Twenty Weeks
20 weeks.
That’s how long it takes to hike the entire Appalachian trail. Or finish the Pacific Crest Trail if you hoof it. Or, if you’re really serious, make it up and over the entire Continental Divide.
20 weeks. 5 pounds of hair. 6 nurses. 3 pastors. 2 phlebotomists. 2 physical therapists. 2 oncologists. 2 patient sons. 1 faithful husband.
And you.
“Final chemo, right?” asked Deb, my super wise oncology nurse as she hung my last infusion bag. “How are you feeling about this?”
By now I knew the drill. Needle in port, injection push of premeds: antihistamine, corticosteroid, and an H2 receptor antagonist, all to help my body accept the next round of Taxol (or “Taxhell” as Stephan calls it). Premeds make me super loopy, but I was determined to not miss the importance of her question.
“Honestly,” I said to Deb, “I just wish it was the end, and not just the end of the beginning, you know?”
She prepped the infusion port just below my collar bone. “Yeah, I understand,” she smiled. “But, you know, wishing didn’t get you this far.”
Oh my, that struck home.
20 weeks ago, fresh off diagnosis, I remember wishing a lot. I remember thinking that maybe if I wished hard enough, I could bargain with God for a little safety. A little more time. Time enough to see my sons graduate and get married, maybe even meet my grandchildren. More time to grow a little older with my best friend and husband. 20 weeks ago, I wondered if maybe I performed just the right actions in the right order, with the right motives, maybe the unavoidable could be avoided.
But it wasn’t wishing that helped me put one foot in front of the other. And it won’t be wishing that will get me through 8 hours of surgery on May 9th. Or the months of daily dose radiation after that. And more chemo after that.
The reality of suffering makes realists out of us all. This climb is more than a mountain. I am learning to embrace all the peaks and valleys, the whole mountain range.
In this very weird, but real, world of cancer, God knows I needed to let go of the fragile notion that a kind, old magician would utter some magical words to take it all away. Faith in the Creator of the Universe, who stitched me together cell by cell, is far more dangerous—come what may, all the way. Faith that the path we walk is not just full of separate little events to get through, but each step contributes to the weight and meaning of the whole journey.
You never really know what faith is until faith is all you really have.
Dear ones, something is shifting in my soul on this upwards climb. My final chemotherapy “Amen!” came with deep gratitude, less for the journey from beginning to end, and more for the journey from fear to faith. Don’t get me wrong. I still wake up shaking some nights thinking about the reality of this disease. There is no faith on this earth that isn’t commingled with fear, and no sting of fear that can’t be diluted by faith in the One who knows every hair on your head.
And mine too, which you can actually count!
God, give me your bigger, broader perspective, right here in the middle of it all … 20 weeks in, too many weeks to go. Faith in your love for a broken body and a broken world. For the suffering of women and children caught in the fear of violence, oppression and poverty caused by war. Faith for those who cannot wish away the reality of their brokenness, but only trust. Faith that we are not just a jumble of eyes and ears, fingers and toes, arms and legs, but a unified body with strength to see the whole way, to change what is to what can be.
May whatever you are wrestling with find you full of faith. Friends, everyday I am grateful for the many ways you walk with me. You are loved on the peaks and in the valleys!
