Cancer Post #6- Through Surgery and Beyond- The Me I'll Never Be

I am 4 weeks post surgery.  Today I was cleared to walk further than a mile so I soaked up the sun and walked 3.  Only 2 more weeks before I am allowed to run again and it continues to take all that is in me to not break out into a sprint.  I want more than anything to be ‘me’ again.  It has been 7 painfully long months and as I turn the corner and begin to heal physically, I am realizing with a great level of sadness that I will never really get to be ‘me’ again.  It reminded me of a journal entry I wrote near the start of all of this called Goodbye Old Friend.

Goodbye Old Friend (9/27/23 journal entry)- Day before Chemo Began,

It feels like I am saying goodbye to an old friend.  

To someone I have grown comfortable with, accustomed to.  

To a friend who traveled through the ins and outs and ups and downs of life and shared my deepest longings and dreams.   

Goodbye to the friend I sometimes catch a glimpse of and grin unknowingly. 

 As though I am on the outside looking in, watching her spark with life and laughter.  

With joy and anticipation.  

Watching her at times struggle but reach for her God who pulls her back up into His arms.  

Many years we have traveled together, changing and growing. 

Being and becoming. 

And oh how I realize how much I love that dear friend in this moment of pause.  

How I don’t want to part ways moving forward with only fading memories of who she was.  

I wonder who she will be when she returns?  

Will I recognize her?  

Will I like her still? 

Will life have broken her down or built her back up into someone even more beautiful? 

Either way, the parting is difficult and so I mourn this dear friend.  

That friend is me and she is fading fast in the face of death. 

Goodbye my friend. 

Our time together has been sweet but when we meet again I pray you surprise me in ways that are beautiful, deep, and full of richness.  

Sure, I will get back to running and cooking and all of the things I haven’t been able to do in months.  My hair will be long again but the old me will never be.  At least, not the version of me that I was.  Our google nest hub in the kitchen daily brings me to tears when I catch a photo of myself from ‘before.’  I have come to realize just how much I liked that version of me and most days I would trade just about anything to be her again. 

 But, I don’t get that choice.  I can’t go back, only forward into this version of my life that I didn’t get to choose and certainly would have never approved of.  Truly the only option here is forward  into the unknown. 

I am grateful to be able to report that I have been declared “cancer free”.  At surgery, they found no cancer in my lymph nodes and a mix of chemo and prayers took care of the rest.  They tell me that my 15 year “survival rate” is right around 90% which honestly doesn’t give me much peace after being on the wrong side of so many statistics through this whole ordeal, but everyone else seems happy with those stats so I guess we'll take it.  What else can we do?

Recovery hasn’t been exactly easy, especially the first few weeks when my nurse so nicely sent me home with the gift of the flu.  Between a fever, not being able to lay down comfortably, and trying to manage coughing fits after 2 major surgeries, I was beyond miserable and honestly wished more than once I would have just died on that table.  Now that I am over the worst of it, it has become a “little better” each and every day as I heal.  Physical therapy has become the norm and I am grateful for it as my range of motion slowly returns.  I am halfway through my projected recovery time.

I was just listening to a podcast on one of my walks in this unseasonably warm winter weather and really identified with a quote/topic about God through all of this.  The speaker was talking about going through really difficult things and said something to the effect of:

“You've been able to live happy with Jesus and now you get to learn how to live sad with Jesus and at the end of life what makes it rich is not the happy or the sad parts, but the  WITH Jesus part. “  -Dr. Alicia Britt Chole

The presence of God has been the primary, steady, and unchanging thing I’ve been able to perceive through the course of this waking nightmare.  And so, as He has been WITH me in this, I rest in the assurance He will be WITH me in the process ahead of rediscovering who I am and how to move forward.  God’s presence is powerful. My prayer lately has been to rediscover the power of His presence because where He is present there is also an abundance of His steady love and deep peace too.  

"And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever—  the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives WITH you and WILL BE IN you.  I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.”  John 14:16-18