The cancer monster is incessant my ear tonight…

It’s so hard to describe this element of cancer. I’ve used words like “companion” and “constant” and “always there” and “I know the inside of the word” and “it’s a part of me” to try and capture what it feels like. That said, I wrestle with writing about it because, well, it comes across as maybe me being obsessive or negative or unable to move on, not to mention the fact that I can sense how uncomfortable people get around me because they don’t have a context of understanding that which I am describing leaving them with few words (if any) to say.

But. For my own benefit:

My stomach hurts. It feels like a nervous, I-am-about-to-give-a-presentation, I wanna throw up kinda discomfort. I feel an electricity of sorts in my core, nerve endings at attention and ultra sensitive. My left side, along a scar route is surging with an intense achy-ness that is very distracting. It wraps from my shoulder blade through my scar and stops where I have no feeling left, somewhere deep in my surgically reconstructed fake boob. I can feel deep radiating pain along the pectoral muscles close to my heart. My ear rings randomly. My chest feels tight. My shoulders are tense and pulled forward. My hands are puffy and my joints are sluggish. My eyes feel blurry and my head is foggy. My sinuses burn and once again, I’m feeling the extreme discomfort in my gut. In every single one of those sensations my mind thinks, cancer is there, cancer is there, cancer is there. . . . .

Some days, I can quiet the monster quite well. I fill my lungs and step back from the ledge. I tell myself that there is no evidence as such so let that thought go and don’t live in that fear. Other days, it feels like I can’t shake it, I can’t let the thought go and it pesters me in every moment. And then there are the days where I just say, “oh hey, (with a little head nod), ‘sup?”

It’s odd, this relationship.

*Post 929

Broken and Battled and Redeemed :: 10/20/17 :: Post 53

I’ve been thinking about this one for a while now……. There are times that I sit down to write about it and then I decide not to as it is subject for a different day. After spending a couple of hours with a close friend who just sat with me in all that this year has been – in all of the truth and rawness of it – I’ve come to decide that tonight is the night.

Kintsukuroi.

I heard of this quite some time ago…I can’t even remember when or in what context I heard of it. And I want to be very careful about reproducing it here in a desire not to plagiarize or take someone’s idea and claim it as my own. My purposes in writing about it are very personal as it has left a mark on me from the moment I heard of it. I have held it very close to my heart and found it to be helpful in some of my hardest moments.

Kintsukuroi (the way I learned it) is a Japanese tradition of taking broken pottery and restoring it so as to repurpose the broken pieces rather than throw them away. The way in which the craftsman goes about restoring the broken vessel is the key here, though. In this tradition, pure gold is mixed in with the reinforcing agent that binds together the broken pieces. Once repaired, the vessel inherently becomes more valuable than it was before it broke seeing as now it has gold woven into its brokenness. The beauty of the new is in the unique breaking of the pieces and in the craftsman’s ability to not only fit the pieces back together but also in artistically deciding how much gold fits between each of the cracks.

There is obvious relationship of Kintsukuroi to life and it provides me much hope when I am feeling beyond repairable. This year has been so hard. My story and my life have had moments of I’m not sure I’m coming back from this one… Broken. Battered. Over and over again. And yet, I have a Craftsman who is putting me back together, fitting my unique broken pieces together and weaving in beauty, value, worth, ………extravagance….to create a new wholeness, with an added capacity to hold, that has an increase in value after being broken.

Valuable and inimitable in its original state.
Every person.
Unique in its brokenness as the vessel falls to pieces.
Each story.
Pure gold woven into its restoration.
Scars and battle wounds to prove resilience and courage.
Artistry and craftsmanship.
Divine purpose.
Increase in its capacity to hold.
New depths reached through life-lived.
Extravagance.
Extravagance.
What beauty. What hope.

I don’t want cancer. But I have it. I don’t want rape. But I have it. I don’t want violence. But I have it. I don’t want pain. But I have it. I don’t want scars. But I have them. Woven with gold….

And one final thought – gold is reflective in nature. It is shiny. It is bold. If gold is woven into the scars of pottery that has once been broken, the gold draws attention to the scars, showing off their unique beauty, their unique sharp edges, their artistry in restoration.

This story of mine….reflective of a beautiful redemptive battle.

Clinging :: 10/20/18 :: Post 402

Today brought some tears…..and then some anger.

I cried when I saw my body. No wonder Dr. Chris is frustrated.

And then I got angry. Screw it. It’s going to look like crap for the rest of my life … whatever. What the crap ever. Who is gonna care anyways….

And then I settled down and reminded myself that it’s a process and we aren’t done yet. And that I don’t have to settle if I don’t want to. And that I have a surgeon who is world renowned who certainly isn’t going to settle either

The pain this time is all along the back side of my legs, the front part of my thighs, both sides under my arms, my lower back and my non-boobs-trying-to-be-boobs.

This is very different than last time. And while I’m so down and frustrated today, I am clinging to the smallest sliver of hope that at the end of all of this, I will be happy.

This is hard.

October 20 of 31 :: 10/20/19 :: Post 765

A ‘Hebrews 11 Faith’…

At the beginning of this whole cancer thing, I remember people asking God, on my behalf, for the miracle of being ‘totally healed.’ I was grateful for their boldness in prayer but I never heard those magic words, “you don’t have to do this, this isn’t your story.” Instead I was left with bad news becoming worse news around every corner… Instead I was left with frustrated confusion and a desperate curiosity as to why God didn’t choose me for the miracle… And I sat in that frustrated confusion and desperate curiosity for a while. I questioned and wrestled and begged and shook my fists.

And then one day I remember thinking – and even if…even if my story doesn’t get to include the magic of the miracle, I still get a win-win. If I survive, I’ve survived. If I die, I get the celebration of heaven.

Today, my pastor taught on Hebrews 11, what he called the paradox of faith – that faith isn’t always measured or quantified by the presence of or hope for miracles, but rather that sometimes faith is in the martyr. Faith is in the one that suffers and isn’t saved from the suffering.

This message went soul-deep for me…I didn’t get the miracle. I got the suffering. I didn’t get the magic. I got the wretched misery. Paradox, no doubt, because the relief in the miracle may have kept me from the gift that only my suffering has offered. Jesus, Himself, even asked boldly for the relief of not having to go to the cross yet ultimately trusted that the will of the Father was not to rescue Him from the suffering because of the gift it offers.

I am not able to say that cancer has been ‘the best thing to ever happen to me’ and I really wish I could live my story without it, but today certainly helped put some context around my ‘why.’

Breast Cancer Awareness Month…

…Day twenty – Mastectomy tattoos are incredibly healing.