Cancer Takes No Vacations

After the lung biopsy, I was pretty much out of commission for a while.  The pain had me taking narcotics pretty much every four hours and I was doing a lot of sleeping.  I’m not sure I would have been so gun-ho about the biopsy had I known just how terrible the recovery for it would be.  Another case of hindsight being twenty-twenty.

I was going to blog a few weeks ago about a wonderful experience I had with a Native American medicine man who completed a spiritual healing on me.  The more I thought about blogging the experience, though, the less personal it felt.  The experience was amazing and the rest that came afterwards was probably some of the best I’ve had in a long time.  So instead of detailing my time with my spiritual healer, I will instead tell you that sometimes there are forces at play besides medicine that can heal a body.  I know so many believe in prayer, but I really wish medicine would embrace just how much a spiritual healer can do for those that believe.

What really made me get back onto the blog today was my latest trip to the Mayo Clinic.  I’m officially in the trial, with my first dose of medication next Tuesday.  This week, they had me there for another PET scan and a CT of the chest and abdomen/pelvis.  They also drew blood work and completed an echocardiogram to see if my heart was functioning well.  Apparently, my heart is in good shape (ejection fraction, for those in the medical field, was sixty percent which is about average).  The cancer, however, is…worse.  The tumors that we knew about (liver, lymph, lung and spine) are all still there and all bigger, with the exception of the spinal tumor which they didn’t size.  The one on my spine, however, has created a compression fracture, which is why I am still having back pain.  The tumors have spread into my pelvis, so Dr. H wasn’t crazy when he said he couldn’t find my ovaries because all he saw was a mass.  The tumors have also grown into the omentum, which is a lining around the organs.  So while I have been taking a break from chemotherapy to get onto the trial, my cancer has taken this time to spread.

Devastated is the only word I can tell you to describe how I felt.  I know I’ve returned to my primary symptoms: nausea, loss of appetite, slow digestion and vomiting.  I assumed the cancer wasn’t exactly going to stay at bay without some kind of drug.  Heck, the drugs weren’t doing such a hot job of keeping it from growing.  Thinking these things and knowing them to be true, however, are two very different creatures.  Having another doctor confirm that I need a miracle, that this clinical trial needs to be a miracle, for me to live…

I’m only thirty-one-years-old.  I have only been married a year and a half.  We planned for babies.  We planned for a future that lasted more than a few years.  This is one black cloud that clings to me constantly.  I pray daily for my miracle…but I can’t justify why I deserve it more than some baby born too soon or a cancer stricken toddler who has so much life left to live.  I feel like it’s selfish for me to ask God to heal me when there are so many more deserving.

And still I ask.  I beg.  I cry.  I plead.  I bargain.  I hope, but not so much to be heartbroken if this too doesn’t work.

Because I need a miracle to see my next birthday.  To see children someday.  To spend thirty years with the man I’ve waited my whole life for.

So if you pray, can you toss me into that list please?  I feel like I have some job left to do here, but I don’t know what it is and I need more time.

Or maybe I just want more time.  I’m trying to trust God’s plan, but right now I’m so scared to learn what that is for me.