There is no doubt about it, cancer is ugly. We try to dress it up with pink ribbons and sparkles but the ugliness still shows through. Outwardly cancer and the required treatment changes the way you look so radically that when you pass by the mirror you barely recognize yourself. Chemotherapy makes your fingernails ugly and manicures are forbidden. Without eyebrows and eyelashes I am constantly getting soap in my eyes. And who knew nose hairs were so important? Without them my nose is constantly leaking. Cancer takes away the activities you enjoy because they are “too risky” or you have too little energy to actually do them. Working in my glass studio is suddenly off limits because my hands don’t have the dexterity they used to and a cut on my finger could easily get infected and an infection could delay a treatment. Cancer isolates you from friends. When every week is consumed with doctor visits, bloodwork, scans, and anxiety, you have very little to contribute to conversation. And when the only way to “visit” with a friend is for them to sit on your hot front porch and talk on the phone through the window with you while Argos barks in the background, it requires too much effort. But cancer’s most insidious weapon is that it keeps the people you love most in the world away. I can’t be there to kiss Fritz’s baby toes. Delphine can’t sit in my lap while I read Brown Bear 10 times in a row followed by Good Night Moon and watch The Sound of Music. I can’t spend time with Allie planning for her wedding day and being there with her. And our roles are now reversed, with Madison spending more time taking care of me than me doing things for her. Cancer and everything that has to be done to try to get rid of it is taking a year or more away from me and my family and I am angry.
Too many times we wear masks to cover up what’s actually going on in our lives. We have to keep up appearances, put our best face forward, make sure no one knows the turmoil we are dealing with. “I’m fine” is the most common lie known to man. Too much of our life is lived like the knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail who insists it’s “only a flesh wound” when we can clearly see he no longer has arms or legs. We insist our hearts aren’t broken, that life is peachy keen, when in reality, we are bleeding out in the dirt. The problem is we will never be able to begin healing until we can admit to ourselves and to others we are NOT fine. That inability to admit reality is why we get stuck in the hurt and pain.
This week, I am bleeding out, lying in the dirt. I am struggling. I am wounded. I am angry. I am frustrated. I am heartbroken. I am weary. I can’t fix it. It has been a long five months and I am tired of having cancer.
But I am a warrior and I am going to be ok.
I am not fighting this battle on my own, in my own strength. Jesus is with me during every scan, every infusion, every appointment, every moment of anxiety in the dark of night. When I get too weary to continue, He will carry me through. He binds up the broken-hearted and understands my anger and my frustration. I may be knocked down, but I will not stay that way.
“Don’t run from tests and hardships, brothers and sisters. As difficult as they are, you will ultimately find joy in them; if you embrace them, your faith will blossom under pressure and teach you true patience as you endure. And true patience brought on by endurance will equip you to complete the long journey and cross the finish line—mature, complete, and wanting nothing.” James 1:2-4 (The Voice). God is using the difficulties and challenges I am facing in this battle to grow my faith and reliance on Him. My faith has been tested in the past and I have come out stronger for it. I expect nothing less from this trial. I have a long journey in front of me—seven more weeks of immunotherapy and chemotherapy, surgery and recovery, four more immunotherapy (9 weeks) infusions, six weeks of radiation followed by reconstruction. Cancer—especially in the middle of COVID—has definitely been a difficult trial. I may come out on the other side bruised, battered and smelling like smoke, but I will find and embrace the joy in every hardship. I will complete my journey and cross the finish line because I am a cancer warrior.
T.S.CONLAY 