Finding The Hope To Dream Again After A Cancer Diagnosis

 “A hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life.” Proverbs 13:12

My last post I talked about there being No Safe Dreams, cancer diagnosis or not.  We, each and every one of us, will spend our lifetimes coming to terms with our mortality. 

Getting diagnosed with cancer as a young adult just necessitates taking a lifetime of learning and cramming it into, say, 2 months of time. 

Finding hope is difficult in that place.  Finding the hope to dream again after a cancer diagnosis takes a lot of hard internal work.  And something bigger than yourself, something greater than better physical health, to hope in.

And therein lies the problem.  Getting diagnosed with cancer is a psychological trauma on top of the physical one.  Many young adults don’t feel sick, not “I’m dying” sick, when they are diagnosed so the words coming out of the mouth of your physician feel like they are coming out of left field.

When I saw my doctor start to cry as I held my four month old in my arms;  as heard the words, “You have cancer,” come out of his mouth my dreams for my life, what I had hoped for my life, crumbled around me.

And died.

I was in my early 30s.  Yes, of course I knew accidents happen.  But who dreams for an early death?  It was reasonable for me to expect decades more.  Decades.  Not praying to live to make it to the 2 year mark so that there was a better chance to live 5 more years.  Not praying to live to 35 and then 40.

That death makes the heart sick.  Cancer and dead dreams make a toxic combination.  So many, too many, young survivors are on medications.  Not for their cancer treatment.  But for the treatment of broken dreams.  Learning to dream again after a cancer diagnosis feels impossible.

I’m not somehow immune to this.  I’ve looked into the eyes of my young children and thought, “I must be such a bad mom that God doesn’t even want them to be old enough to remember me.”  And cried.  I can’t count how many times.

How do you dream again after a cancer diagnosis?

It starts with being honest with yourself about your feelings.  Pushing them down into a pot and putting a lid on it only means they will boil over when you least expect it.  Take the time, make the space to feel.

With little, and not so little kids now, it can be tough to make the space.  It’s worth it.  You are worth it.  Shut the door to your bedroom and put music on so no one can hear you.  Take a solitary walk somewhere; I often walk my neighborhood (We have great trees. And owls!).  And then find the courage to tell God how you feel.

If you are mad, tell Him.  If you are afraid, tell God.  If you have children then sometime you’ve had the experience of having a little one crawl into your lap and ask you a question, when what you really hear is, “Do you love me?”  I’ve had my 11 year old son get really mad at something I’ve said, seen in his eyes my words were misunderstood.  Somehow things inside him got twisted and in my correction he became afraid I didn’t love him anymore.

If we as parents aren’t put off by our children asking, “Do you love me?”  why would God?  Be a little child and take the risk to ask, “God do you hate me?  Are you mad at me?  Am I a bad mom?”

Just knowing God is listening will start a trickle of hope.  Hearing God answer that he loves you will bring a waterfall of hope and new life.  As a woman that’s a literal statement because hoping God loves me makes me cry.  Those tears can water the life, the future God has for you. 

 
If your dreams for your future are dead?  Good.  Jesus knows a bit about resurrection. Jesus working a miracle on your behalf grows that tree of life.  Of hope.  Let God resurrect the dreams that will be the best for you.  The most joy.  The most, best of everything.

Maybe I’m not physically where I dreamed I’d be pushing 40.  Nobody dreams of amputation, scars and heart failure.  But there is more joy where I am than I could have ever imagined as well. 

What dreams do you think God could be bringing back into your life?  This blog (writing) is one of mine.

There Are No Safe Dreams After Cancer Diagnosis

Last fall I told my Priest I felt like getting cancer was the death of all my dreams for my life.   

When I pray my lack of control of my future comes so near the surface sometimes my hands shake.  In the cancer survivor literature there is discussion that many young survivors get PTSD from the experience.  I don’t know if that describes me or not.  As a naturally future oriented person, a person who used to love to imagine all the possible “what ifs?”, it’s easy to fall prey to anxiety. 

Fear doesn’t quite do justice to the emotional experience of being a young adult, surviving the initial treatment for cancer but being told it could still come back at any time.  Of watching so many other young people you get to know in support groups die.  The other day I was in a group of younger moms from church and one remarked upon learning about my previous diagnosis that, “It’s good to be reminded every once in a while about our mortality.”

I didn’t tell her that I actually think of my death every day.

Dreaming of a future full of something other than cancer or a fast walk toward death is like walking a rope bridge over a canyon.  I really don’t know when I will die.  Or from what.  Having that kind of control is an illusion of safety in which most people my age sit comfortable.  My walk isn’t some sort of steel structure where I can skip safely into old age.  Five years ago when I was diagnosed I was afraid I wouldn’t live to the age I am now, 38.  I pray that I would be granted the grace to live to be my parent’s age.  But I don’t really expect to live that long.

Most of the time thinking of my death isn’t some sort of self-indulgent narcissism but a moment by moment decision to choose gratitude for the life I’ve already lived and a vow to live each moment like it was my last.  Because it is reality that it could very well be.

This Wednesday morning is a grey rainy day.  Josh has been gone for work for 10 days and isn’t due home until early Saturday morning.  Life at home without him is dull.  I miss my spouse. 

I miss talking to him, especially at this time when my dreams for a future life have been bubbling up.  I am writing again, not just in my journal, but I’m editing my very first book and outlining two more. Will I be there to write their chapters?

Another young survivor wrote to me to ask for advice about surviving the spiritual upheaval that comes with a cancer diagnosis.  I mentor other women through this process sometimes.  But I have to tell her, there are no easy answers because there isn’t any guarantee that she will be alive in 2 years.  I wrote this poem in the first six months after I was “done” with my treatment and wanted to share with you all and with her.

Ode to a life where the lymph node left behind after mastectomy doubled in size in the past 2 weeks (I see the surgeon on Tuesday to make a plan).

Or, My Ode to a Node

Another sleepless night, another night without Your robe,

a hem, a touch of wool between my fingertips.

I know You promise eternal life but why,

why won’t You promise me eternal earth,

-a full measure of days to spend where I have loved so hard?

Is it that You mean for me to know

Your agony in the garden,

the endless night of waiting  
for the Father's will be done in death

Will I weep blood and sweat out my sorrow

at having gone to soon?

O’ world don’t attempt to pacify me with empty platitudes

when you can’t make good on your promise of healing. 

You can’t cut a hole in the roof of the hospital,

lower me in

and expect me to walk out whole. 

I need more than just to hear that my sins are forgiven,

I need to take up my mat and walk

instead of suffering yet again at the hands of many physicians.

Why can’t I beg You like a child

and know,

promise that You will give me my heart’s desire?

How will I know that You have heard me when I cry?

Where is my rainbow? 

The rain is falling and I can’t see Your face. 

One of the biggest spiritual problems that to this day drives me to my knees is this: my belief in God’s goodness is dependent upon my life going the way I wish it.  Maybe not every little thing going right, but for sure the big ones.  And my faith shouldn’t be built this way.  But I still find myself stuck in grey days and afraid.

Proverbs 31:25, on which I base this blog reads, “She is clothed in strength and dignity, and laughs without fear of the future.”  I even have a larger version of this scripture up on the wall in my kitchen.  When I’m in a grey day, battling anxiety or fear, tired of parenting without my husband, or just a bleh kinda day I like to sit with this verse on my mind.

What do you do to battle fear?