Can I pray for you? Walking the tightrope

Life is tenuous and unpredictable.  We have our expectations in how our life should evolve and see ourselves growing older into the twilight years.  But I am in a world where that expectation is no longer.

Life and longevity is like walking a tightrope; the name of this tightrope, or highwire for some, is called cancer and one must walk across as in a dance.  My friends are not carrying the balancing tool either but are walking “freehand” using only one’s body to maintain this feat of balance.  It is definitely mind over reality; a determination to take the next step hoping not to fall and you must not look at the ground nor look at the final destination but walk straight ahead by faith in believing you will get across.

I went to my cancer support group last night.  I came  home discouraged and sad, I learned another fellow sister in the fight relapsed with breast cancer but this time it is in her stomach and possibly bones.  I sat across the table from four women who are in recurrence; I sat across from four brave and courageous women, three who are in treatment in hopes of defeating this beast and one who has resigned and decided quality of life outweighs the alternative, another go at chemotherapy.  I sat at a table with four in recurrence, two who are not and one was told by her oncologist her cancer will come back, it is a matter of time.

I wrote about this before and I write it again, I can walk away (or run away) from this cancer world, I am well.  But I am choosing to remain in it because maybe in some way I can be of service to another.  Little did I know this choice would involve me with friends and acquaintances who have died and may die.  I wasn’t equipped for this but I say “yes” to God in hopes that He can use me somehow and in some way.  I feel inadequate for this task; one, in that I can not empathize with the emotions of relapse and two, I don’t know what it is like to be that much closer to death.  But in my weakness God will use me for his purpose and I know there is one thing I can offer all the time.

“Can I pray for you?”  Prayer.

I sat across the table from my sister who chose to not continue any more treatment.  She doesn’t come right out and say this, but she knows she is dying.  She shared with the group that her days consist of sitting in her lounge chair and either watching t.v. or sleeping or sometimes reading and she said praying is a part of her day, too.  I didn’t know she prayed.  I am glad she prays.

What is prayer?  Prayer is different from meditation, meditation is quieting yourself and focusing in on something.  Prayer is talking to God; prayer is admitting there is a God and he listens to you.  Prayer is hoping and prayer is peace provoking.  Prayer is asking for help or hope or peace and comfort.  Prayer is powerful, too, especially when you ask others to pray for you.  Praying is an action of submitting to some one greater than yourself and believing or having faith that God hears you and that he cares for and about you.  Prayer is not a sign of weakness but of a spiritual strength  and it is from that platform that I ask, “Can I pray for you?”

I am watching my friends walk the tightrope and one is on the highwire.  I stand below them encouraging them along in this daunting task of placing one foot in front of the next without looking down.  I gasp when they wobble and from the ground I shout, “Come on! Come on!  Focus.  One more step!”  On this walk across the wire my friends have nothing to hold on to but determination in persevering and a hope found in prayer.

The cancer world I live in is a heart ache.  I can’t run from this!  I need to come along those who are aching and I need to, no I must!, without hesitancy ask them, “Can I pray for you?”

And the woman across the table looked straight into my eyes and said, “Pray for me.”

image: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tightrope_walking

A friend, a bond and a marathon race . . .

It has taken a week to sort through my thoughts.  Cancer is mean.  Each and every one of us know about cancer, how could we not know?  More than likely, you know of some one who has or had cancer, probably more than some one, maybe ten some ones.  We see all the commercials on the television for cancer hospitals and research and attorneys who will help you sue your employer for exposing you to asbestos or the like.  And pink, pink, pink is every where.  But more than any of that, cancer is taking the lives of my friends.

And I asked God why am I in the midst of this unrelenting, slowly consuming monster?  

I am cancer free.  I am a “survivor”.  So what.  Cancer continues to plague the lives of my friends; my battle is over, theirs is not.  I have grown to love this kooky and eclectic group of women, I hurt inside, and when I learn another woman said “enough is enough” and chucks the chemo for peace and quality of life, I feel a loss.  Oh, not for her, she is free from the hideous march of hope for the cure, the loss is mine.

I have run this race of survivorship with someone I appreciate and admire and love.  We met at my first support group meeting.  I was an absolute wreck, I was a human blog of confusion and my emotions were raw.  During my treatments I was victoriously strong but at my first support group  meeting I felt incredibly weak and defeated and a woman who felt my pain and confusion introduced herself and gave me her phone number.  She extended her hand to help me up, she helped me begin my walk back to life.  She didn’t care if I started out with a limp, she gave me the support I needed.

My friend and I are one month apart in diagnose and the start of treatment.  Her cancer was different than mine but how cancer affected us was no different.  Her treatment was much different than mine but how cancer affected us was no different.  Her cancer had a great possibility of returning and mine did, too.  Her cancer can take her life, mine can be maintained for the rest of my life.  Her cancer returned, mine has not.  Oh, how sad I am for my friend.

She walked with me, she willingly walked with me in my road back to recovery.  I felt lost.  I didn’t know who I was.  I was depressed.  She didn’t care.  We met probably monthly if not more often to share a meal and talk.  Crappy cancer was our common bond but we shared something else that made us happy, the love of running, and that was a common goal we had, to get back to running again.

Oh my friend, she let me talk and talk and talk.  What did she think of me as she sat across the table and saw a woman who looked like she was a spooked deer?  Sometimes I would think to myself, here I am blabbing again (probably about the same things) and she just listens but her eyes say it all.  She listens to me, am I giving her a chance to share her thoughts and feelings?  Am I giving her a chance to share her fears?  Am I being selfish?

She let me talk about what no one else wanted to hear.  We talked about not “if” but “when”.  We talked about what would we do if that dreaded word “relapse” should enter our life.  We talked about how far would we go in treating a relapse.  We talked about the responses and care of our loved ones to our cancer.  I told her I never ever wanted to do an allogeneic stem cell transplant and deal with graft verses host disease.  She wondered if she could go through peritoneal chemotherapy again.

Our talking was healing (well, at least my talking was healing).  The longer we knew each other the less we talked about our cancer.  Our common bond, cancer, turned into a  friendship and we began doing things together.  We found we had similar interests.  I found I really liked her a lot and I had fun with her!  We even went out to dinner as couples and she invited my husband and I to celebrate her 50th birthday with them, we went on a progressive restaurant celebration hitting four restaurants!  Crazy.

We were walking in survivorship together!  My confusion and fear was behind me.  Rather than think of my life in six months increments I went to a year and then to five years and now I see all kinds of years ahead of me.  But I sensed a tentativeness, a reserve or hesitancy in my friend.  She did make plans for future events but there was an unspoken reality to the poor odds with her cancer.

We share the same oncologist.  Our “big” appointments are a few months apart.  Before each appointment we hold our breath and then after the appointment there is a big sigh of relief.  But then my friend said her numbers were slowly – slowly, that is – going up.  It doesn’t matter if it is slowly as slowly does cause one to wonder.  And then she said she was experiencing this pain in her left side; no, not pain, an ache but noticeable none the less.  She brought it to the onc’s attention, but it was of no concern to him.  She brought it up again the next appointment; still, no alarm.  (However, her numbers went up a little again.)

And then it is our annual CT scan – the dreaded CT scan.  The CT scan can see inside of us what we can not see and we are always hoping there is nothing inside of us.  Mine was in April and it came back clear, her’s was in June and it did not come back clear.  There was a mass outside her colon.  And as she and her husband met with a surgical oncologist they learned the news was far worse than initially told.  This was devastating, devastating . . .

My friend called me 9:15 a.m., Friday morning, early June.  Her usually smiley voice was shallow.  She asked what I was doing that morning.  I told her, she hesitated and then I knew something was wrong, terribly wrong.  We met at 11:00 a.m. and through tears, our tears, she told me the news.  The cancer was back and invasive.  Now I listen.

I feel sad.  I feel sorrowful.  I feel angry.   I feel loss.  I feel loss that our walk in shared survivorship has drastically changed and the what “if” has turned into “when”.  I find myself at a loss in what to say.  Our common walk on the road of survivorship forked; now what she is experiencing is something I am not familiar with.  What can I say?  What can I do?  Can I do anything for my friend?  (I can pray, I can pray, I can pray . . .)

She is back in Michigan awaiting surgery.  She returned to her primary oncologist, the one who initially treated her.  Her family is there.  She and her husband are there now – and I am  here.  The most I can do is take care of her flower pots while  she is away.  I can’t go to her, I can’t wait in the waiting room with her husband for the news.  (I can pray, I can pray, I can pray . . .)  I have to hope that her husband remembers to call me.  My friend held my hand.  Damn, I wish I could hold her hand!

I never did get back to running.  I tried but my broken leg changed everything.  My friend?  She set a goal.  She trained to that goal.  She will not be able to reach that goal – her first marathon . . .  But she is running!  She trained, she is strong, she was ready, she is ready.  She is running the marathon of her life.  And I am in Montana, at this finish line, cheering her on.  She will cross the finish line and receive the medal she trained for, first place in her division – a real athlete and true winner!

Run, my dear friend!  Run!

My friend, Sandy, on the far left

mantle zones, purpose and don’t waste your cancer!

As soon as I was diagnosed with cancer, I knew I never wanted to waste this experience.

Dr. Greg grabbed some paper and began drawing a diagram of what mantle cell lymphoma is and what it looks like.  His explanation was a “foreign” language as he went on describing how there are mantle zones that surround our cells and “blah, blah, blah” and mine were cancerous.  The drawings were helpful but regardless, my mind had been shot with a stun gun and I was stuck at stage IV cancer and it was called mantle cell lymphoma, a rare cancer and there is no cure.

But even in that paralyzing moment, my core stood fast in believing there was purpose in my cancer diagnose and purpose in all of this confusing information.  The first test of purpose was my trust in God and could I, would I explicitly trust Him?  My belief is God is sovereign and He is purposeful and trusting in who He says He is, PURPOSE became my foundation.  Little did I realize the great deep and dimensional growth I was about to experience – those drawings and mantle zones have not been wasted but were building blocks to a richer and more meaningful relationship as my faith was tested and God showed Himself true.

Yesterday I was challenged with how far am I willing to go in continuing to remain involved in the cancer community which really is a world all in itself.  Truly, I do not lightly follow the cancer blogs listed on my right side bar.  I am invested in their journeys, both good news and bad.  When the author doesn’t write an update after weeks from their last post, I wonder what has happened.  Since following these blogs some authors were told by their medical team there is nothing more they can do and to go home, hospice is available when they are ready and that is the last I read of them.  I am sad and I feel a sense of loss.

Weekly I hear of another person being diagnosed with cancer and I am sad that they and their loved ones are now traveling this bumpy road.  This road includes a calendar filled with appointments; the onslaught of information and new terms and words never heard before; tests, tests, tests; awkward conversations with friends; finding the right doctor; where to be treated; second opinions; distancing friendships and new friendships; tears and more tears and decisions that feel uneducated and second guessed.  I feel and empathize with their loss as they leave their familiar and controlled world behind and walk into this fast paced, anxiety-ridden, not knowing what is going to happen next world, a world that is out of their control.

Why do I remain in this often depressing sphere?  I don’t need to do this.  I can get out now, I am cancer free and I feel great.  I can leave this miserable and often fatal world and get on with my life as a cancer free person forgetting what is behind me and look forward to what is ahead.

Yesterday I asked a question, is there a purpose for why I remain connected to and involved in this realm?  Has God purposed me here?  Do I have a role and a place even as a cancer free survivor?  I don’t want to waste my cancer.

This Tuesday night, May 22nd, is the introductory meeting of F.A.I.T.H., Firm Anchor In The Hope, the first in this valley Christian cancer support group.  The idea for a Biblically-based cancer support fellowship simmered for nearly three years.  My friend Joyce, who is a breast cancer survivor and lost her sister to breast cancer, and I have talked about this need for a setting to discuss the spiritual side to cancer supported by the hope and encouragement in Jesus Christ and through the promise and comfort of Scripture.  Through the culmination of separate events in our  lives, we feel this support premise is needed more than ever before and now is the time to offer such a group.

I don’t want to waste my cancer and neither does Joyce.

In John Piper’s article, Don’t Waste Your Cancer, he states ten challenges.  When I first read this article at the start of my cancer journey, a few points were convicting and even offended me.  But in maturing through my experience, there is truth within each point.

1. You will waste your cancer if you do not believe it is designed for you by God.
2. You will waste your cancer if you believe it is a curse and not a gift.
3. You will waste your cancer if you seek comfort from your odds rather than from God.
4. You will waste your cancer if you refuse to think about death.
5. You will waste your cancer if you think that “beating” cancer means staying alive rather than cherishing Christ.
6. You will waste your cancer if you spend too much time reading about cancer and not enough time reading about God.
7. You will waste your cancer if you let it drive you into solitude instead of deepen your relationships with manifest affection
8. You will waste your cancer if you grieve as those who have no hope.
9. You will waste your cancer if you treat sin as casually as before.
10. You will waste your cancer if you fail to use it as a means of witness to the truth and glory of Christ.

Two points boldly stand out: You will waste your cancer if you grieve as those who have no hope and You will waste your cancer if you fail to use it as a means of witness to the truth and glory of Christ.

Yesterday I was challenged.  Am I willing to continue to walk in this world alongside those who are presently coping with cancer?  Am I willing to empathize and feel heart ache when the news is negative or terminal?  Am I willing to feel loss?

Yes.  The Bible pictures our eternal hope secure in God’s unchanging nature and promise as an anchor “for the soul, firm and secure.”  (Heb.  6:19)  I believe God’s purpose for me is to share there is  hope in cancer found in the truth and glory of Christ.