't kill yourself on a toilet or a sink or something.  Sit on your bed for 3 minutes before you stand up, and recite the 23rd Psalm in your head to keep the time.  Find a new rhythm and learn the mechanical ones, and rest in knowing that someday, there'll be no allegory and no mystery and no figuring anything out.  Someday it will all be revealed.

There'll be no dark valley when Jesus comes,
There'll be no dark valley when Jesus comes,
There'll be no dark valley when Jesus comes,
To gather His loved ones home.

There'll be no more sorrow when Jesus comes,
There'll be no more sorrow when Jesus comes,
But a glorious morrow when Jesus comes
To gather His loved ones home.

There'll be no more weeping when Jesus comes,
There'll be no more weeping when Jesus comes,
But a blessed reaping when Jesus comes
To gather His loved ones home.

~There'll Be No Dark Valley, William Orcutt Cushing, 1823-1902 ~

Brokenness

I don't remember much about what happened, so I can't give you many details.  But I can write, read, speak, laugh, joke, smile, walk, and otherwise function completely normally.  Even though my head apparently went through our toilet tank last night.  When I saw this picture, it is amazing to me that I am alive and sitting in bed typing.  I did have a seizure in the emergency room, a first for me, but haven't had any more.  There is no sign of any broken bones in my skull or face or bleeding in my brain on the CT scan.  I am continuing to have a lot of head pain and some disturbing double vision.  This post will be short because of that.

I am okay.  I'm not really sure why I fell, if I fainted or tripped or what.  I have had no dizziness at any other point since getting the pacemaker.  My heart looks wonderful on all the monitors since getting re-admitted to the hospital again today.

It feels funny to forget something so important.  I think I lost about an hour of memory surrounding the incident, the ambulance ride, the seizure, the hospital admission.  At first I couldn't see hardly anything and I do remember the fear of feeling blind.  It was like looking through Picasso's eyes for a while - faces were all disorganized when I looked at them, with their eyes randomly on their face (my dad's were in his beard and that really freaked me out).  The only person I really could understand was Aaron.  I am so thankful that I lived long enough to marry him, know him, love him.  Words cannot express it. But often in my worn life's autumn weather, I watch there with clear eyes, And think how it will be in Paradise when we're together. (Christina Rossetti, "From Memory")

It's like forgetting the words to your favorite song
You can't believe it you were always singing along
It was so easy and the words so sweet
You can't remember you try to feel the beat
~ Regina Spektor

A 2nd round of fog

"He can practice the discipline of unshakable faith as he dances in step to a melody that is currently out of earshot, or he can close his ears to the possibility of ever hearing the music." (Carol Kent, When I Lay My Isaac Down)

Twelve hours away from home. Exhaustion hovers over me like a loose shroud, the molecules of my mind pounding like surf one against another, in constant motion as if to escape the inevitable reality that must hit. This day brought back recollections of the Indian summer, beetle-buzzing afternoon nap I unexpectedly took. My late November gift from God. My dose of radioactive I-131 didn't come on the morning shipment and I received a phone call just before leaving my children: "Don't come for a few hours." So we fiddled around town with Grandma Debra until 4 p.m., treating ourselves to a few things at an unfamiliar store, hugging the baby. Holding hands with my girls as we meandered down aisles.

We can hug our hurts and make a shrine out of our sorrows or we can offer them to God as a sacrifice of praise. The choice is ours. (Richard Exley)

Back to the clinic. A dozen hugs, a few tears. After days of sobbing at bedtime, I was expecting drama from all sides when I left today. None. Just a prolonged, rather joyful goodbye. Processing done ahead of time in Mama's arms, I suspect. I walked through the doors, feeling as if doing so began a 15-minute metamorphosis from living human heart to petrified wood beating coarsely in my chest. Rocky. Wooden. Unresponsive. Frozen in time, waiting for reality to become unhinged or unsuspended, one of the two. Followed the nurse back. Spoke with the nuclear medicine doctor. Swallowed Alice's little blue pill once more. Fell back down a (more familiar, this time) rabbit hole.

The kind of faith God values seems to develop best when everything fuzzes over, when God stays silent, when the fog rolls in. (Philip Yancey)

Back in my car. No sense of taste, except a brief metallic burn. Two boils sprang up on the tip of my tongue within a half hour. At first I wondered if I was imagining things. Smell gone. Eyesight magically, and immediately, changed. The world is sterile again, like a desaturated photo. I never knew how much I smelled until most of my senses left me like chaff in the breeze. The end of a gray day: laughter with family, crude jokes, a meal with lots of nice textures (and no iodine).

Now the real waiting begins. What does Thursday hold? Distant spread of cancer? A little left, another treatment needed? Or those golden words: "clean scan" - a get-out-of-jail early token, and off I go, home by Sunday. Prayers, please!

Coming through the fog

I feel like I am slowly emerging from the valley of the shadow of this treatment. My throat feels better this evening, and I have stayed in an upright, non-sleeping position now for an amazing three hours! Ah, the small things in life...

I have some burns from the radiation, so that is bothering me a bit. I am hoping they resolve quickly, with lots of fluids. I have had 3 gallons of water and 1 gallon of pineapple juice to drink today, so that should help! Let's just say the bathroom is my most used room in the house right now. I have some kidney pain and I am hoping that resolves with fluids as well. I have cabin fever because I felt too ill to go out for my planned walk around the lake. Looking forward to day +2 tomorrow...a walk around the lake, maybe pick up some stamps at a grocery store. Sunday, an evening date with my aunt, uncle and parents for some iodine-containing food! I am already thinking about what I will eat. I wish I could just sit down to a bowl full of seafood, but I've read that it makes you feel sick if you eat it too soon after the I-131 dose. I'll probably stick with something more benign...hmmm. Dairy, butter, soft cheese, soy, cured meats, seafood, salt. Taste, maybe?? We'll see how my little buds are doing. I remember taking care of kids on transplant after radiation and all they wanted to eat was Doritos for about 20 days or so. I thought it was such an odd food choice at the time, but I am getting a sneak peek into the world of no taste buds! Doritos are looking pretty good right about now!