The days after...

Is cancer my friend? The randomness of my having terminal cancer while the world continues around me is paralyzing.  My friends and family are pursuing projects, struggling with their life's problems and I am virtually immobilized by the fact that the cancer is killing me.  Compounding that mental dissonance is a strikingly different body then I had a year ago.  My body aches constantly, I long to go to bed at 6 pm, I'm easily confused (chemo brain) and frustrated.  I'm usually so tired because I tried to do something normal like making dinner or going to the grocery store.   Small things that you take for granted are exhausting and only rewarding in that I think to myself, at least I was able to comfort my family with a meal.  I long to find a purpose when I can contribute so little physically to our family anymore.  A friend told me that my presence was enough and that was the gift I could give my loved ones.  So I try to be present for them when they come home from school, need someone to talk to or to just be aware of them instead of me.  Honestly, this is a hard place for me to be, I naturally am self-centered.  So this comes back around to the question of cancer being my friend?  It changed me, opened my eyes, made me wake up to th beauty around me.  It's also terrified and paralyzed me, exhausted and saddened me.  Are these great physical and mental changes a good thing or just something that has happened.  I don't know.  Right now, it feels really random and not purposeful, alienating and sad.  I long to attach some purposeful meaning to it but today I cannot come up anything.

The First Best Day

Who knew the day I woke up with my stomach exploding in pain would start the beginning of my Best Days.  That day, my Nate rushed me to the hospital where they spent hours trying to control my pain, ran tests and ended up undergoing exploratory surgery.  There they found a cancerous tumor in my rectum that had ripped and was spewing bile into my stomach cavity.   The doctors cleaned the infection, took out some body parts, gave me an osteomy and left me with an open wound and a wound vacuum that would eventually pull my stomach back together.  It was traumatic, painful and starteling.  It was as people say a great awakening.  Through the pain and tears I saw my life and the potential end of it.  I realized that every moment, every day was a one shot deal and that shot was precious.  It was my first Best Day.  It was a blessing where God opened my eyes and decided to share the fragility and impermenance of my life and therefore also the fragility of those around me: my children, my husband, siblings, parents, friends.  The first lesson: life is fragile and impermenant; treat it reverently, it is a gift.