I moved away from my blogging, Dear Lord. I compiled a systematic journal every several months as events accumulated; something with the more aesthetic and outward-bound perspective. I'll eventually put the link in this blog.
But after request from my son, I figured it was good to return here to detail the journey. The medical has been up-and-down. The first clinical trial with the smallpox virus worked for a while but by the summer of 16, I needed to go for something more radical. I get into a second clinical trial where they remove the plural lining of my lung, replaced my diaphragm with Gore-Tex, remove disease lymph nodes (the mesothelioma had spread to stage III), and then set me on a for treatment chemotherapy (for which I lost a lot of my here but not all of it), and then six weeks of very intense radiation treatment with something known as Intensity Modulated Radiation Treatment. It's been a year since that ended and I go for three month CAT scans and have had mixed results. I get to blood transfusions this past summer, it seems as though the cancer is at bay for the time but my lung is having problems and is not functioning at full capacity (which has led to other complications), and I have been humbled into submission over my own fears that erupted as I had bouts with limited breathing. Much that could be said about the medical; some of that will be in the journal.
But the journey that I needed to summarize here was my journey into fear and godlessness. Thank you dear Lord that you didn't leave me in there long. I certainly was not the St. Therese who could report about her dark night of the soul but still at the end speak hopefully about how she trusted You and you you are really there even though she couldn't feel or even believe in you at that point. Well, I did not have that nobility.
It all began with some stressful personal situations going on, coupled with the cold that I had caught that appear to have settled into my lungs. The usual chronic cough that I had (which there appeared to be no medical relief from) had now moved into a parking, rumbling cough. Tasha said it was probably some type of bronchitis.
Well, I have learned that it couldn't cry. Or if I did then I couldn't breathe. It was probably somewhat psychosomatic. I'd been sitting on the couch ruminating with Darren about a distressing event. I started to cry. Rather suddenly though, I could not catch my breath. It was as though there were something stuck in my throat that I could not swallow (probably stuck in my larynx). I jumped off the couch started running into the kitchen area. I could get no air; I could get no words out; I could not choke, I could not cry I could not BREATHE. I had something like that happened during the summer and it made me want to run. I wanted to get help. My mind told me I had 4 minutes before I would be dead. Silly rather, I decided whether I should lie down. But that didn't seem to make sense. By now Darren had sent something was wrong and was following me. I was waving my arms madly. Eventually (I'm still here right), I did start getting in some air. I could gasp. I could start to breathe and life returned.
In happened once more within about a week. The cold and coughing continued. I called the doctor at Sloan and she said it was not all "in my head," and she put me on a prednisone treatment. As of this writing, which is about two weeks after I started the prednisone, I am breathing somewhat normally for my handicapped condition and I am less in a panic mode.
But what I want to reflect on here in the blog is my journey into Hell in my return to a somewhat tranquil middle-world. Good Lord I don't know why you let me go there except that it was something I needed to learn. You weren't there. The world was too bright and too clinical. It was sterile and machinelike. There was no air, there were no people, there was a simplified machine interface sterility. Why did you let me see this? My mind focused on what if I was completely wrong? What is the atheists were right? Or what if something worst and easiest — at least then there's nothing is — what if I had to live in this empty sterility forever?
I began to reflect on my own self-sufficiency and arrogance. Just weeks before I had been glibly talking to Evelyn about her sister's fight with cancer. In a rather self-satisfied Pharisaical way I was the noble, holy-lady who did not need to take anxiety medications or visit therapists. I had things under control because God was on my side. But you took me down a few notches. You showed me that I was as afraid to die as the next person. You showed me that it couldn't be all about me.
I'm still afraid. I'm afraid of what will happen at the end time — whether it comes about from the radiation damage to my long that they seem to be experiencing now or whether it comes about from the cancer or whether you take me into your bosom another way. I need the good people in this world to help me through. I need you with the honesty that I can muster and with the grace that you can spare. I definitely can't do this alone. And thank you for giving me the time and experiences to know where I need spiritual as well as physical healing.
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