It's so literally opposite of who I am and what I know of myself.
I am aware that some of the extreme and out-of-control swings of sadness are drug-related.
Yay.
Drugs.
What I wouldn't do to not have to take them, anymore.
Maybe I could finally lose this irritating 10 extra pounds I gained during chemo that insists on hanging around. Maybe the spider-veins that are beginning to pop up all over my legs would cease and the random numbness in my limbs from thick flowing blood would back off.
And maybe, just maybe, I'd be familiar with my emotions, again.
But the irony is that those very drugs are increasing my chances of a tomorrow.
AKA: Not optional.
As I said in a previous post, I am learning to grieve. I'm accepting that cancer caused a TON of loss and that it's ok to grieve that loss.
But just like that--maybe due largely in part to how un-emotional I know myself to be in the 'b.c' days--I am SO SICK OF IT.
I am so sick of feeling fine...Joy-filled...and then I blink, face some sort of 'trigger' and bam! My whole day is spent holding back tears. Seriously. I feel like I am a stranger to myself. My body is not mine, my emotions are not mine. After a while I find myself thinking... WHO THE HECK AM I, anyway?!!
Aaron is reading a book written by one of our former pastors on facing depressive tendencies and restoring Hope in your life. One of the things the author talks about is taking your thoughts captive. Thoughts that Satan wants nothing MORE than to consume you--your heart and mind--with and rip that Joy from you.
I pray this daily, anymore. Like I pray for my young sons by their request, every night ('Lord we bind the nightmares'), I am asking the Lord to BIND THE AWFUL THOUGHTS AND TRIGGERS for me.
I don't want to feel the way I do. I don't want to THINK the way I do, these days.
I'm just so sick of feeling like life is all. about. cancer.
It's funny, you go through this unfathomable journey, praying you'll someday hear the words 'Cancer Free' out of your doctor's mouth. Then that day comes. They look at you and say it. At first, you cry tears of relief and joy. You text everyone closest to you before proceeding to proclaim it from the mountain-tops on social media and anywhere you go in town! You spread the good news.. you believe and cling to it.
Those words: Cancer Free.
But there's a sad irony to those words. That second one in particular.
Free.
Ha!
One day you wake up with a symptom. A symptom from 'cancer management' drugs and procedures. Then another. And another. It doesn't take long before you lose count. And it takes even less time for you to really grasp how ridiculous that second word is.
Free.
Free of what?
Sure. You're free of (that 'they' know of, anyway) detected abnormal cells that are directly threatening your next breath. But, as I said during treatment, we ALL should be more aware of the fragility that is life. Human existence life, on this earth, anyway.
But free? Honestly, I've decided this is a very misleading terminology---particularly for onlookers who've never been here.
There is NO SUCH THING as cancer-free.
A) Cancer is anything BUT free (fiscally I mean!) to face and deal with. The fiscal repercussions never end. Truly. NEVER.
B) Being 'free' of cancer would mean that my memory of the last two years of physical, emotional, mental and sociological wrath could be wiped. While part of me is grateful this is not possible--there will always be a separate part of me that would give anything for it.
Being 'free' of cancer would mean:
I am comfortable looking at my scarred, unrecognizable chest in a mirror.
I am once again capable of talking about our beautiful children with my husband without wanting to burst into tears.
I accept my drug-induced, fast-aging body.
I can watch a movie that brings cancer into it's story-line and not want to rip the DVD out of the player and smash it to pieces.
I am able to talk out-loud about my cancer as openly as I once could.
I see God's Good in this, again, and rejoice in His plan instead of feel resentful of this journey and all that it's done to our me...and us.
While I know that none of these are possible without God, I do believe that He can BIND this, too. I have to be reminded, once again, that He is BIGGER than cancer.
Today, I pray that He FREES me... truly... of these things. I NEED this freedom.
Meantime, I am still renaming the clinical term.
When people ask me... as far as we know, I am cancer-clean.
Keep your chin up sweet lady. The Lord is gaining us all. I wish my weight gain from all the drugs I'm on was only 10 lbs. I have all the issues you're talking about but didn't even go through cancer. I feel like a hypochondriac.
ReplyDeleteDear one, sweet one, beloved of our Lord, yes, beloved of our Lord, Hayley Anne: Just words from Him, from His trusty and faithful Word, to quench the fiery darts. "He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High Will abide in the shadow of the Almighty, I say of Jehovah, My refuge and My fortress, My god in whom I trust! For He will deliver You from the snare of the fowler, from the deadly pestilence. With His pinions He will cover you, and under His wings You will take refuge; His truth is a shield and a buckler. you will not be afraid of terror by night or of the arrow that flies by day, or of the pestilence that walks in darkness or of the destruction that lays waste at noon.......For You have made Jehovah, who is my refuge, even the Most High, Your habitation.........For He will keep His angels charge concerning You to keep You in all Your ways.....You will tread upon the lion and the cobra; You will trample the young lion and the serpent. Because He has set His love upon Me, I will rescue Him; I will set Him on high, because He has known My name. He will call upon Me and I will answer Him. I will be with Him in distress; I will deliver Him and honor Him. With an extension of His days I will satisfy Him, and I will show Him My salvation. Psalm 91. Note: A pinion is the wing of the bird with all the main feathers that if cut, keep a bird from flight. He covers you with His pinion, never to leave! These verses though speaking of Christ, are speaking to and of us as well. We are identified with Him, His life is ours, we are His by becoming sons..... He will tread upon the cobra, the serpent. His promise is this! Holding you up to Him moment by moment; He is our High Priest and prays on your behalf night and day, night and day, before the face of our Father. Claiming His promises with you. "He is able to save to the Uttermost those who come forward to God through Him, since He lives alway to interceded for them." Heb 7:25
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