I’ve been putting off coming here to update since my oncology appointment in October. There are a lot of blessings and joys along the journey, but it’s feeling more and more like I volunteered to take a Ring into Mordor. Well, Mrs. Sanders, the good news is we don’t have to run a brain MRI to see if your headaches are cancer spread to your brain, you have a sinus infection. The bad news? You have clinical exhaustion. People who are still this tired one year post treatment (that will be December 6th for me) will still be experiencing noticeable fatigue at five years’ post treatment.
I think I would rather be in pain every day.
My shoulder is bothering me less and less these days but when it did hurt every day it came and went like a sharp stab and then throbbed down to nothing. It’s a whole lot easier to pray through that kind of suffering than this dragging, pulling, wasting fatigue. It. Is. Awful.
Natalie Grant sings this song: "Our Hope Endures"
You would think only so much can go wrong
Calamity only strikes once
And you assume this one has suffered her share
Life will be kinder from here
Oh, but sometimes the sun stays hidden for years
Sometimes the sky rains night after night
When will it clear?
But our Hope endures the worst of conditions
It's more than our optimism
Let the earth quake
Our Hope is unchanged
How do we comprehend peace within pain?
Or joy at a good man's wake?
Walk a mile with the woman whose body is torn
With illness but she marches on
Oh, 'cause sometimes the sun stays hidden for years
Sometimes the sky rains night after night
When will it clear?
But our Hope endures the worst of conditions
It's more than our optimism
Let the earth quake
Our Hope is unchanged
Emmanuel, God is with us
El Shaddai, all sufficient
We never walk alone
And this is our hope
But our Hope endures the worst of conditions
It's more than our optimism
Let the earth quake
Our Hope is unchanged
Last week at my Young Women Cancer Survivor Group another cancer survivor and I talked about hope and the way one’s own definition is radically altered by a cancer diagnosis. It’s not just the diagnosis itself that changes everything in your perspective, but the almost constant, long-term,
life-altering suffering that comes with it. The other woman I was talking with was in for a scan of her kidneys for something totally unrelated and ended up diagnosed with a kind of lung cancer at
25 (she has never smoked). They removed half of one lung. At 31 they discovered her cancer had spread everywhere and she has had many, many rounds of surgery and more than monthly chemotherapy in the 4 ½ years since. She is not married, will never be able to have children; it’s a miracle she has even lived to see 35 years old.
Before March 11, 2011 I really would have said my hope is based on my knowledge of God’s love for me and my hope was in the reality of that love and the reality of heaven, our life after this one has passed. But suffering has a way of clarifying what goes on in the heart, revealing all the dross, all the crap, which is hidden in the gold and silver of our hearts. Metals are heated and impurities rise to the
top of the molten liquid and are skimmed off so the remaining metal is more pure. What is hope? Is my hope that there will be a cure for cancer? Being cancer free after treatment? Is hope a life without pain? Is my hope based on having energy? Living to 40? Before I would have said, of course not. But having had my hope tested, I have to say my hope is all those things and that definition has to change.
So this other survivor, with a life harder than mine, and I sat and talked for more than an hour about the substance of hope. How do you change your definition deep in your heart where it really matters when life gets hard?
Unlike, the song, I have found my definition is changed, is changing, the hard way, by fire and suffering.
I have had this saintly picture of suffering, especially of long-suffering, of placid endurance of pain. In a lot of ways pain is easier to deal with because it is more easily understood by others. My picture of suffering certainly didn’t include rounds of sitting on the couch unable to clean or cook or take care of my children beyond their simple, more immediate needs. My picture didn’t include being unable to produce a modicum of evidence of my ability to contribute to the good in the world. My
picture didn’t include the simple ability to sit and endure, to wake up again and again and to know the next day will probably be the same, and the barren desolate landscape of the wastelands.
Haven’t I been through enough?
Haven’t I learned enough of suffering?
But, sometimes the sun remains hidden for years, and sometimes it rains night after night. When will it clear? My hope is changing as I endure the worst of conditions, it’s now more than just optimism. My hope has been shaken and torn apart. What will remain? I need my picture of hope redeemed, traded in, traded up.
Right now, hope is simply not giving in to despair. Hope is getting out of bed even if I feel sick with fatigue. Hope even daring to voice that I need hope. Hope is acknowledging my circumstances and
asking for the grace to endure. I hope I will learn how to rest on something that doesn’t move with every circumstance. I hope that I will get to experience something divine in the wastelands.
I wrote a poem for a speech I gave at the American Cancer Society, Albany Relay for Life. I’m going to close with it, but I am certainly not at the end of my struggle.
Hope
Hope is my baby’s middle name
and the sound of her laughter when I tickle her belly
Hope is the feeling of her little arms as she snuggles in
For so long I was a wild thing trapped in a cage of my grief
Not even able to hold her
And she preferred the arms of another
Hope is the choice to read to my kids
Chapter by chapter
And know that I will still be there for the end of the story
And
if my hope is a bit too determined
That’s okay
My baby smiled,
I think I would rather be in pain every day.
My shoulder is bothering me less and less these days but when it did hurt every day it came and went like a sharp stab and then throbbed down to nothing. It’s a whole lot easier to pray through that kind of suffering than this dragging, pulling, wasting fatigue. It. Is. Awful.
Natalie Grant sings this song: "Our Hope Endures"
You would think only so much can go wrong
Calamity only strikes once
And you assume this one has suffered her share
Life will be kinder from here
Oh, but sometimes the sun stays hidden for years
Sometimes the sky rains night after night
When will it clear?
But our Hope endures the worst of conditions
It's more than our optimism
Let the earth quake
Our Hope is unchanged
How do we comprehend peace within pain?
Or joy at a good man's wake?
Walk a mile with the woman whose body is torn
With illness but she marches on
Oh, 'cause sometimes the sun stays hidden for years
Sometimes the sky rains night after night
When will it clear?
But our Hope endures the worst of conditions
It's more than our optimism
Let the earth quake
Our Hope is unchanged
Emmanuel, God is with us
El Shaddai, all sufficient
We never walk alone
And this is our hope
But our Hope endures the worst of conditions
It's more than our optimism
Let the earth quake
Our Hope is unchanged
Last week at my Young Women Cancer Survivor Group another cancer survivor and I talked about hope and the way one’s own definition is radically altered by a cancer diagnosis. It’s not just the diagnosis itself that changes everything in your perspective, but the almost constant, long-term,
life-altering suffering that comes with it. The other woman I was talking with was in for a scan of her kidneys for something totally unrelated and ended up diagnosed with a kind of lung cancer at
25 (she has never smoked). They removed half of one lung. At 31 they discovered her cancer had spread everywhere and she has had many, many rounds of surgery and more than monthly chemotherapy in the 4 ½ years since. She is not married, will never be able to have children; it’s a miracle she has even lived to see 35 years old.
Before March 11, 2011 I really would have said my hope is based on my knowledge of God’s love for me and my hope was in the reality of that love and the reality of heaven, our life after this one has passed. But suffering has a way of clarifying what goes on in the heart, revealing all the dross, all the crap, which is hidden in the gold and silver of our hearts. Metals are heated and impurities rise to the
top of the molten liquid and are skimmed off so the remaining metal is more pure. What is hope? Is my hope that there will be a cure for cancer? Being cancer free after treatment? Is hope a life without pain? Is my hope based on having energy? Living to 40? Before I would have said, of course not. But having had my hope tested, I have to say my hope is all those things and that definition has to change.
So this other survivor, with a life harder than mine, and I sat and talked for more than an hour about the substance of hope. How do you change your definition deep in your heart where it really matters when life gets hard?
Unlike, the song, I have found my definition is changed, is changing, the hard way, by fire and suffering.
I have had this saintly picture of suffering, especially of long-suffering, of placid endurance of pain. In a lot of ways pain is easier to deal with because it is more easily understood by others. My picture of suffering certainly didn’t include rounds of sitting on the couch unable to clean or cook or take care of my children beyond their simple, more immediate needs. My picture didn’t include being unable to produce a modicum of evidence of my ability to contribute to the good in the world. My
picture didn’t include the simple ability to sit and endure, to wake up again and again and to know the next day will probably be the same, and the barren desolate landscape of the wastelands.
Haven’t I been through enough?
Haven’t I learned enough of suffering?
But, sometimes the sun remains hidden for years, and sometimes it rains night after night. When will it clear? My hope is changing as I endure the worst of conditions, it’s now more than just optimism. My hope has been shaken and torn apart. What will remain? I need my picture of hope redeemed, traded in, traded up.
Right now, hope is simply not giving in to despair. Hope is getting out of bed even if I feel sick with fatigue. Hope even daring to voice that I need hope. Hope is acknowledging my circumstances and
asking for the grace to endure. I hope I will learn how to rest on something that doesn’t move with every circumstance. I hope that I will get to experience something divine in the wastelands.
I wrote a poem for a speech I gave at the American Cancer Society, Albany Relay for Life. I’m going to close with it, but I am certainly not at the end of my struggle.
Hope
Hope is my baby’s middle name
and the sound of her laughter when I tickle her belly
Hope is the feeling of her little arms as she snuggles in
For so long I was a wild thing trapped in a cage of my grief
Not even able to hold her
And she preferred the arms of another
Hope is the choice to read to my kids
Chapter by chapter
And know that I will still be there for the end of the story
And
if my hope is a bit too determined
That’s okay
My baby smiled,
for me, and not for another
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