Consider the word, ‘surrender.’ Now consider the word, ‘freedom.’

I read a quote scrolling through instagram several months ago that said, ‘you’re only as free as your surrender,’ and it stopped my scroll. In its tracks. I’ve considered the value of surrender quite a bit these past few years while living in cancer, each phase bringing about a new perspective or layer of it, so I’m not new to the concept, but because there is always something to learn, ‘freedom = surrender’ is a layer that cuts me deep to my core. 

Surrender is no longer a noun.
It is a verb.

This implies there is an ACTIVE CHOICE to CHOOSE SURRENDER. 

Let’s be r e a l. Surrender is hard. Of course, there is the reluctant surrender in: ‘A/B/C happens and therefore A/B/C is learned,’ (whether I am willing to learn it or not). But this also implies that there is an ASTOUNDING PAYOFF of FREEDOM when SURRENDER is CHOSEN (giving me a significant incentive to choose it, even if it’s stupid-hard). And ultimately, this also implies that the DEPTH of FREEDOM is directly tied to the DEPTH of SURRENDER and only will one EXPERIENCE FULL FREEDOM when one TRUSTS FULL SURRENDER (instead of thinking that I am at surrender’s mercy, I am encouraged that I have the power and ability to choose it). 

Surrender is no longer a noun, it is a verb—it’s not a thing to have, it is an action to do. It is not a pressure that forces passive submission. It is a courageous CATALYST that offers rich relief. What a gift. One that I am now challenged to trust, even when it’s hard, when I don’t feel like it, when I fail and have to try again. And again. And again.

A question: “What, in this moment, can I choose to surrender and what does it look like to do so?” 
A reflection: “What freedom am I experiencing because I courageously chose that surrender?” 
An application: “How can I continue to live changed because of the freedom found in this choice?

(By the way, I think Mother Teresa gets credit for the quote, but if anyone knows for certain who to attribute the quote to, please enlighten us all.) 

*Post 899

M O R E W A I T I N G :: 9/20/17 :: Post 21

There is something in the waiting. Waiting is so hard. I’ve been here so much as of late and it makes logical sense that the more something is experienced, the easier it gets…the more practiced it becomes…the more natural it feels. 

Yeah. Not happening in the emotional sense.

I didn’t get any calls today to schedule my body scan or my port install. As of yesterday, those were such important factors that I was told I’d get calls first thing and that ideally my body scan would be at the end of this week and my port by the end of next. ….It was such a busy morning with my two post-op appointments that I didn’t have much capacity to think about being proactive about calling them until we were all done with those. But then, because my tissue expanders were filled quite a bit today and I need to take regular doses of Valium to help with the pain and muscle spasms created by expansion, I have been loopy and sleepy most of the day. I did manage to call this afternoon about the body scan after what felt like a 20-minute nap that ended up being a solid 2 and half hours… She said she’d try to get on it but the fact that it was almost 4 gave me little hope that anything would happen until tomorrow. Which was correct as I never heard back from her. So I wait. Some more. 

And I didn’t get all of my drains out today, either. Only one of the four. I know in my head that that is a small victory. …One down… But in my body and heart, it was devastatingly defeating. I know it my head that it is wise to keep them in as they are doing their job and keeping me from getting major infections. But in my body and heart, it was overwhelmingly tragic. I have to have these 3 in for at least another week…if not two. They hurt. More and more every day. They itch and burn constantly. And I mean constantly. Literally. Every.minute.of.every.hour.I.feel.them. And no rubbing them or adjustment of my sitting position provides relief. For real – Mad-Hatter crazy. I was told I could try my bed but the thought of being on my sides, rolling over and pulling on the tubes sutured to the holes in the sides of my body…nope. The chair it remains. My surgeon also told me that he won’t even look at doing final reconstruction until at least 3 months post radiation. If all goes as planned, that’s July or August next year. I left that appointment feeling so small and powerless in the midst of this huge thing that has taken over my life. So I wait. Some more.

I can’t go back to work like I thought I would. I have to use more time off than I planned at this point in my process. I now have to start thinking about medical leave. I miss work. I miss my people. I miss what I love doing. I know I’ll get back there and I know it’ll be at the right time. But I just miss it. So I wait. Some more.

I wait for drains to come out. I wait for phone calls. I wait for appointments to be made. I wait for results. I wait for an actual plan. I wait for getting back to work. I wait for the end. 

I know the waiting has meaning but if I try too hard to make sense of it or try too hard to seek this meaning I know exists, then I feel I am getting in the way of what it might actually mean. So I just have to sit in it. Of course, this doesn’t mean that I literally sit back and wait for everything to happen around me…there are actionable items I can do, there are steps, I myself, can take, there are plans I can play a part in putting into place. But inevitably, at a certain point, or a certain time, waiting is all that is available. 

Personally, I don’t think that this waiting is really just about patience. I don’t think it’s just about learning to let go and let God. I don’t think it’s just about perseverance in the midst of trial. I don’t think it’s just about finding the silver linings. I don’t think it’s just about all the clichés.

I think there is more to it. I don’t know what yet, but I think it’s bigger than all of that.

I’m so tired tonight. The Valium mixed with the busy day mixed with the “good reports” from the docs along with the “reality that is in the waiting for the next step” mixed with the fact that “yes, I do still in fact have cancer” has me spent. 

I know the waiting means something. Maybe it’s all a part of acceptance. Cuz I’m definitely not there yet. Not fully, anyways.

Rawness of the Literal Presence :: 9/20/18 :: Post 371

It’s a little after midnight… and now wide awake because going to the bathroom is such the ordeal that I gotta wind down from it. Good gracious… 

Not to mention the vulnerability of mandatory-nurse-accompaniment. I get it…I’m fully wobbly and walking is like super hard (and falling is just not an option…) The rules they have, geez 😉 HA!

I will say it again, this pain is waaaaay different. The internal nature of it, the removal of an internal body part in comparison to outward body parts, is odd. There is literally a void in my abdomen where organs once lived. A “black hole”, sort of. 

It feels similar to loosing breasts in that my mastectomy created voids, too. Realllllly difficult ones. Ones that I find I still cry about (and may always will…). Voids that, at one time, were filled with life-giving substance as I fed my babies and nourished their first months of life. And even though nursing didn’t go well for me, the sacrifice I chose to make to sustain life…well, has been taken from me. And now in a very similar way, this once-elective-now-turned-required hysterectomy, removed an set of organs that, as Chris said this evening, “worked very hard to create and nourish and sustain life, of which he is grateful.”

Me too, love. Me too. 

Yet a difference is also felt. This black hole in my gut is weird to think about. The fact that they just disconnected it all and pulled it out and then sutured the top of the vagina and “capped it,” is strange to wrap my head around. Did it come out inside out? Intact? I literally delivered the very organs that once delivered. To sit here knowing it is in a cooler somewhere enroute to a pathology lab. Weird. To sit here and feel cramping as if my (that) uterus is still there and having a period. To get up and walk for the first time since removal and feel the heaviness of that void….and the pain of it…… so so fascinating and weird and hard. 

And I purposely wrote (that) above because I actually went back and replaced it with “my” which I thought was a very interesting action. I’m already creating a disconnect between what was mine and now isn’t. Hmmm. So much to that. 

I did that in another example above, too, and that one insinuates a disconnect from my own body. Which is a bigger “hmmmm” and something worth exploring. 

Ugh. This is hard. I had very loose expectations going into this surgery (learned that from the many others that have preceded this one) and the rawness of what I write is purely present feelings and thoughts. 

I had no idea what this would all mean. How this would all feel. How I would process yet another massive loss……

And now I’m tired again. Going back to sleep. 

The Pain :: 9/20/18 :: Post 372

“This will be a walk in the park compared to all you’ve been through already” …..

So many have said that. And in a way, they are right.

But also so very misleading. 

The pain is significant. The pure exhaustion from everything that has happened to and inside my body over the last 12 months. The weariness of being vulnerable in so many different ways. The figment-of-my-imagination-turned-raw-reality. I look down and I see new sewn up holes. So far I have 20…20 different times that my body has been cut into. 20 different times that I’ve had to be sewn back together. Geez.

Logic would say, “All of these treatments and surgeries are good because they will make me better and healed.”

My heart says, “True. But the losses, The losses that have had to come with life-saving treatments and surgeries are astronomical. And everything hurts. From the depths of my core to my outer physical body, I hurt.”

The pain is significant. It hurts to breathe. It hurts to move. It hurts to cough and sneeze. It hurts to pee. It hurts to put shoes on. It hurts to wash my face. It hurts to lay in bed or a chair. It all hurts.

I have no regrets for fighting this hard and the villain of cancer will not crush my spirit, but it is only by the grace of God that I’ll wake up tomorrow and fight some more.

No Words. :: 9/20/19 :: Post 735

I don’t feel like writing much tonight…I haven’t had much of a chance to sit with my heavy heart, my grief over Mo, my body’s pain, the difficult anniversaries that come this time of year… I have so much in my head that I need to get on paper, but I just don’t have it in me tonight to try and string words together.

The tears will say what words can’t and maybe tomorrow I will feel different.