A poem for Easter. A break from the norm with some simple rhyming, and also a break from the norm because I try not to do holiday poems but whatever. I feel what I feel. I do what I want.
Hours in Eternity April 16, 2017
Darkness willows down
and settles itself
like a cape of cloud
unsettling all else.
The sycamore tree
where you redeemed
a man shrouded
by his greed
trembles and fades
in shadows now
as thunder breaks
the sky aloud.
You are the one
we've waited for
to fight the darkness
and win the war.
And long ago
when you lived
among the dust
only to give
away your life
we couldn't know
what waiting still
you would bestow.
This blackest night
after death's display
calmed the hate
once set ablaze.
Your followers
fell in despair
believing you had
abandoned them there.
And in your time
they waited one day
while here and now
we still wait and pray.
But these are hours
in eternity,
in time you've claimed
to set us free.
Kept in darkness
I watch and wait
holding the hope
you illustrate,
and knowing forever
I would wait for you,
even without knowing
when the light shines through.
I have been waiting a while to post because I hoped I would have something concrete to say. I do, of course, but it's not the preferred sort of concrete facts. That sounds silly. Basically, I wish I could drop a whole concrete house on the blog but all I've really got is a couple of those holey concrete blocks that people plant flowers in or use for makeshift shelves with a couple of 2x4s.
So here are my concrete blocks: To sort of piggyback on my last post, I would like to present you with Outcome #2. All the cancerous cells are gone!
It was over a month ago now, but I had my biopsy. They forgot who my ob/gyn was, forgot the year I was born, and forgot what my diagnosis had been. After some necessary clarifications, we got started. It was short, but still incredibly painful, especially since my lovely doctor didn't tell me he'd begun the procedure. If you know me, you know how badly I react with unpleasant surprises. Even pleasant surprises are a coin toss.
When it was over he told me to get an ultrasound, and after that it would be a few weeks before I knew the results. He also suggested that I have another surgery (the name of which I will not disclose, because it was completely unnecessary) and that I get an IUD for 18 months.
I made faces at him to express my feelings (which were equal amounts of disgust and amusement.) He wouldn't shut up about either, so eventually I had to say, "Yeah, I'll consider that!" with a big fake smile. For a "short" appointment, it could not be going any slower.
His suggestions, aside from being absolutely not what I needed, were ridiculous. I'm not dying, and have fairly good health (more on that later); I do not need another surgery (especially a surgery that often leads to more fertility problems.) And the IUD? Don't even get me started. (the short definition for an IUD: fancy birth control device that hangs out inside your body and can sometimes attach to your body and also lead to more fertility problems.)
I left the doctor's office feeling sour and frustrated, and very misunderstood. We went to Hansa in Libertyville for some coffee, and I avoided the ultrasound for another week. I had to get it done at a different hospital, but they were understaffed, so then I had to go to another different hospital. (In the list of hospitals/offices I would prefer to go to, we were now at third on the list.)
Fast forward 2 weeks: I've gotten the results from the biopsy. No cancer! Just waiting for the ultrasound. I thought about blogging then, but still wanted to wait for the full results. And... hospital #3 forgot to transfer my results to the cancer doctor. So I had to call... give them the fax number... and wait some more. I hated thinking about how those stupid ultrasound images had just been sitting in a filing cabinet somewhere in hospital #3, and no one had even looked at them.
Finally I got the call with the ultrasound results. Everything was normal! Along with being informed I no longer needed to see my gynecologic oncologist (hopefully I will never have to type those words ever again), I was told I could finally go back to my ob/gyn. I had no other directions, except to "follow up with her."
So my appointment with her is this comingThursday morning. I'm not sure what it will entail. It has been a stressful few weeks since I received the final results. In addition to taking a close friend to the ER twice last week, and taking her to/from surgery between those ER visits, I had my own trip to urgent care (on my birthday) and then this last Friday had my "urgent care follow up" with my regular doctor, only for her to tell me... to go see a specialist because my current predicament (sinus related, not cancer) is an anomaly.
Yeah, that's right. I'm an anomaly. I'm so weird she actually called me "darlin'."
I'm starting to feel like that crazy aunt/uncle that can't stop talking about their cataracts, or their arthritis. Don't assume I don't understand that those are serious issues--they are!--but only talking about medical maladies can put strain on a relationship.
I really don't want you to start thinking of me as your crazy aunt.
So I'm going to blog again tomorrow, about wonderful things, happy things. It doesn't mean my health is not a complete conundrum, or that I'm not deeply worried that my ob/gyn will also tell me I need 18 terrible months of terrible birth control... it just means my life is full of both the wonderful and the terrible and they both deserve to be shared.
This was one of those "middle"-ing weeks, a seven-day stretch of less important things between more pressing matters. Last week was brimming with birthday activities for Joey, including a Star Wars marathon and a liquid cheese debacle (his idea, not mine) for the birthday nachos. And next week I have "the doctor's appointment."
I'll admit, it's been a strange and overwhelming week of waiting. I am comforted by long phone conversations and snuggles with my dog. I took one day and went into town while the husband worked so that I could have coffee with friends and browse some craft stores. I have rested my mind with documentaries, a piano app on my phone, and writing and writing and writing. I have done all this, and other meaningless things I can't recall or mention, in order to prepare and try to keep myself calm for the appointment on Tuesday.
But among all those things, attempts to find some sort of peace or at least anxiety-free moments, I found these videos.
The first one includes stories from three women who discovered, at varying stages in life and for various reasons, that they weren't able to have children. I resonated with all three of their stories, the mystery of not knowing why, the struggle of feeling like you can't offer to the world what you want to, and the decision to tell the world.
It's not easy to just come out and say it. I spent nearly a decade thinking I had PCOS, and I didn't say anything most of the time because I was ashamed. I'm sorry I didn't say something sooner, because I feel like it would have been even more of a victory when I finally realized I didn't have it.
In the second video a woman describes her experience with having a miscarriage. I have never been pregnant (yet!), nor have I had a miscarriage, but she also explained that she had a D&C (dilation & curettage). This is the same procedure I had during surgery back in February, and what happened to her only happens to about 1 in 500 women. However, the perspective is helpful--now you know what I was up against. The scarring from a mistake like that (you know, puncturing through someone's body) can lead to infertility.
While both videos were heartbreaking in their own right, and watching them could have led towards a depressed mindset, they were truly more beneficial than harmful. As I prepare for yet another uncomfortable and painful procedure next Tuesday, it is so good... so good to know that there are other people, other woman, with stories like mine.
It seems so odd that the appointment is finally here, and I still feel as if there is not enough time before it happens. It was the beginning of March when I went to see my oncologist for the first time, when I first started the drugs, when I stood in the waiting room and stared in befuddlement at the receptionist who said, "You need an appointment three months from now? Okay, let's see... July 28th." She handed me the little reminder card and I thought, I know I'm an English nerd and not a math genius, but this is almost five months away.
FYI, I just paused my writing to play with bubble wrap. This sort of thing also helps.
Often life hands us situations where we don't know what to expect. However, I find that those situations usually involve a handful of possible outcomes, perhaps a whole list of options for things that may or may not happen. Right now I don't have a handful of outcomes. I have two. I just don't know what they'll lead to.
They're going to do a biopsy. (When I say "a" biopsy, I really mean it's a singular experience, because there are actually about 6 biopsies taken.) I don't need to tell you I'm not looking forward to it, but I'll say it anyways. I'm really not looking forward to it. Once it's done, I'll wait a few days for the results.
Outcome #1: All the cancerous cells are gone!
Outcome #2: The cancerous cells are still here!
There is nothing in my mind or body that knows how to move forward from either of those circumstances. I think I know what the doctor's want, if all the cancer is gone. They want to put me on birth control (barf) for a few months and "see how that works." I am not on board with that plan and if I can conjure the courage I will tell them, with all the fierce facial expressions I can come up with, that I want to skip the birth control and get straight to the fertility drugs, since that's our end goal anyways.
I'm all about efficiency, you know.
But if the cancerous cells are not gone, and I don't know why they wouldn't be, I have absolutely no clue as to what the next step is. More of the same drugs? Higher doses? Different drugs? Something scary, like chemo? Something terrifying, like a hysterectomy?
These aren't things you can prepare for. I can barely prepare myself for the biopsy, something I'm already very familiar with.
So it essentially feels, all the time, like I'm waiting for something in order to wait for the next thing.
I'm waiting for Tuesday so I can go to the doctor and wait in the lobby, then wait uncomfortably on the table with the stupid paper towel blanket, then wait for the procedure to be over, then wait for the doctor to shut up and leave, and then wait for the results. And heaven knows once I get the results I'll have to wait for another appointment to figure out what we'll do next.
And whatever we do next, I'll have to "wait and see" if it works. Or doesn't.
Waiting is hard. Sometimes it's the hardest part of life. Sometimes it's the only thing you can hold on to--I don't know much, except that I'm waiting. I don't have what I want, but I'll keep waiting until I do. And most of the time we wait because we don't have a choice, or because choosing to wait is the right thing to do, even if it's the most difficult.
And while I'm waiting, while we wait together and work long hours and agonize over what will happen, we still have hope. We hope for and imagine the joyful sound of that bursting heartbeat, a reluctant first cry, tiny hands grasping for us, a pair of enormous blue eyes. While we wait, we hope, we walk aimlessly through the baby section at Target and sometimes it makes us sad... and sometimes (like yesterday morning) I walk through, proudly and courageously touching tiny baby shoes and admiring innovative baby toys, because my hope is bigger than my fear.
These are so many hopes and dreams rolled into one and it is the thing we strive for, regardless of how implausible it might seem. I hope for this and ask for what I want. I could simply ask for health. I could be waiting just to "get better." I could hope that my body would be healed and never expect more.
I'm scared, but not so scared that I'll hope for the lesser things. I'm brave enough to know what I want, and to ask for it, to really beg for it, brave enough to hope for it... because it makes the waiting easier.
The future is always unknown. As humans we would like to believe that everything our heart desires will come to us when we see fit, that the routines we develop and the lives we build will suit our whims for predictability or spontaneity. We know that the sun will rise tomorrow and the earth will make its turns and somewhere rain will fall and somewhere else it will be hot and people will be born and they will die and in general, life will just go on as it always has.
And we would like to say with complete certainty that what we want to happen will also happen. We say, "I will go to this college" and "I will marry a rich man who supports my career" and "All of my children will play the saxophone." Those are the big things we want. The big dreams, the foundations for the other things in life. We also say, "Tomorrow I will get an oil change" and "I'm going to read that new bestseller" and "I think I'll go to New York for Christmas."
We plan all these things, big and small, tedious and thrilling, the mundane and the marvelous, day in and day out because we like to think we're in control. But we're not.
You might not get into that college. You might marry a different, less-wealthy, less-supportive person. Your kids (if you have them at all) might want to play the kazoo instead, or be stand-up comedians. And you might crash your car on your way to get the oil changed, you might be too busy to read that book, and maybe your kazoo-playing children all get the flu at Christmas so you can't go to New York.
And I say all this because it's true for me as well. I make plans. I have dreams. I intend to read the books and I even buy the books and they just sit there, waiting. I buy the Groupon for a cheap oil change and forget about it. I wanted to be having kids by now. And I'm not.
As I sat in my obgyn's office this afternoon she explained how I'll probably need 6 months of therapy, and there will be regular biopsies, and that I only have a 5% chance of getting cancer at this point. She said the therapy would likely be in pill form, so there wouldn't be many visits to the doctor's office. Relief washed over me, and then I suddenly realized in a real-world kind of way that I might not be in the same state in a few months. We're waiting to hear about a job back in Washington, but back when we applied I didn't know any of this was going to happen.
When we applied in December, I didn't know I had abnormal cells of any kind, let alone pre-cancerous ones. I didn't know I would be going in for loads of bloodwork and procedures and then a surgery. I had no idea that I would need months of therapy.
I asked my doctor, "What if I'm not here?"
She laughed and said I would simply have to get a referral and continue therapy somewhere else.
I have all these decisions that I might have to make. Or might not. I don't know.
But I do know that God has a plan for all of it. It might be different than my plan, if I had a plan, which I don't. Even if I had one, his would be better. Even if I had one, his would be wiser. Even if I had one, his would be the one I would prepare for and wait for.
