Cancer Dance

New Year’s Eve is tomorrow. Ahead is a year unknown. Unknown for everyone, of course, but “life or death” unknown for me. I struggle with fear. My myeloma is rapidly progressing and I am trying desperately to get into a clinical trial. I don’t qualify because my blood counts, specifically my platelets, are too low. The myeloma has crowded out my healthy blood cells. So… new treatment plan.

On Dec 26^th, the day after Christmas, I started a combination of Elotuzumab, Pomalyst, and Dex. It started well enough, but soon sent me to the ER with a high fever. I came home, but went back the next day for shortness of breath and numbness of my tongue! of all things! I come home. I figure out the Pomalyst is causing the shortness of breath. We will most likely adjust the dose and move on and hope that I can continue the treatment.

I think when you are living with an incurable cancer you think of life in terms of “normal” days and sick days. Days when you can do the laundry, dishes, school pick-ups, and our weekly routines are “normal”. And then there are the sick days: the Dr visits, infusions, ER trips, times of being in bed A LOT. Life is good when you have more normal than sick days. And that’s how it has been until recently. But now, the balance is shifting, and I am having more sick days. I am entering another period of fighting through treatments and side effects and…fear. Fear for the future, for the year ahead.

So, I want to share some reflections about fear and hope… and faith…from someone who is IN it!!!

It seems to me I have moments of incredible hope for the future. Hope of new treatments coming out all of the time, or clinical trial, or best of all, hope for a miraculous healing. And other times I can feel the fear of the unknown, of not getting another remission or of complications in treatment. My mind goes from one extreme to another. I rock back and forth– fear and hope, hope and fear. But here’s the thing that is my foundation, whether in hope or in fear, I am not alone. I have Jesus with me. I am learning how to live in this unknown future, to embrace it like a slow dance moving me back and forth in the arms of my Savior – hope and fear – “I got you”, he whispers. Fear and hope –“I am leading you”. My easiest moments are when I can just put my head on his chest and let him lead me and hold me as we sway back and forth, together in this cancer dance.

More and more, I see the love of God, in the oneness of the Holy Spirit – which is Christ in me. He can be no closer. And the phrase, “I am my beloved, and he is mine” is a deepening truth in which to rest even when life is hard and a struggle.

How often I have wanted things to go back to normal. How silly it is though, to think “normal” means healthy, wealthy and in good cheer. This just is NOT normal for the state of human life across the globe. Millions of people are suffering hunger, war, illness, abuse, poverty and struggle. THIS is normal too. This is as much a “normal” part of the experience of being human as any other thing.

So my new normal is joy and fear and faith and love and struggle and peace and ALL of the emotions of being human. Isn’t that all of us? We are these complex people going through our complex lives with complex feelings. And yet with Christ – all things are possible. There is hope for now and hope for eternity. There is the assurance of his love in all circumstances and a peace that is beyond understanding. So yeah, a bit of “normal” and a bit of supernatural…because I am not dancing alone.