the question of healing

A week after I was diagnosed with a recurrence, our church hosted a guest speaker named Jan who was a pastor from South Africa.  In addition to preaching, he also had a ministry of prayer and healing.

 After the service, my friends took me to the front of the sanctuary and asked Jan to pray for me.  He sat down next to me, took my hands in his, and asked what my diagnosis was.

“Breast cancer,” I said.

He closed his eyes for a moment.  When he opened them again, he asked, “And have you received a word from the Lord about this?”

“Excuse me?”

“Has God told you that He’s going to heal you?”

“Not exactly,” I said, wanting to ask, “Has God told you that He’s going to heal me?”  But I didn’t ask, because I’d received so much bad news in the past week, I was afraid that if Jan told me he’d received divine word that God wasn’t going to heal me, I’d be crushed beyond any hope of repair.

“Do you believe that God will heal you?” he asked.

“I believe that God can heal me,” I said.  “But I don’t know if He will.  Christians die all the time from diseases like cancer.  And it’s not necessarily because they didn’t have enough faith.” 

He studied my face for a long time.  Maybe he was thinking that my faith was weak?  Maybe he was thinking that I was speaking heresy?  Maybe he was thinking that if I didn’t beat this cancer, it was my fault because I didn’t believe hard enough?

But I am too rational, too logical, to believe otherwise.  I believe that God is omnipotent and that He can heal any disease if He chooses.  But I also believe that we live in a fallen world, and Christians and non-Christians alike experience the repercussions of this post-Eden state — including disease and death. 

I believe that God is good — not just that He does good, but that goodness is the very essence of His character.  If He chooses to heal me, or if He doesn’t, He is no more and no less good.  His goodness is constant no matter what happens in our lives.

As Jan held my hands, he prayed that God would grant me healing and a long life.  When he finished, I whispered, “Amen.”  May it be so.  And really, with all my heart, I did want it to be so.

 Over the past few months, I have prayed for healing incessantly.  And I have demanded that anyone who prays in my presence also pray for my healing.

My dad flew out for a visit in the middle of my first round of chemo.  He said grace for breakfast one morning without praying for me.  When he finished, I closed my eyes again and said loudly, “AND JESUS, PLEASE HEAL SARAH.”  He got my not-so-subtle-or-gracious hint, and every single time he prayed after that, he always prayed for my healing.

When I was going through radiation, the prayers didn’t stop.  Every day the techs would take me to the treatment room, lay me on the hard metal table, expose my chest, line up the marks on my skin with the radiation beams, then leave the room for the 3 minutes it took the radiation to hum its way into my chest.

Even though they weren’t in the room with me, they could see me on the video cameras that were mounted above the table. 

One day the tech came into the room to help me off the table after my treatment and asked, “What do you think about while you’re getting radiation?”

“Why?” I asked her.

“Because I watch you on the monitor, and you always have the most intense look on your face,” she said.

“I pray,” I told her.  “With every treatment, I pray that God will kill all the cancer cells, and that they will never ever come back.”

Over the past six months, I have prayed the same prayer thousands of times: “Jesus, please heal me.”  It has become so intrinisc that last week when I started my car and the ‘Check Engine Soon’ light came on, without thinking I whispered, “Jesus, please heal my car.”

Jesus did heal my car — the idiot light went off by itself the next day. 

I am still waiting to see if Jesus will heal me.

my friend dan

In between rounds of chemo, I had 30 sessions of radiation.  Every weekday for 6 weeks, my mom and I drove 25 minutes to the clinic.  She sat in the waiting room while I walked down the hall and into a patient-only waiting room.

 Just off the patient waiting room were 3 unisex changing rooms.  Every day I got undressed from the waist up, put on a gown, and sat in the patient waiting room until one of the techs called me back to the treatment room.

It was in this waiting room that I met Dan, a 60-something-year-old man with pancreatic cancer.   He used to be the CEO of a company in Tennessee, but he retired a few years before and now taught economics at a community college.  Every time I saw him he was in a hospital gown, but he still had a very dignified presence.  He was tall, trim, and each of his gray hairs was always perfectly in place.

Whoever got to the waiting room first would change the TV channel from daytime soap operas to CNBC, and together we would watch the business reports. 

Sometimes we would talk about stocks; other times we would swap stories about our lives.  He told me about his job, his students, his wife and children and grandchildren.  And I told him about my job, my journalism studies, and my vacation plans.

One morning I’d been listening to Joan Osborne’s “One Of Us” just before I went to radiation.  While I was sitting in the waiting room, I kept hearing the song in my head…”If God had a name, what would it be?

              And would you call it to his face?

              If you were faced with Him in all his glory

              What would you ask if you had just one question?

I posed the question to Dan that afternoon.  “If you got to ask God one question, what would you ask him?”

Dan thought about it a minute, then answered, “I don’t know.”

“Would you ask God why?” I asked.  I think every cancer patient asks that question of God and themselves and the universe at some point in the process. Why me? Why this? Why now?  Why?

He shook his head vehemently.  “No, No, No.”

“Why not?”

“Because…” he began. “Because I don’t think there’s a good ‘why.’  Because even if I did know why, what would it matter?  What would it change?” 

He turned back to the stock reports as I contemplated his answer.  Of course he was right, technically.  But it didn’t change my longing to have an explanation for my suffering.

Every time someone met me for the first time and found out I had breast cancer, their next response was to cock their head, furrow their brow, and say, “But you’re so young…” 

I always nodded politely to these well-intentioned Masters of the Obvious, and tried not to let on how badly I wanted to be able to offer them (and me)  a satisfactory explanation. 

But there wasn’t one.  I hadn’t smoked, hadn’t drank, hadn’t eaten lots of red meat, hadn’t been overweight, hadn’t taken birth controls..I hadn’t even used ant-perspirant deodorant. 

The only explanation my oncologist could think of when I was first diagnosed was that maybe I had the BRCA gene that predisposes women to breast and ovarian cancer.  So he sent me to the Yale Cancer Center Genetic Counseling department for BRCA blood test.  A few weeks later, I returned to the Center with two friends to receive my results.  The genetic counselor came in, slid a paper across the table, and said aloud what I was reading on the report in front of me: “Negative for BRCA gene.” 

A few moments later, standing on the sidewalk in front of the building, my friends congratulated me and hugged me.  “That’s such good news!”  they exclaimed, then hurried back to work.  I stood there on the sidewalk long after they’d walked away.  It was good news, but it didn’t make me feel any better; it made me feel even more like a sitting duck.  If no one knew why I got the cancer, how could I prevent it from coming back? 

And, in fact, it did come back less than a year later.  Once again, I’m fighting this cancer.  And I’m still doing everything I can think of to stay healthy — eating well, taking vitamins, drinking green tea, exercising, and praying to God that the treatment works this time.  Because I don’t know if I’ll have what it takes to ever fight this hard again. 

Every day of this long journey, I wonder why.  But I’m beginning to wonder if Dan isn’t right.  Knowing why wouldn’t matter.  It wouldn’t change anything.  It wouldn’t fix anything. 

Besides, maybe I’m better off not knowing why than receiving an answer from God.  Part of me is afraid that if I raise my fist to heaven and demand an answer, I’ll hear a thundering, “Because I said so,” resounding from God in heaven.  And I may not ever want to speak to him again. 

LOL

Breast cancer has effected me on every level of my life.  One of the logistical issues it’s created is the problem of birth control.  Since my cancer was estrogen and progesterone receptor positive, I can’t ever use hormonal forms of birth control –  like the Pill, the patch, the Nuva Ring, etc.

After I was diagnosed, a guy I was dating asked me what kind of birth control we could use if we got married.  I told him that condoms, a diaphragm, and an IUD (intrauterine device) were all options.  But apparently I didn’t enunciate clearly enough, because he thought I said IED.

After a slight hesitation, he said slowly, “Well…I guess if you exploded, we wouldn’t have to worry about you getting pregnant…”

breast cancer awareness

Every October, the New England fall landscape is interrupted by splashes of PeptoBismol pink in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month.  After a month of nothing but pink ribbons, posters, socks, cell phone covers, tea bags, underwear, flip-flops, pens…I am ready for October to end.  

After all, it’s not like I need an increased awareness of this disease; I live with it every day.  This morning when I woke up with muscle aches so diffuse, it hurt to chew toast for breakfast, I was again made aware of breast cancer. And when I finished breakfast and stood in front of the mirror to brush my teeth, my bald head was another reminder of this stupid disease.

That’s probably been the worst chemo side effect– the baldness.  I can hide the scars on my chest, the circles under my eyes, the bone pain I get after chemo, but I can’t hide my head.  Whether I’m wearing a hat or a wig, I always feel like I’m wearing a sign advertising my struggle.

Also, the reason I hate not having hair is because of the awkward conversations it has led to.  Two months after I finished the first round of chemo, my hair had finally grown enough to cover my scalp.  One morning when I left my apartment to run errands, I decided that today was the day I would venture out into public without any covering on my head — no hat, no scarf, no wig.  Just me. 

 As I was getting out of my car in the parking lot of the grocery store, a woman I’d never seen before made a bee-line from her car to mine and cornered me.  “Did you do your hair like that on purpose???” she asked loudly. 

I was too stunned to speak.  I made my way past her and into the store, using all my energy not to cry.  I realized that such a short hairstyle left me open to many interpretations: militant feminist, butch lesbian, and who knows what else, but did someone have to say it out loud?

That day I began to have a new understanding of breast cancer awareness– not an awareness of the disease itself, but an awareness I’ve gotten from the disease that gives me a more gracious perspective of the human conditon.

 I thought of the angry glances I’ve given to the mothers of scream toddlers in the grocery store, the eyebrows I’ve raised at the woman on my street who sells wilted carnations to afford the $2/night charge at the homeless shelter, the subtle head wagging I’ve done to a patient of mine who comes in regularly with alcohol-induced health issues.   It has been so easy to assume the worst about people.  But after my experience, I know what it’s like to have the worst believed — and said — about me.

No, I didn’t choose my hairstyle.  I didn’t choose this disease.  I didn’t choose the scars on my chest.  But I have to live with them anyway.  And lots of other people didn’t choose the faces that they have to present to the world — but they have to wear them anyway.

This year, I’m ending breast cancer awareness month with an awareness that life is hard and unpredictable and often out of our control.   And all of us — from the bald cancer patient to the exasperated mother to the homeless person to the alcoholic — could use just a little more grace.

Jesus loves Sarah

My friend Stephan called me last night to see how chemo went. After I told him I was tired but okay, he told me a story.  That afternoon he went to Whole Foods to get a protein shake.  As he was paying for it, the cashier asked if he’d like to make a donation to breast cancer research and have a pink ribbon with his name on it mounted up on the wall.  “No thanks,” he said, and collected his change.

When he got to his car, he thought about everything I was going through, and he walked back into the store and bought a ribbon.  The cashier asked for his name so she could write it on the ribbon. 

“Just write, ‘Jesus Loves Sarah,’” he said.

I was speechless after he told me that. 

“Jesus does love you, you know,”  Stephan said.

I nodded silently, skeptically.  Because cancer, and especially chemo days — where I’m poked and prodded and hooked up to gadgets and where I see patients in chemo chairs next to me who are dying of cancer — do not feel like love.

“Sarah,” he said gently, “God isn’t mad at you.  He is madly in love with you.”

I fell asleep last night with those words echoing in my head.  Some days are harder than others, but I’m trying to believe: “Jesus loves Sarah.”

high’s and low’s

My life has become a life of intense extremes.

On October 12, my older brother got married in Nebraska.  In spite of being 2 days post-chemo, I got on a plane and flew out to spend the weekend with my family celebrating his marriage.   The wedding was beautiful, and at the reception I danced with my other brothers — who are also getting married this fall.

Two days after returning to Connecticut from a wonderful weekend away, I was back at the cancer center in the chemo chair.  In the chemo chair next to me was a man with prostate cancer whose wife was holding his hand while he got his chemo.  The nurse put Benadryl in his IV bag, which makes everyone sleepy, but he tried to fight the drowsiness and stay awake.  His wife leaned in close to him and whispered, “It’s okay.  I’m here.  You can go to sleep.”  And he layed back and fell asleep.

Then the nurse came over and started hooking up my IV.  Suddenly, I was very aware of how alone I was.  After my 3 year dating relationship tanked this summer while I was on chemo, and my mom left to return to Illinois, I’ve been driving myself to appointments, doing my own grocery shopping, working, taking out the trash, paying the bills…all on my own.  Most days it’s fine, but today it hit me, and I felt very alone.

After the nurse started the infusion, I laid in the chair and looked up at the bag of Herceptin — a solution that looks clear and innocent, like water, but can do irreversible damage to my heart.  My muscles were still aching from the previous week’s chemo, I was exhausted from the flights to and from Nebraska, I was alone at the cancer center, and I was scared of the side effects of my treatments…and so, as I laid there watching the infusion drip in slowly, I started to cry. 

Because my life is a life of overwhelming extremes right now.  In a week, I went down into the valley of chemo, up to the peak of my brother’s wedding, down to the valley of severe muscle aches, up to the peak of dancing with my brothers at the reception, down to the valley of another trip to the cancer center…

I thought of a Switchfoot song I discovered last year that has a line in the chorus: Grace is high and low

                                                                                                                                                            Grace is high and low

                                                                                                                                                            Grace is high and low.

Sometimes that grace finds me in the depths of the pain and uncertainty and fear, and sometimes it leads me to the heights of joy and triumph and hope. 

But it’s grace just the same.  It’s unrelenting, undeserved, unconditional, all-sufficient grace.

crying out loud

When the movie ‘Saving Private Ryan’ came out, there was a lot of press about how WW II veterans responded to the movie.  I remember reading an article about how veterans who saw the screening left the theater with tears streaming down their cheeks.   It was hard to know what to conclude from that report, though — were they crying tears of sorrow for the friends and the innocence they lost in that war?  Or were they crying tears of relief that someone had depicted on screen the horrors they could not express to their families in words?

After I watched the movie, I thought of an elderly man at our church that my parents talked about in whispers. He had served in WW II, and the ship he was on was attacked.  He survived with a handful of others, but most of the sailors he served with were killed.  “He won’t talk about it, not even to his wife,” my parents said as they shook their heads.  The implication was that he was so traumatized, even speaking of the event 50 years later was too overwhelming for his wounded psyche.

And that was the conclusion I was satisfied with…until I had cancer…and started chemotherapy…and started a blog…and then stopped blogging. 

A few weeks ago, my friend John asked me how my blog was going.  I told him I stopped, and he asked why.  And then it came to me — the reason I stopped writing was not because I was too traumatized by what was going on to write about it; it was because I was trying to protect my friends and family from knowing what a hell my life had become. 

I didn’t want them to know that I was miserable from unrelenting nausea, constantly feeling like I was going to throw up.

I didn’t want them to know how afraid I was of dying.

I didn’t want them to know how worried I was that my treatments wouldn’t work.

I didn’t want them to know how vehemently I prayed to God to spare my life.

I didn’t want them to know how sad I was that I lost my breasts and would likely lose my fertility.

I didn’t want them to know how angry I was that I got this cancer for no reason and at such a young age.

I didn’t want them to know how close I was to giving up and saying, ‘F*#&  IT.  This is too hard.  I would rather die than do this one more day.’

And that’s when I came up with a new conclusion about why the old WW II vet wouldn’t talk about his war experiences.  Maybe it wasn’t from the psychological pain it would cause him; maybe it was from the pain he knew it would cause his loved ones if they knew the hell he had lived through. 

A little while ago, I saw the movie ‘Bridges of Madison County.’  In the movie, there’s a scene where a deceased woman’s grown children find a letter she left for them to read after her death.  The letter discloses the details of an affair the woman had while her children were young.  She wrote to her children that as she got older, she cared less about the image of the woman she knew people wanted her to be, and more about the truth of the woman she really was (my paraphrase). 

 And that’s why I started writing again.  Because after everything I’ve been through in the past 6 months, it is becoming less and less important forme to create an image of my life the way I want others to see it.  I don’t have the energy to keep up that facade.  Emotional and physical exhaustion are compelling me to care less about the image of who I want to be, and more about the truth of who I really am.

So here I am.  Welcome to my world.