To Live Like You Are Dying
Bear with me here. This is a very real post, but not as morbid as it sounds.
When I was diagnosed on May 11, my world came crashing down. Our family went into survival mode for months. There were ups and downs - mostly downs. As I struggled for air, balance, and for the reversal of alarming decline, I held onto hope. The doctors said I would respond quickly to the targeted meds (in my case, Tagrisso), but had we started soon enough? None of us knew.
Once I started feeling the positive changes, my energy was still minimal and I lived in a fog of morphine and exhaustion. I looked with anticipation to when I would feel better.
It came as a total surprise that when my energy and overall health started to pick up my heart and mind crashed. It was like I was diagnosed all over again. The doctor told me he had high hopes for several years of remission. But what I focused on was - what then?
I talked to several trusted people and said, "I don't know how to live like I'm dying. It's a life skill I never learned." I really love that Tim McGraw song, but sky diving isn't my thing and I can tell you I wouldn't make it 2.7 seconds on a bull named Fu Man Chu. I knew what I wanted. I wanted to live a long life filled with my family and grandchildren and to feel like I was making a different in the lives of students. Those weren't things I could just check off a bucket list.
And so, I struggled. Hard. (So many of you have commented on how strong and brave I am, but I don't deserve those adjectives. I am neither. If I could sign up for an easier path, believe me, I would run to do so.) Yes, I absolutely believe God can perform a miracle. Yes, I trust Him to do what is best. I just don't know how to live in the face of my future. Several very wise people have encouraged me to dare to dream again.
I'm coming to a few conclusions:
1. I'm not going to live like I'm dying. That's just depressing. It's silly, too, because we just don't know.
2. I'm going to revel in the beautiful moments with all of my people.
3. I'm going to focus on the opportunities to bless others- however feeble my capacities are.
4. I'm going to keep fighting. Today that looks like exercising, keeping my mind busy with research and ideas for students. It looks like resting when I need to and eating my veggies. It looks like telling my people how much they mean to me. It even means delving into the medical bills - again. Sigh.
C.S. Lewis once spoke to the issue of how to live in the atomic age under the threat of nuclear warfare and I've taken his wisdom deep into my heart.
"This is the first point to be made: and the first action to be taken is to pull ourselves together. If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things—praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts—not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs. They may break our bodies (a microbe can do that) but they need not dominate our minds.”
Thank you for allowing me to untangle my thoughts, pull myself together, and fight the urge to let cancer dominate my mind. There is so much more to life than dying.
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