Changed for Good

Tomorrow will mark the 3-week post-surgery point, and there hasn't been a whole lot to report!  The recovery from my surgery was supposed to last 4-6 weeks, but I assumed I would feel so much better by now.  Unfortunately, recovery has just been SLOW.  There is consistent pain throughout the day, but the nights have been incredibly difficult.  From the moment I get into bed until the next morning, I'm in pain that makes even small movements almost unbearable.  I wake frequently to shift ever so slightly, and my poor husband listens to my cries of constant discomfort throughout the night.

My mom has been coming early in the morning just to help push me out of bed, give me my next round of medications, and empty my drainage tubes.  It's been rather pathetic :)  However, once I get up and moving, particularly for the past few days, I've felt better and am getting more mobile around the house.  Praise God that I've had my precious mom here to help keep our home from completely biting the dust!  She's a gentle, yet firm presence for my children, and an unbelievable caretaker for both me and my home.  And honestly, I have just enjoyed spending time with her!  She encourages me when I'm prone to pity and makes me laugh when my medications makes me foggy and forgetful.  Laughter has always made the ickiness of cancer so much more bearable.

Hanging out with my mom at my Herceptin infusion :)

During my first appointment with the plastic surgeon, he was able to remove 2 of the 4 drains from my side, just under my arms.  When I saw him last week, I was SO hoping he would remove the other two as well.  Instead, he told me to take it easy, and I walked back to the car with two painful drains still hanging from my sides.  Today, however, it was a different story!  He removed the last two drains, which I am so excited about!!  Hopefully that will cut down on my pain and will be a much needed inconvenience removed.

We are still rejoicing with happy hearts from the news of my pathology report, so much so that I sometimes feel like this is the end of the road!  And then reality hits, and I realize there are still hurdles to jump.  Comparatively shorter and less difficult hurdles, yet obstacles that I'd really rather avoid.  After spending two hours in the infusion center yesterday, only to glance at my calendar to make my next appointment 3 weeks from now was a bleak reminder that my journey isn't over.  I will visit those sweet nurses and sit with my other cancer fighting comrades every 3 weeks for the next 6 months.  The baton has been passed from my surgical oncologist to both my plastic surgeon and my radiation oncologist for the remainder of my cancer treatments; and as much as I like both doctors, I'm not particularly excited to enter this last phase.  Reconstruction and radiation don't come without complication risks, so you can pray that both of those in tandem will go smoothly. 

Honestly, I'm just ready to feel like myself again.  I remember looking in the mirror when I was first diagnosed with cancer, and I looked so normal!  There were no symptoms, and I didn't feel sick at all.  Yet I knew that I was getting ready to dive into the abyss of cancer treatments, and it would change so much about me.  It didn't happen all at once, but one day I glanced at myself again in the mirror and the fear had become reality...I looked like I had cancer.  Those treatments had ravaged my body to a point where I hardly recognized myself in the mirror.  Now that the chemo and surgery part of my treatments are over, I'm ready for my hair to grow long again and for strength to return to my body.  And like almost everything else in this cancer journey, SLOW is the name of the game.  My hair is starting to grow back in, and I joke that I look like one of those little troll dolls from the 80's when I wake up in the morning (minus the florescent color :)  My blood counts are still on the low side, so my strength is still minimal.  And thanks to the pain from surgery, I spend much of the day feeling a bit useless.

As I shared some of these frustrations with Bryan last night, he reminded me that many of those things will return.  My hair will grow back, the pain will eventually subside, and the treatments will hopefully become a distant memory.  But I will be different.  Cancer has and will continue to mark me in ways that I may not even have a glimpse of yet, and I will be forever changed.  My heart has witnessed things through the lens of suffering that wouldn't have otherwise been seen, and I can't even begin to express my gratefulness for that.  As I wrote about in a previous post...God is making me new through a heartache like cancer, and it is overwhelming to see His love for me through each step of that process.  Those changes, which were once so painful in the beginning, have become welcomed reminders that He is good and faithful to complete His work in us.  He loves us enough to not leave us where we are, but continues to mold us each day for our good and for His glory.

One last thing...a while back, I asked you to pray for a few families in our church that were battling suffering.  I know they would covet your prayers now more than ever.  One man battling pancreatic cancer had received the heartbreaking news that they couldn't complete his whipple surgery because the cancer had spread from his pancreas to his liver.  He is continuing to bravely fight for his life as he endures endless chemo treatments.  The woman I mentioned is also literally fighting for her precious life as doctors try to keep up with the complications from her inoperable cancer.  I've spoken to both of these individuals recently, and it's breathtaking to hear of their love and trust in their Savior in the midst of such tragic pain.  They have learned the beautiful truth that suffering is not void of His goodness, and they are glorifying Him until their final breath.  Please pray that Christ would be near and would continue to comfort and encourage them.

"The faith of the Bible will never call you to deny reality in any way.  The faith of the Bible is so in awe of the grandeur and glory of God that it is able to look at the darkest of realities in life and not be afraid."  (Paul Tripp--New Morning Mercies)