here I stand

"The waters closed in over me, the deep surrounded me; weeds were wrapped around my head at the roots of the mountains...Then the Lord spoke to the fish and it spewed Jonah out onto the dry land."  Jonah 2:5,9

I look out the window at this cold, grey day and feel a heaviness settle on my spirit. I often begin my morning quiet times by asking: "what is true of me today?" and then try to bring that question into conversation with God and whatever else points toward a Truth bigger than my own subjective experience. What is true of me today is a growing sense of dread. My third whopper chemo treatment is Monday, January 24th, three days from now. I have to have four of these big ones with three weeks in between to recover. The first week after a treatment is a haze of nausea, fatigue and the isolation that illness often imposes. The second and third weeks are much better, but I still dread the first week, which seems to get progressivly worse each time.

Coming out of a chemo tx is like coming up from under water and seeing the sun shimmering beyond the surface. Going into one feels like standing at the end of a dock and looking at a cold dark lake, waiting for strong hands to grab me and shove me under, holding me down until I am ready to give up whatever it is that I have been holding onto.

What is it that I have been holding onto and what must give up? This is where it gets interesting. Turns out that I have a lot of old stuff clinging to me from the past, espeically from the bad old brain tumor days of not so long ago. As some of you know, meningiomas are almost always benign tumors that grow very slowly. Mine took over 20 years to get that big. That was a long time in which to accumulate the elaborate set of coping mechanisms that I used to mask the shame, fear and depression that came from a slowly progressive brain tumor induced dementia.



For years I tried to appear smart and capable and competent whether I was or not. That falseness almost killed me as I refused to face what was really happening to me. Like weeds wrapping around me and dragging me to the bottom, depression and denial held me under so long it was almost too late for me to come up again. That's why I was SO ridiculously happy when I was told that my problem was a big, fat brain tumor that could be removed. I thought I could have a dementia-ectomy and all my problems would go away. I bounced back that time amazingly well and everyone applauded. The first six months after my brain surgury were euphoric.

My brain tumor, July 2009

Then, with a growing sense of dread, the depression came back. It turned out that my vision was permanently damaged and I could not find work that did not involved a lot of driving. Now that I was suddenly "able" again in terms of my mental facalties, I was also disabled and didn't know what I was going to do with my life. My old demons of anxiety and depression began to circle again and I had no excuse or defense against them this time. Trying to fake wellness only made me more depressed. Those damed weeds  
were reaching for me and it scared me to death.

In late October 2010, I got diagnosed with a very aggressive type of breast cancer and had a double mastectomy a week later. Initially, that sent my anxiety through the roof. But here's the really strange part. Although today is dark and dreary, I am actually more calm and clear than I was before my breast cancer diagnosis. Even though I dread my next chemo tx, I am slowly becomeing more whole in a way that I cannot explain.

Maybe it is because so many people have come out of the woodwork to surround me with love and prayer. Maybe it is because I am finally learning to be more open and authentic about my experience of illness. For whatever reason, I am finding the courage to face personal pain and talk about it in a way that is more true. I do not need to reject my old self that hid in a smokescreen of determination and denial. I only need to embrace that which is new and true and authentic, even if it means becoming bald and vulnerable to do it.

This image of water that both kills and saves is baptismal. But let's not get confused about our images of baptism. Cancer is not a pretty baby baptism with candles and white lacy christening clothes. Cancer and chemo is more like water boarding; scarey and desperate and gasping with relief after the worst of it passes. Sounds torturous, I know, but each time I go under, I let go of a little more of that which is not essential to life. Layers of old falseness are washing away. Newness, shaking, wet and weak is starting to come. I wish there were an easier way for me to let go of my old scared and shameful self left over from all those years of pretending. There probably is, but for what ever reason, here I am standing at the end of the dock again, about to take the next plunge. What's true of me today is that I dread it, but I know that I will come out the other side, hopefully a little newer and a little truer. Thanks for standing with me. See you on the other side.

Love, Mary