And so it goes

The little lead pot with the electric blue pill (this time a pretty cobalt instead of the usual neon) was delivered to me (finally) at noon today. They had forgotten to schedule my requisite pregnancy test prior to the dose, so I had to get that out of the way first. The photo above is the carrier on wheels that delivers the radioactive iodine to the dosing room. It is shielded with lead and has a geiger counter built in. Out of curiosity I googled geiger counters and lo and behold - you can own a portable model for just over $300 - less than an iPhone. Now if only Apple would come up with an "app for that"...

Some "radioactive headphones" I just had to have

After lunch with my mom, I settled in to a friend's peaceful home for an evening of movies and, apparently, some serious exorcism of the red-hot demon called radiation that had landed in my belly. It might be my imagination, but it seems like the side effects get worse every time I have to do this. Taste and smell vanished in the first 10 minutes as usual. Coupled with a wicked winter wind blowing snow devils up and down the street, and the whole world felt surreal and sterile by this afternoon. I have sores on my eyelids, lips, gums, tongue, throat, and stomach so far and I'm sure they will appear lower in my digestive tract tomorrow. My tears dried up and I have that familiar sandpaper feeling in my throat and my eyes now. Someone remind me to stick to bland foods after I take this pill next time! Without the sense of taste, I always go for something exotic and I end up regretting it after the 10th trip to the bathroom that evening.

Today is a down day. Friday will bring my scan. Yes, I get passed through a donut and get to watch a crosssection of my radioactive self on the screen (being careful not to twist my neck too far, of course - as soon as the tech catches on, she turns the screen away).

Thank you all for the prayers. I am so thankful I only have to do one cycle of this annually. I feel so much empathy for cancer patients who get weekly or biweekly radiation and/or chemotherapy. To feel like this for more than a few weeks would be so painful.

Bald is beautiful

It's the coldest day of fall, the wind sweeping through our little valley and stripping maples of scarlet and cottonwoods of silver. My hair is fading fast, patchy, itchy, painful to the touch. It wakes me up at night when I turn to the other side. One doctor says it's stress, another radiation damage and burns, another says it's just "idiopathic". All agree we won't know until I shave it off so they can see my scalp.

And so, unable to face another shower through which I grit teeth and lose handfuls more of hair, I ask Aaron if it's the right time. He smiles big and says yes. Grabs the clipper set and gathers the children in the kitchen. As he starts to shave, the relief is immediate. First a mohawk (just for the heck of it), then a military buzz cut. Kids clamor to feel it each time. The patches of loss are evident in the buzz cut and I begin to believe deeper that this is the right decision.

And we can immediately see what the problems is - red burned patches all over my scalp. The entire top of my head is one big reddened sore. Through piles of hair I didn't want to move much, the betamethasone cream prescribed for the burns hasn't been working over the past 3 weeks. Now hairless, I can apply it straight to skin and as I do, the burning quells for the first time in months and my scalp actually feels weightless again.

And so I come to a new stepping stone on my cancer journey. Three years after diagnosis, I finally lose my hair to cancer. I empathize deeply with the patients in my past who've cried through chemo and radiation and finally begged to have their head shaved. The relief is unfathomable. And bald is beautiful. My husband grins even larger, and kisses the soft top of my naked head. Says it's beautifully round. That being bald brings out my eyes and my lips and makes me even more beautiful to him than before. More compliments than I've received in a single day in my entire marriage.

To think that God knows every one of those strands of hair now cut off, knows how it will grow back, and loves me, like my husband, however I look...I have no worries. Just relief. I am so glad it's over with and so glad it feels better. God is good to me.

Pretty, pretty please, 

don't you ever, ever feel 

Like you're less than

less than perfect 

Pretty, pretty please,

if you ever, ever feel 

Like you're nothing, 

know you're perfect to me

~Pink~

Extraordinary

Somewhere along the line I decided I was invincible. Oh, I admitted I would someday die, but until then...invincible. It was right around the time I had to face up to the fact that I would someday die. Around age 19. I felt the tautness of youth in my muscles, the energy propelled on by the drugs that kept my heart beating, the refusal to sleep for fear of wasting precious time. I remember wearing a shirt that bore the motto, "You can sleep when you're dead." And I truly believed it. Rest was for the weary, sleep was for the weak, reflection for the elderly.

One day, once a year, I resurrect that spirit from the ashes. I rise early, pull on my oldest clothes, forgo my shower, and head outdoors, whatever the weather. My body coils and springs again as I chop wood. I lay down in the dirt, and light fires, and breathe smoke. Maple syruping time is the one time I relive this youthful pipe dream of invincibility. I hope I never see the day when I have to lay aside my ax and give it up forever.

That spirit of invincibility carried me through a dark, dark day when my heart actually stopped. When I try to think back to that day and figure out why I acted in certain ways, it still makes no sense to me at all. I collapsed in a hallway at work - thankfully, work was a hospital - and came to during my third shock as defibrillator pads sent an arc of electricity through my chest. I don't remember collapsing, although I do remember having an odd sense of impending doom while finishing my shift, which caused me to check on my patient about 100 extra times before I completed my work. When I came to, I made a miraculous recovery, and refused to even allow the doctor to call my parents. That streak was there from the start of my health problems, and, to this day, I don't understand what about heart disease made me push my parents away as a young person. I wonder sometimes if it was a sense of frantic lack of control, the idea that I would never be an independent, healthy adult? I wonder if I tried to protect them? Whatever the reason, it was a nearly uncontrollable, animal urge, and reduced me to an automaton at times. Like when I told the doctor I would not give him their phone number the day my heart stopped. I regret it, sometimes. On the hand, I lived through it.

And kept on my invincible course. If my heart stopping didn't kill me, what would? I wasn't a particular risk taker, although I enjoyed crazy hobbies like snowboarding and whitewater kayaking, and did weird, random acts of insanity like jumping from a perfectly good bridge into a shallow river and skydiving from a perfectly good plane. Oddly, cancer hasn't inspired a second surge of "Bucket list" type activities - instead, I am cataloging the simple pleasures and stocking up on hundreds of hugs from my kids and fabulous evenings with my husband.

Somewhere around the time of my radioactive iodine treatment, I began to feel vincible. Death, of which I had always been aware, didn't seem that much more real; but weakness did. I began to feel the life blood course a little slower, I felt the tautness melt out of my muscles as I gained extra pounds of flesh fed by stress, sorrow, and a drastically slowed metabolism.

This week, I had just one glimmer of the old self: in the chopping of the wood, the starting of two fires, the brave cooking outdoors on a windy, bone-dry spring day. The chatter of children floating on the wings of the wind, and moms reveling in the smoky morning tradition. For tradition it has become now, after 5 years: a sausage and pancake breakfast cooked over an open fire; the steam off the sap scenting the air; the walk up into the sugar stand to touch the skin of the maples and taste the drips of icy sap flowing down metal taps. I emerged from a week of extraordinary weakness to feel extraordinarily invincible once again.

Now I realize it is just another gift from God. Although I do fuel the fire of the energy myself, clawing down deep to find a hidden reservoir, He fans the flame. He gives the sun, and the unseasonable warmth, and the friends to help chop the logs and load them onto the fires. Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.They are brought to their knees and fall, but we rise up and stand firm. (Ps. 20:7-8)

I am invincible. This week especially, I am reminded that my Lord destroyed death. There is absolutely nothing that can destroy me...because I am covered with His righteousness. (Isaiah 61:10) His extraordinary strength has been completely revealed to me in my extraordinary weakness. Two days ago, I chopped wood like I was 20 again. Today, I am laid up with a chest cold-bordering-on-pneumonia due to my lowered immunity, and yet can hardly sleep because of the cancer suppression drugs that are currently wreaking havoc with all body systems. I take nothing for granted but this: Christ died, Christ is risen, Christ reigns!

Desperation & drudgery

Hello darkness, my old friend
I've come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence

In restless dreams I walked alone
Narrow streets of cobblestone
'Neath the halo of a street lamp
I turn my collar to the cold and damp

~Sound of Silence, Paul Simon, 1965

Tired of telling you, you have me
When I know you really don't
Tired of telling you I'll follow
When I know I really won't
Cause I'd rather stand here speechless
With no great words to say
If my silence is more truthful
And my ears can hear how to walk in your way

In the silence
You are speaking
In the quiet I can feel the fire
And it's burning, burning deeply
Burning all that it is that you desire to be silent, in me
~ In the Silence, Jason Upton

Here it is again, this old familiar place, where the rubber meets the road. We survived the separation, we survived cancer again for a 3rd time. Now we wait for results. And survive the consequences of cancer. They are never easy: taking yourself to the brink of hypothyroid death, taking your children to the edge of sanity, taking your husband into a new realm of miserable coping. Mouth sores are healing, and now my hair is falling out in chunks and my skin is dry and numb. My fingers and toes are completely dead, like chunks of wood I haul around with no purpose. My eyesight is blurry, my body aches, especially the joints in my arms, legs, hands and feet. I feel as though I'm on the brink of another double kidney infection - but it's just my body in its inability to handle the slough and crud that builds up over time in every cell and joint and space. Pain reaches a peak around 11 a.m. and then improves with a nap (meaning the laundry and cleaning still isn't getting done), peaks again just after dinner, and improves when I take my daily Synthroid dose at 8 p.m. Add to that the symptoms of hyperthyroidism because of the high dose of Synthroid! My body is getting deliberate double messages. Never a good thing. My heart rate is 140 between 10 p.m. and 9 a.m. Weird! Especially for me - I usually run very low on the heartrate spectrum, around 55 during the day and around 40 at night.

The kids are so, so sick with this latest cold. I am stressed as I watch Amy deteriorate because of asthma and lung gunk. She is requiring nebulizer albuterol for her asthma every 3-4 hours today. She still has good energy. I find I am so much more paranoid since her encephalitis in October/November. I don't want to miss something and end up in the hospital with her over Christmas. Of course, how could I know. I just have to trust, and be watchful, and try to hand it over to God.

I feel as though I've descended further into darkness since coming home, rather than emerging as I expected. God feels very, very far away today, as I struggle through the inconsequential and exhausting work of motherhood. Just being alive in my own skin feels like work. I feel depressed, knowing this is my lot for so many more years, even if it is only once a year in the future. How can I survive this? How am I going to ever bring glory to God through this? I feel miserable, I feel like everyone around me is miserable as well.

And then, just for perspective, at least I am not going through this today:

http://cecemeetsworld.wordpress.com/losing-eli/

Another day away

Come, let us return to the Lord;
for he has torn us, that he may heal us;
he has struck down, and he will bind us up.
After two days he will revive us;
on the third day he will raise us up,
that we may live before him.
Let us know;
Let us press on to know the Lord;
his going out is sure as the dawn;
he will come to us as the showers,
as the spring rains that water the earth.
~Hosea 6:1-3~

Tonight I am lonely and tired, and wish I were home in bed with my husband. The side effects took full effect today: sores in my mouth and throat and the rest of my digestive tract, nausea, a little vomiting, muscle soreness, extreme fatigue, and general feeling of being low. Low energy, low mood. Waiting rather anxiously for the results of my scan tomorrow (although be forewarned, I will just be guessing as I won't get the doctor's impression until Monday, December 28). Hoping there is no uptake and I can go home Monday morning!

Hands, again...

It is something to face the sun and know you are free.
To hold your head in the shafts of daylight slanting the earth
And know your heart has kept a promise and the blood runs clean:
It is something.
God, it is something,
One day of life so
And a memory fastened till the stars sputter out
And a love washed as white linen in the noon drying.
...see the life, the memory, the love they have, to stay longer than the
plunging sea wets the shores or the fires heave under the crust of the earth.
O yes, clean hands is the chant and only one man knows its sob
and its undersong and he dies clenching the secret more to
him than any woman or chum.
~ Clean Hands, Carl Sandburg, 1922

Precious baby hands, plump, flexible, dexterous, exploring, probing, learning texture and twist and tenderness. My hands hurt so badly. A constant source of pain these days. I am praying that this little trial be lifted soon.

Standing in the moment

Let not our longing slay the appetite of our living. We accept and thank God for what is given, not allowing the not-given to spoil it. This is the call. This is the order of our lives. We can commit them to God, and accept them from Him...we believe in a God who is in charge. We are not for one moment of our lives at the mercy of chance. We see the pattern of duty that lies before us and take it to be the will of God, so that the power of our own emotion to weaken our resolve is not a threat. We know, as the psalmist knew, "My flesh and my heart faileth, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever."
~ Elisabeth Elliot, paraphrased from Let Me Be a Woman


This is the day which the Lord has made; I will rejoice, and be glad in it! (Psalm 118:24)

I am tired. Worn out. Wishing that this stage, this being tired all the time life of mine, could be over soon. Yet in this moment, He's shaping my heart. He's molding me to withstand...who knows what? More sleepless nights with a hard-to-console baby in the future? More months of hypothyroidism with even more children next year, or two years from now?

When you're this tired, it's easy to let the doubts creep in. Plenty of people would support me if I said I'm maxed out. That I don't have the physical, emotional or spiritual reserves to handle any more on my plate right now. Of course, I'm being flooded with suggestions of that nature since spreading the news of our planned adoption. Yet deep within me resonates that "voice of truth" - the quiet breath of the Holy Spirit that tells me of grace that covers a multitude of ills. Ills like lack of energy, human incompetence, mothering a houseful of toddlers and preschoolers. God is great - He is certainly big enough for the paltry demands of my life!

But the waves are calling out my name and they laugh at me
Reminding me of all the times I've tried before and failed...
But the voice of truth tells me a different story
And the voice of truth says "Do not be afraid!"
And the voice of truth says "This is for My glory"
Out of all the voices calling out to me
I will choose to listen and believe the voice of truth
~ The Voice of Truth, Casting Crowns

Growing slowly old

I will not be made useless
I won't be idled with despair
I will gather myself around my faith
My hands are small, I know,
but they're not yours they are my own
cause where there's a man who has no voice
there ours shall go singing
In the end only kindness matters
I will get down on my knees and I will pray
We are God's eyes
God's hands
God's heart
~ Hands, Jewel

I've mentioned my hands before this. They are the most ravaged by the radiation and hypothyroidism. Sounds silly, I suppose, but it's been difficult for me. It has also given me more empathy for my husband, who suffers chronic joint inflammation, probably due to osteoarthritis, and a dear friend of mine who suffers rheumatoid arthritis. My hands look old. They are covered in wrinkles, they are dry, callouses have formed over each knuckle, and the fingertips are covered in cracks and stains that I can't seem to scrub out. They are constantly sore, and I can't write by hand much at all during my weeks of recovery after being off my medication for six weeks in preparation for the latest round of tests. They ache so badly that it wakes me up at night. I can describe all this pain to little avail...hence the photo of my newly ugly hand. All this aching and falling apart of such a small, inconsequential body part reminds me of the verses that compare Christians to parts of a body: The eye cannot say to the hand, "I have no need of you," nor again the head to the feet, "I have no need of you." On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together. (I Corinthians 12)

Under the heading, "Joy of the Redeemed", I found these words of encouragement in Isaiah 35:
Strengthen the feeble hands, steady the knees that give way; say to those with fearful hearts, "Be strong, do not fear; your God will come, he will come with vengeance; with divine retribution he will come to save you." Gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee away.

As I process the latest news about my cancer this week, I come constantly back to the foundational truth that there is no knowing in this life. That tomorrow is an unknown, today is a gift. I am grateful to know that I will be home with my children again until December. I pray fervently that cancer stays far from me. Yet little harbingers of the long wait and battle ahead keep coming in like waves into a peaceful shore, turning the rocks over to reveal new beauty and undiscovered ugliness all at once. Other cancer survivors warn me that years of clean scans and undetectable labs are often followed up by recurrences of cancer, metastasis and more surgery and treatment. This particular type of cancer is the "long haul" type - something I am likely to have on my radar for the rest of my life now. Just like my hands. A constant reminder that the fleeting days are passing swiftly. So I abandon this writing now, to go redeem the time.

(Romantic as that may sound, I plan to "redeem" it by folding my laundry!)

Promised bit of hilarity

Now seems as good a time as ever, in this season of celebration! One of the most disturbing side effects (yes, worse than exponential weight gain, bloating, endless fatigue, poor eyesight, wet cough, night sweats, cold intolerance, brain fog, and dizziness) of the radiation and hypothyroidism is the complete lack of sense of smell or taste. It is particularly disturbing as I go about daily tasks as a mother - changing diapers by the clock since I can't smell poop, eating by the clock since I can't taste, and cooking "blind" with no ability to tell if what's in the pot has any flavor at all - or is even perhaps rotten??!!

This all came to a forefront this afternoon as I picked Caleb up from his nap. There was a mass of light tan matter gluing my pillow case to itself. After a sniff, and a brief touch, I concluded that the said mass was most likely either vomit or poop. NO idea which! No sign of missing poop in the diaper. No sign of puke on the kid's face. Realizing it was pretty dried on didn't help my investigation much - just made me a little sick knowing I probably slept on said mass of tan matter for at least one night. Ewww! This is, perhaps, one mystery I do not wish to solve!

I will spare you the photos I was oh, so tempted to take!

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!

Gen + 7

...every where and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me. ~Philippians 4:12b-13

I am spending the day with two delightful little girls whose mother is serving orphans in Haiti this week. And Susan Fern. A long day with seven children, 5 and under. It is a good reminder that, no, on an average day with my four children, I am not yet operating at maximum capacity. That there is a reserve in me that I haven't yet tapped. And then the endless reserve of grace and strength my Father offers!

In my current state of physical and emotional exhaustion, I have thought a lot about "needs" and "wants". What do I really need, in terms of rest, relaxation, food, drink? And what is either built into my routine, or desired to fill the empty spaces that should be filled with other things - work, relationships, Christ, joy, prayer... My baby boy needs his mama in ever-increasing ways as we near another separation. I thought perhaps I was just being overly romantic to think so. But after testing it, I know my intuition is right. He knows something big is on his horizon and he has shifted entirely into sponge mode...soaking up every last bit of touch and affection and attention I will mete out. I have spent the better part of every night this week satisfying that need when I want to be sleeping. Have I disintegrated into a gelatinous mass of nerves unable to cope with the stresses of life? Has my body or mind wasted away or lost it's sharpness? No! Resoundingly and surprisingly no. I can be hypothyroid and exist on 2-3 hours of sleep. I can excel at schoolwork and housework and childcare with little physical rest.

I used to own a shirt that had my feelings screen-printed on the back: You can sleep when you're dead (Caribou Coffee). While I recognize that sleep is restorative, I also believe more and more that our perceptions of what is needed are skewed by an overly selfish society that does not believe in laying down one's life for others. Do I believe that I may be literally laying down my life - that cancer may be a product of not enough rest combined with sub-standard nutrition in these hectic years of early motherhood? No, I don't. I believe the human body has a wealth of reserves that we, in modern society, rarely tap. In generations past, I would have spent 16 hours per day on my feet, building fires, cleaning, sowing and reaping, tending animals and children alike, while devoting any spare time I had to creative homemaking such as needlework, sewing, candle-making, preserving food, painting or drawing, creating my own music, and teaching my own children everything they needed to know to survive in exactly the same way I was surviving. In a land of automated living...appliances, electricity, alternative heat sources, hermetically sealed homes, and off-the-shelf food sources...what work I do today compares so little to that of my forebears. My great-great-grandmother would have birthed these seven children, risking death with each delivery, and resumed her household chores a few days later, without batting an eyelash!

So here I am. 3 hours of sleep. Seven children to tend. Schoolwork to do. Writing a journal entry, nonetheless!

I've always feared my loneliness,
but now I find in my abyss....
This quiet assurance,
Your simple endurace,
This peace everlasting,
This calm in the eye of the storm.
~ "The Calm", a song I wrote in 2001

Sapience

It is my favorite time of day. The girls are shuttled upstairs to quietly watch Clifford, and this baby/child and I cuddle in under the down comforter to watch the lemon light filter through the forest. The colors have changed already from early morning, hues of gray giving way to the tawny rust and umber of the oak leaves and the chartreuse of the spring pines. The world looks frozen in time this morning - no rustle in the leaves - and the coldness of the air visible in the crispness and stillness of the woods. Intricate veins of sharp white drawn on every leaf-edge by Jack Frost with his ice pen last night. Inside, we are surrounded by the instant comfort of the blankets, the billowing of warm air as the little one wiggles in delight over his morning bottle. Communion of warm milk and warm toes. I stroke the velvet of his chubby cheek, feel the fine spun gold of his hair slipping under my swollen palm. Note - and love - the almost Hasidic curls just in front of his pink ears.

Physical memory is difficult to ignore. My body is different every morning, more changes visible of the physical onslaught of this preparation process. My hands and feet are swollen and club-like; my hair is dry and falling out, my nails a cloudy white, and my knuckles covered with callouses; so tired raising myself out of bed in the morning makes me nauseous. I remember this. I don't want to do it again. Such a series of losses, this cancer. This time around, it is the loss of one more piece of me - my parathyroid glands - that I mourn; and the loss of the innocence. No longer can I pretend that I will float through this this trial like a duck's webbed feet just skimming the mirror of the water, a faint ripple left in a V all that heralds her presence.

Looking in on myself, I realize that I am depressed this time around. I see the grayness of my spirit, and though I paint all day long with a million bright colors of joy and satisfaction, the gray seeps through like the newspaper canvas of my 2-year-old. You can't cover up ink with different ink. So I take the gray and lay it at my Father's feet. Ask Him to brighten my spirit's newsprint with a few color photos. And take it away for what it is. Just as I am, without one plea. I know more watercolor days are coming again in April.

Warmth

This is what the Lord Almighty says: "Give careful thought to your ways.
You have planted much, but have harvested little.
You eat, but never have enough.
You drink, but never have your fill.
You put on clothes, but are not warm.
You earn wages, only to put them in a purse with holes in it."
This is what the Lord Almighty says: "Give careful thought to your ways.
Haggai 1:5-7

I never thought much about heat before I was diagnosed with cancer. It was one of those necessities I took for granted. Pregnant or breastfeeding for over five years straight, my furnace was functioning quite well! Now I am a lover of wool socks, slippers of any kind, color or shape, turtleneck sweaters, no matter how scratchy. Warmth takes priority. After my treatment in November, I read the minor prophets, and suddenly identified with these verses from Haggai. In many ways, it is a reflection of so many small failures in my life to date: gardens planted and then overrun with weeds; meals made and barely enjoyed in the rush of everyday evenings; money loosely budgeted that slips through my fingers like sand. I resolved to give careful thought to my ways, our ways as a family. Months before the New Years flurry. I need to revisit those thoughts, implement them, wield the insights He provided during my days of solitude and spiritual neediness.

Mirrors

Don't assume it is passive
or easy, this clarity
With which I give you yourself.
Consider what restraint it

Takes: breath withheld, no anger
Or joy disturbing the surface.
Of the ice.
You are suspended in me

Beautiful and frozen, I
Preserve you, in me you are safe.
~Mirrors III, Margaret Atwood

I suppose it is a shock to every cancer patient when their physical appearance begins to change because of their treatment. I naively assumed that, because of the specificity of my treatment, I would have no long-term appearance changes. I am grateful I am not losing my hair - although I have always wanted to try out the Sinead O'Connor look! - but the other changes are annoying, regardless. I knew, objectively, that going off thyroid replacement and taking radiation to kill off the remainder of my functioning thyroid would rapidly speed the aging process. But it is rather a shock to go to bed 29 years old and wake up much older! My hair is coming in white, at least in one area of my head. I may end up with a completely white head of hair at the end of this! Wouldn't that be something [insert look of horror here]. I also patted my own back for my victory over the weight gain that I was told would be part and parcel of this process - I gained not one pound while my metabolism shut down, which is a testament to the power of the "growling belly system" for weight control. However, my body shape has changed, which is really disappointing to me.

In the midst of this sudden aging, I lean on the unconditional love expressed by my husband and children. It is amazing to me to look into Aaron's eyes and realize there is genuine love there for me, undeserved, treasured. To laugh with my son and realize he cares not a wit about what I look like, only that I am present and that I love him. I know that God, certainly, cares for me regardless of how my appearance changes. Yet I also cannot dispute that He cares immensely about how things look. I sit in my kitchen writing this, and a cascade of swirling snowflakes is falling between the rising morning sun and I. Even from my window, I can see the tiny crystal structure of the flakes catching the sunlight like tiny pieces of frosted glass. The sun is a pale yellow this morning, uncertain yet if it is flavescent or albicant. The cottonwood tree waves her bare branches like old arms toward the cold moon setting, and the pine stands still as a sentinel in the windless dawn. The grasses on the hillside have turned rusty brown, and collect the snowflakes like so many pieces of jewelry to adorn their dry stalks. The world of my morning was so obviously made and set in motion by a God who cares about beauty. The question is: what does He find beautiful in me?

I have seen the burden God has laid on men. He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end. I know that there is nothing better for men than to be happy and do good while they live. ~ Ecclesiastes 3:10-12

Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes. Instead, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight. For this is the way the holy women of the past who put their hope in God used to make themselves beautiful. They were submissive to their own husbands, like Sarah, who obeyed Abraham and called him her master. You are her daughters if you do what is right and do not give way to fear. ~ I Peter 3:3-6

So I sit, quietly, and watch the unfading and ever-changing beauty of God's creation swirl past my window. Breathing in the cold morning air and delighting in the hot cup of coffee He provided, brewed by the patient, loving hands of my husband. Delight in being home, this beloved yellow house filled with all it's beloved noises and seasons. Enjoy the holidays. I've heard that phrase a million times, and I finally understand what it means. It means savoring, absorbing, revelling in the little common and wonderful things, reflecting on the miracle of Christ's sacrificial birth. Putting on the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit. Stilling the waters of my soul in the beautiful dawn.

Heartsick

This second week is apparently where the rubber meets the road. I am feeling better every day physically. I am peeling as though I had a sunburn, but other than that, most of my side effects from the RAI have vanished. I am still a little swollen and sore from the withdrawal from my Synthroid (replacement hormone). Now it is just my heart that is broken! With each day, I miss my family more and what was a dull throb is now a persistent ache that I assume will swell further this coming week until I am near tears all the time instead of just some of the time! The hallmark times of day are most difficult...waking, meal times, evening, and bedtime. My life is so built around the routine we have established that it gets more and more difficult to live without the routine, and more importantly, the reasons behind the routine...four delightful children and a dear husband! Please lift my spirit up in prayer as I struggle through these last days of loneliness for my family. Katy and Amy seem to be getting more lonely as well, so please keep both of them, and Aaron, in your prayers as well.

Into November

You shall keep my Sabbaths and reverence my sanctuary: I am the LORD. "If you walk in my statutes and observe my commandments and do them, then I will give you your rains in their season, and the land shall yield its increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit. Your threshing shall last to the time of the grape harvest, and the grape harvest shall last to the time for sowing. And you shall eat your bread to the full and dwell in your land securely. I will give peace in the land, and you shall lie down, and none shall make you afraid. ~ Leviticus 26:2-6 ESV

November is here in the northland. I woke up this morning feeling November deep in my body: I have been taken to the very edge of autumn. My cells are grinding to a halt. My joints are stiff and thick with fluid that refuses to soften and move. My hands are thick and heavy and my feet feel wooden. Every part of me is a little swollen, a sign of the waste products building up in each cell with no where to go. Nothing is working as it should. The side effects of the radiation linger because my body is losing it's capacity to heal in it's semi-functional state.

I went for a walk around a nearby lake to wake my deadened senses. All around me, autumn is coming to a close. What starts so flamboyantly with the scattering of seeds and conserving of sap in the core of the hardwoods, resulting in those flaming maples and umbre of the oaks, is now grinding to a mushy, windswept conclusion of barrenness. The once-golden carpet of leaves beneath my feet no longer swish pleasantly; the beauty of the leaves is turning to sludge in the cold. The wind has swept all the trees bare; the grasses have scattered the beauty of their heavy heads and rustle brusquely as dry coarse stalks before the gusts. The songbirds have long since left, and with them most of the ducks and geese; we are left with a few brave gamebirds and the crows and vultures for the winter.

Because the majority of us experience life in a very predictable progression of seasons, that is what I had come to expect. Childhood was like coming out of winter, just wakening after hibernation; my teens were the muddy wildness of early spring. My early 20's, late spring: crocuses, daffodils, planting the fields, the warmth of the soil rolling over under the cultivator for the sun. Then the warmth of early summer, as I bore my children and began harvest. There were hot, humid days when my work seemed stagnant and cumbersome and all I wanted was a long, summer nap. How surprising, to descend into November when so much summer was left! I am surprised to be here. I am praying this is a brief interruption, a little foretaste of seasons to come later in life. My intuition tells me that winter is a long way off, that summer will return, uncharacteristically bright and refreshing.

For now, here I am. In November. Taking long hikes by myself. Wondering how I will ever get warm again.

In November, the earth is growing quiet. It is making its bed, a winter bed for flowers and small creatures. The bed is white and silent, and much life can hide beneath its blankets. The bare November trees are all sticks and bones spreading their arms like dancers.
~ In November, Cynthia Rylant

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!

Misery

I have avoided using this word for many years after watching the movie of the same title and being more deeply disturbed by Kathy Bates' rendition of the main character than I have ever felt before. However, it captures how I feel today. I am sitting upright, forcing myself to type for a few moment before collapsing back in bed. I have a lot of throat and facial swelling from the iodine, complete lack of secretions (tears, nose and throat) despite all that I am drinking, pain when I use the bathroom, and complete and utter fatigue. All the things I was expecting, but the "lived experience" (as we nurses call it) is still a challenge. I am going back to bed now! Please continue to pray for quick healing from these side effects of the iodine. I am also begging the Lord that the iodine will do it's dastardly job and kill all the little thyroid and cancer cells in my body so I don't have to go through this all again in 3 months.