A year ago today, on August 31, 2007 I had the colonoscopy that revealed my cancer.  So much of the day is foggy in my memory, and yet strange little details are vivid and fresh.  I remember that they were running late that day, in the endoscopy suite, and there was a lot of waiting involved.  In reality, the waiting was probably minor, but in my state of mind, it loomed up as vast wastelands of sluggishly ticking second hands on the clock.

I remember that one of the nurses was Penny; the other, Sandy.

I remember lying on the bed, listening to my ipod.  The ipod was new, and I had just loaded it with music;  I didn’t know then how it would comfort me in the darkness of so many lonely nights in the hospital and in the cancer clinic.

During that wait, I remember hearing Dr. James talk to patient after patient, all of whom had already had the procedure done.  Each time the exchange went something like this:

“Well, Mr. X everything looks clear.  No polyps.  Nothing to worry about.  No cancer at all.” 

“Thank you, Doctor.”

or

“Well, Mrs. B – we found a few polyps, but we nipped them out.  They don’t look cancerous, so you’ll be just fine,”

“Thank you, Doctor.”

or

“Well. Mr. T – you’re amazing, you are!  Everything is fine.  Nothing to worry about at all.  You just keep going and going.  Good for you.”

“Thank you, Doctor.”

After listening to several of these conversations, I remember thinking to myself, “There are at least ten people here.  We can’t ALL be well; the odds are against us.  One of us MUST have cancer.  It’s going to be me, I just know it.”

And as Penny came to wheel me into the room, I said, “I’m a little scared.”

“What are you scared of?” she asked.

I was scared that I had cancer, of course; but I couldn’t say the word.  It was almost as if I thought that I could speak it into being.  That if I said it out loud, it would be true.

“I’m just scared,” I said.

I remember that Dr. Frost said, “Oops,” as he put the needle in my arm, and I said, “Now THAT is a word that should not be heard in an operating room.”

He grinned.

I was serious.

Dr. James came in.  He put on some music, and I faded out.

I came to as they were wheeling me out of the room.  I was not fully conscious, but I heard people talking about a CT scan.  I somehow knew they were talking about me.

I began to cry.

Dr. James came over.

“Why are you crying?” he said.

“I’m scared.”

“Why are you scared?” he asked.

I was afraid that I had cancer, of course; but again, I couldn’t say the word, so again I just said, “I’m scared.”

He touched my shoulder and said, “Oh, Lovey.  You’re going to be fine.”

I knew that he couldn’t KNOW that I would be fine, but I liked him saying it.  I liked him using the word “Lovey” – it’s the name I have called my children since they were babies, and his use of the word was inexpressibly comforting to me.

I faded out again.

“Oh good,” I heard a nurse say, “here is her husband.”

Dr. James motioned him over, and they spoke; but their words were indistinct to me.

Bryan opened the curtain.  I looked at him; his eyes were full of tears.  He stumbled towards me and collapsed into my arms.

“Oh good,” said Penny, “your husband is here.”

“Yes,” I said, “And as you can see, he is being a great help to me.”

She laughed.

Later Dr. James came to my bedside.  He sat down, and looked at his hands.

“This is the part of my job that I really hate.”

I thought to myself, “You cannot hate saying it nearly as much as I hate hearing it.”

He told us more.

I remember tearing up again, and apologizing: “It’s just that I have two  little kids at home, and they are really young ” I cried.

I saw the nurses across the room look at each other, and start whispering.

Dr. James called one of the nurses over, and asked her to tell me about her mother, who had just finished all her treatments for the same kind of cancer.

“She’s doing really well now, isn’t she?” he prompted.

The nurse nodded vigorously and assured me that her mother was feeling great, but that I needed to know that it took a full year for her to really get through it all.

“A year?” I thought.  ”I can’t do it.”

I remember that as I was leaving the room to go have my CT scan, Dr. James half turned towards me and said, “My fiance is doing your scan.”  And he smiled a sweet, proud, delighted kind of smile, and I said, “Awww, really?”  It seemed so sweet, and cute, and human for him to tell me that.

And she was so kind, and understanding and calming as she explained the procedure, and did the scan.

I remember going back to my room, and finding a flower on my bed.  Penny had left it for me.

I saw her later, in the hall, and she hugged me tight and wished me well.

I remember feeling dazed, and exhausted as we left the building, and knowing that it was only going to get worse as we went to tell all the people who love us that I was very sick.  I didn’t want to do it.  I didn’t know how I could do it.  And I don’t think I was able to say the word “cancer.”  I still couldn’t say it.  

I remember all my friends: what they did and what they said.  I remember that it broke my heart.  And I knew that it was just the beginning.

When I read what I wrote earlier,  I had a sudden realization.  

I think what I’ve been trying to do with all this activity is to put my illness behind me.  Pretend it never happened.  Be the person I was a year ago.  Return to myself.

But the truth is that I’ll never be that person again.

And strangely, for today at least, this thought brings no sadness, just a sense of arriving, finally, at a truth that brings strength and peace – almost a sense of fulfillment.  I can’t really explain it, today.  Yesterday I felt almost grief-stricken, but the night brought perspective, peace, and purpose (oooh, I could preach a three point sermon on that!)

I read this recently:

“Until we stop ourselves, or more often, have been stopped, we hope to put certain of life’s events ‘behind us’ and get on with our living.  After we stop, we see that certain of life’s issues will be with us as long as we live.  We will pass through them again and again, each time with a new story, each time with a greater understanding, until they become indistinguishable from our blessing and our wisdom.”

Cancer will be with me as long as I live.  However long that happens to be.  Last week I went for my follow-up in Victoria.  There were no surprises… not really.  I knew I would have to have CT scans every six months for the first three years.  The doctor said that the tumour is unlikely to grow back in the same spot, thanks to the radiation; however, people who have had one rectal tumour are likely to grow another one.  Nice.   She also said that the lungs and liver are of particular concern, hence the CT scans.  Nothing to raise my hackles yet.  But then she said, “If we find cancer in one location, we’ll just hack it out; but if we find it in more than one location there’s nothing we can do about that.”  Now, she MAY have said “cut it out”, but I heard “hack it out”, I know I did.  And the “nothing we can do about that” got my goat a little as well.

A couple of days ago, Anna said, “Mummy, if you died, and all of your friends died on the same day, I’d give you a really good funeral.”  So, I’ve got that to look forward to anyway.

But today, with the sun shining, I feel no sadness, no regret.  Whatever will be, will be.  As much as I abhor resorting to what sounds like a cliche, God in fact DOES have a plan for my life.  He knows better than I do what my future holds; what is best for my children; how He will work out His purpose for all of us.  I tend to get pretty self-centered, and think that my life is only about me.  It’s not.  It’s about God and His greater purpose.  And in some strange way, I look forward to seeing that purpose unfold.  

So, I can see how this particular “life issue” of mine – this one of many “life issues” – has already brought a small morsel of wisdom, however flawed my understanding might be.

I was at a hafla a couple of weeks ago – a party with music, food and bellydancing.  It was held in the beautiful backyard of my dance teacher.  I had a hard time deciding if I would attend the party: I hadn’t danced all year, and felt very reticent about the dance, the people, the visiting.  Parties are always hard for me because I’m so awkward in social situations – and an event with dancing makes me feel even more awkward.  And then there was the matter of what to wear: I don’t really have an outfit, and most of the other women have lots of glittery, beautiful, sparkly outfits.  And then there was my physical exhaustion.

I’ve been doing too much, and really paying for it.  June is a busy month anyway – sports day, field trips, clubs, dance recitals, piano recitals, graduation, and work.  I worked in June.  Probably not a smart move, but at the time, I thought I could do it.  And I did.  But I was more tired than I thought I would be.  And I was discouraged by that.  I think I jumped back into life, right into the deep end, and I’ve been frantically treading water trying to keep my head above the water line.

So when it came to the hafla, I just didn’t know what to do.

And then I remembered how kind and supportive my dance friends had been: the gifts and cards, the notes and messages.  And I remembered how much I love to dance – how much I love the music – how much I love my Shannon and how I love to watch her dance – and I decided to go, but I thought I would just wear street clothes.

But as I was getting ready, I looked at my dance things, and I remembered that I did have a crop top, and some sparkly things.   But I have a really big scar on my belly, and I feel self-conscious about it.  

I stood in my room for a few minutes, holding the top and wondering.  And then a thought flashed across my consciousness: ” I almost died this year.  I can wear any freakin’ thing I want to wear!”

Later, at the party, when people were saying how glad they were that I came, I told them about my struggle earlier in the evening, and when I came to that point, and shouted, “I almost died this year…”  there was a sudden hush.

I said, “I guess I probably should stop saying that.  It makes people feel uncomfortable.”

Everyone hastened to say that it didn’t make them uncomfortable at all, but they were lying.  I could tell by the looks on their faces.

My teacher said, “No, I think it’s good that you say it.  It’s true, and you need to say it… but maybe you should change it around and say, ‘I didn’t die this year.’”

Brilliant.

I DIDN’T die this year.  Now THAT’S something to dance about.

After I spoke at grad, one of the moms came and thanked me.  She said that now that her last child had graduated, she and her husband were going to take some time to relax and have fun.  She said, “You know, sometimes you just have to take time to dance.”  And she glanced at me meaningfully.  ”I hope you’re going to take some time to dance this summer.”

Yes.

I said to my dancing friends that I felt that I needed to do something to mark this year.  Something to celebrate the year, and bring some sort of closure, or something.  I don’t really know how to express it.  One of my friends from the cancer clinic is a  kayaker with lots of experience navigating rivers.  She pictures her experience with cancer as a journey in which she has had to navigate through the “rapids” of radiation, and the pain of recovery, towards the quiet waters of wellness.  She is making a quilt that represents this journey.  It’s a beautiful thought, and I’m sure the making of the quilt is therapeutic and healing. 

Quilting is not my thing.  I’m not really sure what my thing is.  But I have been thinking about how I would like to mark the year.  And when I said so to my dancing friends, one said, “You could get your eyebrow pierced.”

No. That’s not it.

Another squealed, “Oooh!  You could get a tattoo!”

No.  That’s not it either.

In view of these suggestions, I didn’t want to admit that I just wanted to  buy a pair of shoes.

Not really.

It could be that this blog is the thing that brings meaning to my year.

It’s been my way of dealing with the whole experience all along.  Maybe it’s enough to think about it, write about it, share it in some small way.

I don’t know.

My room mate from Victoria gave me a scrapbook and encouraged me to scrapbook the experience.  She has photos and things from her time at the clinic, and she is going to scrapbook.

I’m not so good at keeping things.  But maybe I’ll scrapbook.

I don’t really know where I’m going with this post.  I have a lot of thoughts swirling through my mind, and I’m having a hard time sorting through them all.  I went for my follow-up in Victoria last week, and I think it upset me more than I realized at the time.  I keep fooling myself into thinking that it’s over, and it’s not.  It’s okay that it’s not over, and I’m used to having these thought hovering on the edges of my mind.  I’m resigned to it in a way; but when they are forced to the forefront again, it’s jarring, and it takes me a few days to find equanimity again.  Little vague ribbons of sadness and loss drift around me, hindering me. 

As I read what I’ve written, I realize that it sounds as though I think I need to be moving ahead in some way. But I think I have it all wrong.  Who says I have to make any progress at all?  Who says I have to be moving ahead? Forward? Who says I have to put anything BEHIND me at all?

Hmmm.  I’ll have to think about this.

Not sure who has been teaching my daughter about various plagues, but she 

finds the subject endlessly fascinating. 

Anna:  Mummy, I’m glad people don’t die from Black Plague, or Husha Husha anymore.

Me:  I’m glad too, honey.

Anna:  I’m glad people don’t die from… 

(a wide-eyed, horrified stare fills her eyes)

Anna:  Mummy, people don’t die of cancer, do they?

(long pause as I force my voice to respond without trembling)

Me:  Yes, darling, sometimes people DO die from cancer.

(another long pause, punctuated by a couple of gulps.)

Anna:  Whew…I’m sure glad YOU didn’t die, Mummy.  You are very special to me

Whew, I’m glad I didn’t die, too.  And I’m glad that my strength is returning, and that I feel real again.  I was walking along the other day, the sun was shining and I felt happy.  I almost stopped dead in my tracks as this thought flitted through my head: “I feel well…I AM well!”

It’s much better now, but a few weeks ago, I was finding the return to health and wellness quite trying.  I felt a bit like an interloper, an impostor – like I was elbowing my way into a world where I had no place.  It reminded me a little of returning home after Lois died and after my nana died.  I remember going out in public and being sort of appalled that life for others had gone on while mine had been devastated.  I heard people laughing and talking, and felt I couldn’t join in – as if I had lost the gifts of laughter, and sharing.  I felt that I had been somewhere that others had not been, and therefore they couldn’t understand my heart.  

I felt like Luna Lovegood.  Because she had experienced death, she could see the thestrals when no one else could.

It’s not that no one but me has ever seen death or sorrow, it’s just that mine was recent.  Mine was about Lois…about Nana.  Mine sorrow was my own.

I think we can certainly empathize with others, but rarely can we really enter into some one else’s pain.

And that’s a little how I have felt these last weeks as I have entered back into life.  I have walked through the valley of the shadow of death, and now I am back among the living.  

It is very strange.

And yet, each week has become easier and more more natural and I sometimes forget that I have been sick.  Sometimes.

I went out with friends last night, and had a GREAT time.  We laughed and told stories and laughed more.

But when I got home, I reviewed the conversations we had, and I was sort of horrified by how many times I had talked about my illness.  I haven’t done that for weeks.  For weeks, I have worked, I’ve gone on field trips with my kids, taken them to swim pratice, visited my parents, had dinner with friends, and lived without endlessly talking about my health.

But last night I did.

Yesterday morning some one told me about the death of an acquaintance.  She had died from cancer.

Years ago she had struggled through breast cancer, and had recovered.

But last year the cancer had spread throughout her body.  And then she died.

When I heard the news, I tried to think of her family and friends, but when it came down to it, I could only think of myself.  The tears rose in my eyes, and I had to leave the room.

And cry by myself in the bathroom.

I know that people die from cancer.  But it still gives me the wiggins.

I felt badly for my friend who had told the news.  She had to tell me: I needed to know. It’s more important to know than to be “protected” from “bad” news.  I don’t want to be “protected,” I want to be a participant in life.  But that can be painful, and hard, and I know my friend felt badly. 

And I think that’s why I talked about it last night.

I mostly talked about the funny stuff: the stuff that made me laugh.

But lurking around in the back of my mind was the knowledge that people die from cancer.

I wrote a couple of days ago that I didn’t think I would have any rest until my colonoscopy in September.  I don’t think I feel the same anymore.  I think I’m willing to surrender to the “unknowing.”

I read the other day that “an unanswered question is a fine traveling companion.  It sharpens your eye for the road.”

I like that.  It means that life is about more than answers.  The answers are a side benefit, but not the destination.  

I’ve avoided using the imagery of a journey up until now – I’ve thought it cliched and obvious – but I have to bow to the inevitable.  Life IS like a journey.  And I’ve always been more a destination kind of person than a joy in the journey kind.  Whenever Bryan and I have taken a road trip, I’ve always gone into it, thinking that I would be flexible, and let the road take us where it would.  But the reality has never fulfilled that intention.  The first day or two might be relaxed and spontaneous, but by the third day, the destination is burning in my consciousness, and I want to reach it in as short a time as possible.  I become blind to the road itself and only have eyes for the end of the road.

But I suppose if I don’t KNOW the end of the road, I might be able to look at the scenery along the way.  I might even spot the bags of gold that God drops in my path – now I might recognize them for what they are.  Before this year, I might have seen them as dusty rocks that might trip me.  I would have kicked them impatiently out of my way, or stepped over them with a grimace of distaste.  I never would have stopped, never would have picked them up to look inside.  Never would have found the blessing.

Maybe my eyes HAVE been sharpened.

As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him; for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust.

Sometimes I forget that I am dust.  I meander through my days, not paying much attention to the thousands of little decisions I make as I live my life: decisions that either draw me closer to God, or further away from Him.  And then suddenly I look at something I’ve done, and I see the utter depravity of my character, and I am appalled at myself.  And I wonder how I got there.  I’ve wandered along thinking that I was okay – better than okay.  Close to God.  Loving Him.  Pleasing Him.  And then it all comes tumbling down around my ears, and I see myself the way I really am: minus the pretty facades I’ve erected.  And I wince, knowing that even now, I’m only seeing a fraction of what God sees, and knowing that if I saw it all, I would be crushed under the weight of my sin. 

But I’m glad: it’s good to remember that I am dust.  And that God loves me and is pleased with me despite my dustiness.  The irony is me thinking that it is my actions that please God, when really it is not about anything I do or don’t do.  God sees me through the mantle of Christ’s sacrifice, through the curtain of Christ’s atonement.  But it is good for me to see a glimpse of myself, if only to forestall any self-congratulatory feelings I might be developing.   I find it interesting that I do not feel the self-loathing I would normally feel under these circumstances; nor do I hear the refrain “Stupid, stupid, stupid” that often echoes through my mind.  I can let go of that, and be resigned to my human frailties.

I remember that I am dust, and that God loves me.  I am so grateful.

I wrote this in my journal almost three weeks ago, and haven’t taken the time to put it in this blog.  I’ve been busy and tired, and tired and busy.  I’ve begun to think I am well, and as a result have over extended myself to the point of utter exhaustion.  The road back to strength and wellness is longer than I anticipated.  And fraught with such conflicting emotions.  That’s the real reason I haven’t written – I don’t really know what to feel, or how to express what’s in my heart.   I think I SHOULD feel happy, but I don’t yet.

Here’s what I wrote three weeks ago at Tyee Spit:

Tomorrow is the day I WOULD be going for a treatment.  I WOULD have had my bloodwork done today, and tomorrow I would be hooked up that machine and be drifting away from myself.  Even now I feel that horrible taste rising up in the back of my throat gagging me.

BUT, I don’t have to have blood taken today, and I don’t have to have a treatment tomorrow.

I am finished.

I know I ought to be elated: jumping for joy, delighted, relieved, ecstatic.  And I am, sometimes.  But it also seems so unreal.  So hard to fathom.  So frightening.

I’ve read that as long as people are being treated for their cancer, they can cope with their reality.  It is difficult, and painful, but they feel safe knowing that something powerful is being done to bring about healing and wholeness.  But afterwards, when treatments have ended, there is a sense of panic.  What if it wasn’t enough?

I catch myself with that clutch of panic at my heart sometimes.  Teary, frightened, confused.  At a loss.  My entire year has been carefully plotted out for me by others, and now it’s almost as if I don’t know what to do.  I need to remember what it’s like to be well.  To embrace life.  To move forward.

When Geri removed my PICC line, I felt a little moment of panic.  I wanted her to take it out, to set me free, but at the same time, I was frightened.  And now, when I look down at my arm, I see only the faintest trace of where the catheter pierced my skin.  It gives me such a sense of unreality: almost as if it never was.  And I wonder if all the other scars will also fade, leaving me with only the faintest memory of this year.  I don’t want them to fade away completely.  I don’t want to forget.  People have said to me so many times in the last week or so, “You’re done!  You can finally put all this behind you.”  But I don’t want to leave it all behind.  God has blessed me in such a powerful and profound way, and I think I’m afraid that somehow I will lose the blessing as life takes over.

After she took the PICC out, Geri seized me in a fierce embrace and said, “You’ve been through so much, and you did it.”

I cried,and clung to her, and felt a sense of triumph, or accomplishment, or something.  It was strange.  It’s not as though I had actually DONE anything.  Maybe what I was experiencing was a sense of completion: I had made it to the end, and was still standing.  I can take some satisfaction in that.

I am finished the chapter, but not the book.

And I think THAT’S why I feel such conflicting emotions.  People keep saying to me, “Oh, I’m so glad it’s over.  I’m so glad you’re finished.”  I smile and agree – and I AM glad that the chemo is over.

I do have a sense of peace.  I am hopeful.  I am anticipating a return to health and strength.

But it’s not over.

When I left the doctor, after that last treatment, she handed me a paper entitled “Letter for Colorectal Cancer patients.”  It maps out years of follow-up:

*  history and physical exam every three months for the first three years, then every six months for two additional years.

*  rectal exam at least yearly

*  colonoscopy within one year following surgery (mine is already booked for September)

*  tumour markers checked at each visit

*  liver imaging done every six months for three years, then annually for two more years

*  chest X-rays every six months for five years.

I’m glad for the follow-up.  I’m grateful that I live in an age when such things are possible.  I’m relieved that doctors will be checking my organs and orifices.  And Im eager for that scope:  I will have no rest until I have that colonoscopy in September.

I’m finished the chapter, but not the book.

At my last treatment I talked with the woman who does the healing touch, or relaxation therapy.  She is a lovely, gentle woman who has helped me get through many sessions of chemo.  I told her how I had begun to be able to let go of my anxiety about the treatments and sort of surrender to the experience instead of fight it.  She laughed out loud, clapped her hands like an excited child and swooped down to kiss the top of my head: a  sweet and loving gesture that touched me to the core.  I’ve met so many warm, kind, strong people who have cared for me so deeply and powerfully.  

She told me that she has overheard many conversations in the chemo room, and most of them revolve around people’s response to their cancer, and the treatment, and how they are going to “fight this thing” or how they are going to “beat it.”  And as they speak, their body tightens, and their face hardens and she can see tension in every line.  I’ve seen it too: at the lodge in Victoria, and in the chemo room at the hospital.  And I do understand it, to an extent: we all want to live, and we all want to be well and healthy and to be ACTIVE in our experiences.  We DON’T want to lay down and be vanquished; we DON’T want to be helpless, powerless, voiceless.  I’ve been there myself: mute and anguished at what was being done to me.

But Gayle raised an interesting point.  She said that when we fight, every part of us is taut, and hard; nothing can flow in us when we are so tight, and she really feels that this can block or hinder whatever good the medicine accomplishes in our bodies.  When we give up that fight, our body relaxes, and rests, and there is the possibility of movement and flow.

I don’t really know about all that, but it does seem to make sense to me.  After my last treatment, I had a couple of days of pretty intense pain – intestinal cramping.  At first I felt sort of angry that I was having these pains: I remembered them after my radiation, and they were so debilitating, and I hated the thought that they had returned to plague me.  So I tried to ignore them.  I got up from my chaise lounge, and attempted to sit at the computer and work on my grad speech.  I couldn’t do it – the pain was too intense to allow me to sit comfortably.  I squirmed around a bit, and tried to change my position.  I held my breath through each wave; I tensed up; I fought it.

And then I remembered.

I got up from the desk, stretched out on the couch and gave up.

I gave up the fight, and surrendered to the pain. 

And found rest.  

When I felt the pain begin, I breathed it out and imagined I could see it leaving through my finger tips.  I focussed on keeping my body relaxed and just letting my body do what it needed to do.  I kept my thoughts focussed on letting go rather than on holding in.   And then I remembered that I had done something similar when I was in labour.  When I could feel a contraction beginning, I stretched out my hands, breathed very hard, and imagined the pain building to a certain point, and then flowing out through my finger tips.  I could almost see it.  And now I imagined that I could see the pain leaving as I surrendered to it.

The power of surrendering.

Surrendering gets such bad press.  In movies, surrendering is always the last ditch attempt to preserve life and property.  And it’s always accompanied by white flags, and shamefaced resignation. It is considered weak and cowardly. But I wonder if surrendering has more power than we imagine.

What if I surrendered to other painful things in my life rather than fighting?  What might happen?

What if I surrendered to my fears about my health?

Whenever I think about the cancer returning, my body tightens, my breathing  quickens, and I feel an inward trembling.  And my first response is to fight it: I grit my teeth, clench my hands and mutter, “It is NOT coming back.  I am NOT going to die from this.”  But what if I surrendered to it?  To the fear, and to the cancer.  There is a certain amount of peace involved in giving up, or giving in; and I’m beginning to understand that it is not necessarily a weakness to give in.  In some ways, I feel stronger and more courageous when I acquiesce to the inevitable.  I feel more calm and more centered.  I am where I am today because God brought me here, and He may take me somewhere else tomorrow, or a year from now, or two.  And I can surrender to that.  To be at the center of God’s will, and to know it is a powerful place to be.  

What if I surrendered to other things as well?  My shyness?  My awkwardness?  My complete inability to articulate my thoughts?  To speak?

What if I gave in and stopped fighting to be be someone I’m not?  What if I calmly accepted all those flaws, and stopped trying to force myself to change?  What power might result from that capitulation?

I don’t know, but I’m going to think about it.

Anna:  Mummy, I think it would be good if Daddy married another wife and I could have TWO mummies.

Me:  Two mummies?  Why would you want to have two mummies?

Anna:  You could be the mummy WITH cancer, and you could stay in bed all day, and not do any work.  Then I could have a mummy WITHOUT cancer, and she could do the dishes and the laundry and play with me.

Me:  I’d rather be the mummy without cancer.

A couple of days ago I really needed to be alone.  By the ocean.  In the sun.  Nathan had been home sick all week, and it had been a very difficult couple of days: stressful, listening to his cough, and feeling like it was my fault he was sick.  And I needed to be alone, to think, and to wonder.

Now that I can begin to see the end of all things, I’ve begun to wonder again.  What about the future?  What about the cancer?  While I was having chemo the other day, I picked up a book from the shelf behind me: The Complete Guide to Colorectal Cancer.  I flipped to the chapter entitled “Life After Cancer.”  The first thing I read was rather startling: it turns out that there isn’t any – life after cancer, that is.  Some sort of freaky, scary statistic leapt out at me:  even after five years cancer-free, many people still succumb to colorectal cancer.  I closed the book, put it back on the shelf.  ”I don’t think I can read this right now,”  I whispered to Laurie.  She nodded.

But  on Thursday, when I had my dressing changed, I decided that I DID need to read it.  I’ve done pitifully little reading about this disease, and I need to know a few things.  But this time I picked up a different book:  The Intelligent Patient Guide to Colorectal Cancer.  Not that I am – intelligent, that is – I just hoped it might have a different statistic, a different take on  the future.

Here are some things I read.  Let me note that the sun was no longer shining down by the ocean.  An icy wind had blown up, and dark rain clouds threatened overhead.  In fiction, it is a device known as pathetic fallacy, whereby the events in nature reflect the happenings in the plot.

* 1 in 15 Canadians will get colorectal cancer at some point in their lifetime, and 1 in 28 will die of it.

*  patients who have had one colorectal cancer are at increased risk of developing another one.

*  colorectal cancer will recur in 50% of patients who have been treated for cure.

*  if a colon or rectal cancer is going to recur, either locally (in the area of the original cancer) or as a metastases elsewhere in the body, most often it will do so in the first two years after surgery.

*  more than 75% of all recurrences will make themselves known during the first 24 months after surgery.

*  the majority of patients who develop a recurrence of colon or rectal cancer cannot be cured of it.

So there you have it: twenty-four months.  That’s the magic number.  I had thought, that if I DID happen to develop another cancer , it would be years and years down the road.  At 44 years old, I figured that I might have another 40 years in me, and that if cancer came again, it would be much much later in life, when I wouldn’t mind shuffling off this mortal coil.  But twenty-four months.  Yipes.

I’m glad to know what I know.  I do not feel that my future is blighted, and that I’m sure to die of this disease.  But I am rather startled.  I know that Dr. Fitz in Victoria probably told me all these statistics, but I’m not very good at listening to numbers.  I never thought I’d be one of these numbers.  And one can only absorb so much at a time.

But when the rain finally came, suffice it to say that by then there wasn’t much left of my mascara to run down my cheeks.  

It had already been washed away.

So much depends

Upon a red wheel barrow

Glazed with rain water

Beside the white chickens

                         – e.e. cummings

I had my treatment last Monday : the sixth of eight treatments.  I felt so much more at peace: as if I had finally resigned myself, after so long, to the onslaught against my body.  I did not cry all the way home.  In fact, I did not go home at all:  I saw my surgeon, I sat by the ocean, I picked my children up from school.  

I held that image of the worn leather bag, and the treasure within as consciously as I could, and when the crash came, as it always does, I held it even closer.  I slept more this time, and I didn’t feel as desolate and alone.  I think I was able to surrender myself, and find solace in sleep, rather than struggle against the tide of confusion.  I slept for almost twenty-four hours, but still woke on Saturday, exhausted.

On Sunday I tried to go to church.  Mistake.  I love to go to church now, and worship with my friends, and sing and pray and be with the people I love.  But on Sunday it was a mistake: I wasn’t well enough – too shaky, too exhausted, too dizzy.  I had to make a rather ignominious retreat.  And I cried all the way home.  And I frightened my children.  And Nathan got sick.  And Anna’s eyes were the size of dinner plates.

In between my wails, I heard Nathan’s voice from the back seat, “They say that laughter is contagious… I think sadness is contagious too.”

Oh, my children. 

Sometimes the burden of grief is too much to bear, and it spills out, and I can’t stop it, and I don’t even know if I even should stop it.  And my children see it, and soak it up, and store it up in their little hearts, and I wonder what it will create in them.  What will be their prevailing memories of this year? How will it change them?  How HAS it changed them? I don’t want to deny the pain, brush it away, and pretend it doesn’t exist, but I don’t want it to become the constant refrain of our home, either

I have cried in front of my children many times: gentle, oozy tears.  My emotions have always run close to the surface.  But I don’t often sob uncontrollably in front of them.

So Nathan has been home all week with the dreadful wracking cough he develops when he is under stress.  He has had it three times this year: when I had my surgery, when I was in treatment in Victoria, and now.  He comes for snuggles twenty times a day.  He is teary and fragile.  It’s funny how children differ: Nathan becomes fragile; Anna becomes demanding.  She is the imperious princess who demands attention.  She wants to play, she needs a snack, she can’t find her favourite dress, she wants to go for a walk, she needs a snuggle.  Arghh.  And my patience is so thin, I hear it in my voice: stretched taut and querulous.  

So, even though I was able to surrender to the experience this time, and find a measure of solace and peace, I don’t think my children were able to do so.  I don’t know whether it is possible for them to do so: their mother is so paramount to their world that seeing her sick or in pain is earth-shaking.  Even today, I feel my world quake when I see tears in my mother’s eyes, or hear a tremble in her voice when we speak on the phone: a cold rush of dread fills me when I think of my mother sick, in pain…dying.  And I am 44 years old!!!!  How much more for my little ones, whose mother is so present and so needful for their comfort.

I don’t really know why I’m writing all this.  When I began, I thought this post would be positive, happy – would reveal my sense of relief at seeing a glimpse of the end.  But then the events of the week pressed against me, and I saw a more realistic picture of the week that was.  I couldn’t see it before – I wasn’t really present.  

Yesterday morning Nathan woke early, came for a snuggle, and was finally able to articulate some of his fears and anxieties.  I’m so grateful for Chris and Laurie, who have modeled to us for so many years how to parent effectively, how to listen to children, how to care for their hearts.  I never would have known how to wait for my son to be ready, or how to draw him out, and read his silences.  I wouldn’t have known how to live in the hard places without having watched them live there, and seen how to do it.    I didn’t know before how to walk through the pain: in my family, we pretended it wasn’t there.

When I look at my life from this vantage point, I see so clearly how God has orchestrated the details to bring to where I am today.  Chris and Laurie have mentored us in almost every aspect of of our lives.  They were parents in a time when we thought we would never have children of our own, and they welcomed us into their family, and gave us the joy and privilege of sharing in their children’s lives.  We learned how to be parents by watching them.  

In fact, we’ve watched Chris and Laurie walk through all sorts of life experiences: mental and emotional breakdowns, the terminal illness of a parent, church issues, death, relationships, past pain, present sufferings,  you name, they’ve been there.  And what I’ve learned most from them, is how to live IN the pain, even REST in the pain and NOT flee from it.  

God brought me to this place at this time with life lessons I’ve seen in Chris and Laurie.  They are not perfect.  They make mistakes.  But they have had a powerful impact on me and my family, and I am so thankful, and sort of awed that God worked it all out.  And what is even more cool is how their children are carrying on the legacy with my children.  Luke, Sarah and Fergie have mentored my children, and loved them so utterly in all of this.  They have cared for them like siblings, and my children have flourished under their care.

God really loves us.