Scars

I have to admit, I have been feeling sort of sorry for myself lately. I keep wondering, "Why did all this bad stuff have to happen to me?" I feel a little lost. What do I do now, when I don't feel like doing anything? What do I make of this inertia I'm experiencing? I'm reading, I'm gardening, I'm watching baseball, but I don't want to do another single thing. I can't even conceive of how to get excited about teaching in the fall--another whole year? Ugh! And more master's classes? Forget about it!

But even though I pay almost no attention to the daily news, it's impossible not to hear about people whose lives are a whole lot worse than mine. Just yesterday, I read an article about the malaria that erases thousands of lives a minute on the African continent. Zack told me about a firefighter who was burned over 95% of his body, has skin only on his back, and has to have expanders under that skin to stretch it so that it can be harvested to cover other parts of his body. The day of my surgery, in the parking lot of the very hospital where I was a patient, a man shot to death his wife and then killed himself, orphaning three young children. At my postop appointment on Wednesday, Steve and I passed a young man with only one leg, the other most likely taken by cancer. So who am I to complain? Where does my suffering rank on this list? Worse than some, better than others, better than practically everyone in the world who daily fights hunger, war, disease?

But I feel like complaining. I didn't like being shown a brain tumor on my MRI. I didn't like being sick and hospitalized. I didn't like having brain surgery. I didn't like having thirty metal staples removed from my head. I don't like this big scabby scar that crosses the top of my head so that I can't brush or blow-dry my hair. I don't like the fear my children must have been feeling, the anxiety Steve has surely felt almost nonstop for four months now. I don't like the attention I'm getting for having gotten sick. Don't get me wrong, I like attention. But notice my achievements, recognize my accomplishments. That's the kind of attention I like.

And then yesterday, in looking through my "drafts" folder in gmail, I came across a quote I had emailed to myself back in May. I must have found a comfort in these words that made me want to save them: "God will not look you over for medals, degrees or diplomas, but for scars" (Elbert Hubbard, 1856-1915). If this is true, then I have a doozy. Or at least, I will have. Right now I have a sort of crusty, scabby, gross mess.

But it's not just this scar that God can see. He knows every hurt, every failure, every mistake, misstep and miscalculation. If I am scarred on the outside, and I now am, I am even more scarred on the inside, and it is these scars that make me lovable to God. He sees, he acknowledges, he recognizes, and he loves.

His love is the great equalizer. To him, all suffering is equally bad, completely unlike what he planned for us. He doesn't rank our sorrows and grieve accordingly. He sees the hurts of all mankind, and he grieves for all. And then he loves, and all hurts are immediately given the power to bring healing and growth to those who hurt. Every wound, no matter how great or small, grieves God. To him, every scar is a badge, a symbol of a battle fought, no matter whether won or lost.

I think this is how he sees sin, too. Every sin, no matter how great or small, is the same to God. Each has power and potentiality. Sin has the power to separate us from God, as we hide in our shame and humiliation. But it also has the potential to bring us back, to cause us to seek God in our desire for forgiveness and reconciliation. So even as I wallow in self-pity, certainly a sin, God promises a return. My spirit will soon be renewed, my anxiousness will disappear. My motivation will resurface. My former peace, which seems to have utterly abandoned me, will return.

In the 16th chapter of his gospel, John writes of a conversation Jesus had with his disciples in which he explained that he would no longer use figures of speech or stories to illustrate his concepts, but that he would speak plainly to reveal his truth. When they said, "Ah! Now we get it--now we understand who you are!" Jesus replied, "Do you finally believe?...I've told you all this so that trusting me, you will be unshakable and assured, deeply at peace. In this godless world you will continue to experience difficulties. But take heart! I've conquered the world" (v. 25-33).

With these words, Christ promises peace. He does not promise ease, or freedom from suffering, illness, injury, or even death. But he does promise peace to those who believe he is, indeed, in charge. I sure could use some peace right now. Thank God I know where to find it.

A Couple of Scares and a Setback

First off, let me thank Michael J. for stopping by City of Hope on Wednesday. I appreciated the flowers and also the spirited discussion of Che Guevara and the CIA. It was nice to think about something besides my health for a little while. Thank you also to Doris and Ralph for the fruit basket which included iced oatmeal cookies, my favorite. Thank you for remembering!

I've already told you that on Saturday I was able to shower for the first time. No sooner had I gotten out of the shower when Dr. Badie called and said, "Now I told you you could shower tomorrow, right?" I replied with, "No! You said Saturday and I already have!" I went on to explain that showering was a nerve-wracking experience, that it took every ounce of willpower I had to actually put my incision under the water. A whole host of what-ifs played through my mind. I really had to trust that Dr. Badie knew his stuff. But I did, he does, and said shower was completed.

On Sunday I showered again, having invited Mom and LeRoy over for Father's Day (thanks, Tracy, for the steaks!), believing that all would go as well as it had the day before. When I got out of the shower on Sunday, however, I touched the top of my head and heard a squishing sound. I kid you not! Squish! Squish! went my head right at the incision site! Oh! This didn't seem good at all! I imagined the worst, of course--shower water had gotten into the wound, a virulent infection was already sprouting its ugly head inside mine, and I would be hospitalized within hours, again!

When an hour later I heard it again, Steve insisted that I call the triage nurse at City of Hope. She was clearly quite taken aback--I'm not sure she had ever heard a brain surgery patient telling her that her brain was squishing--but she promised to call the doctor and call us right back. She did call back, within about five minutes, explaining that Dr. Badie had answered her page right away and that I shouldn't worry. It was only air! Apparently at surgery some air enters into the space between the bone and brain and between the scalp and the bone. This is quite normal, and I will hear all sorts of strange crunches and crackles and yes, squishes, for a few weeks at least. Bizarre!

On Monday morning, Dr. Badie called me himself to reassure me of all the nurse had said. Have I told you how much I love this surgeon? His personal attentiveness is amazing and very appreciated. Anyway, all appeared okay.

On Tuesday, however, as I was getting ready to walk the dog (just around our little block--don't worry!), I found that I had to repeat the same action twice to pick up the keys off the counter. Weird. Then, when I was attempting to put my wild, bushy (un-blow-dried) hair into the back of a Yankees cap, as I am not to go out in sunshine without a hat, I could hardly get my left hand to cooperate at all. When I looked down at it, I noticed that the first two fingers and the thumb were strangely contorted, and that I had no control at all over their movement. Bring the squishing back! This seemed worse!

So what did I do? I walked the dog, of course! I had already told her we were going, she had already done her leaping, pirouetting dance in preparation, and she's just so cute--I couldn't let her down. As I walked, however, I realized that although I gradually began to gain control over my fingers, my whole left hand was completely numb. After about fifteen minutes, the sensation came back and I seemed perfectly normal. Against Mom and Steve's advice, I did not call the nurse. I rationalized that I was fine, and promised that if it happened again, I would call.

Well, it did happen again, in the middle of the night, and still I did not call. This was not wise. I am having all sorts of pain in my right hand and arm, and I have decided to wait until I see Dr. Badie on Wednesday to ask about this, one reason being that my right hand is bothering me, and brain effects from surgery would most likely be seen on the left side, opposite of the tumor site. But now this was the left side!

I waited to call, in fact, until 4:30 Wednesday afternoon, after another episode, much scarier and more dramatic. It started in a way similar to the other two, with the fingers becoming a claw, unable to be moved by me. Then the numbness in the hand started, but this time it was followed by numbness in the toes, and then the foot and then the left leg. Then I began to feel numbness in the bones of my face, especially in the orbit around the left eye and in the jaw. When I looked in the mirror, there was an obvious droop on the left side, and when I smiled, only the right side responded. Spooky.

Only Zack was home with me, so I went into his bedroom to be sure he was seeing what I was seeing. I asked him about my smile, and he said, "talk normally." I told him that I was and he asked me to say something else. By this time, even I could hear that there was clearly something wrong with my speech, not a slurring exactly, but more a slowing. I was also having difficulty thinking of what I wanted to say and then actually saying it. When I asked Zack to describe what I sounded like, he said, "like a person who knows how to speak but isn't very good at it."

This whole episode lasted about twenty minutes. When I had regained normal speech, I called the nurse, and Dr. Badie called me back about two minutes later. He was very concerned and told me he was sure these occurrences were actually partial seizures, probably caused by the movement of the brain. You see, when the tumor was removed, it left a void that will eventually be replaced by brain tissue that is taking back its residence now that the invader has been vanquished. However, the brain responds to this movement as it does to any foreign activity--with increased electrical output, which causes seizures. Dr. Badie had me take a dose of Dilantin right away and asked that I up my nightly dose from three pills to four, 400 mg. In addition, he suggested that I would need to be on the Dilantin for much longer than originally planned, maybe as much as three months.

This is depressing. I was handling 300 mg of Dilantin quite well, with no perceivable effects, but adding 100 mg to the dose is like adding 1000. I can really tell the difference. I am more sleepy, more woozy, and much less steady on my feet. Suddenly, the doctor's precautions not to drive and not to go up or down stairs by myself make a lot of sense. In addition, being on the Dilantin is what has been keeping me from being able to drive, so now it is possible that I will not be driving again until well into September. And I already feel so housebound!

However, even in these circumstances, I can see huge positives--these seizures are relatively mild. I have warning of their arrival. I remain conscious. And although I am a little wiped out afterwards, I can still do the same things I was doing before Tuesday. What we do not want is for me to have a grand mal seizure, which would be devastating. It would be extremely scary for the kids, who would most likely be home with me, it would require hospital observation, and it would guarantee a loss of driving privileges for at least a year. So please continue to pray for me, that God's hand would be on me and also on Dr. Badie who will be working to find the right dose of Dilantin and/or other anti-epileptics. I need lots of patience, so pray for that, too. And pray for Steve and my children, especially for Zack who was a little freaked out on Wednesday and probably needs some reassurance.

God is faithful, and he will see through to completion the work he has started in me. Just a quick reminder from the old hymnal--this one's my favorite.

Great is thy faithfulness, O God my Father;
there is no shadow of turning with thee;
thou changest not, thy compassions, they fail not;
as thou hast been thou forever will be.

Great is thy faithfulness! Great is thy faithfulness!
Morning by morning new mercies I see;
all I have needed thy hand hath provided;
great is thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me!

Summer and winter and springtime and harvest,
sun, moon and stars in their courses above
join with all nature in manifold witness
to thy great faithfulness, mercy and love.

Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth
thy own dear presence to cheer and to guide;
strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow,
blessings all mine, with ten thousand beside!

Closers, for lack of a better title

Mariano Rivera has just recorded the last out of a 9-7 Yankees win. I only bring this up because this is just the second game in a week that they have won. I feel somehow responsible. I'm one of those goofy fans who thinks that their presence, even if only in front of the television, actually has the ability to influence the outcome of the game. And as you know, I have been a bit busy this week.

But where to start? Hmm. I guess I'll take you back to the morning of surgery. I know Steve revealed what the day was like for him; it was a little different for me. I slept surprisingly well the night before surgery, and I awoke in the morning, early and sleepy but ready. We got to the hospital at six, and before long several of our friends and family members were there with us. After I had been officially admitted, I was taken back to preop all by myself, and after I had changed and gotten settled, Steve was able to come in and wait with me.

Both the surgeon and the anesthesiologist came and visited with us in the preop area. At about 7:40, I said goodbye to Steve and was taken to the surgery room. I think they had given me something to relax me, but I really can't remember. I do know that I was remarkably calm. I felt really ready, not out of resignation but more in the excitement of getting past this place and to the next one.

In the operating room, I joked with the personnel there: "everyone told me to remind you that my tumor is on the right side of my head!" The nurse just pointed to my right, where there were four television monitors arranged in a square, each showing a different view of my head, tumor eerily visible. I took a quick look around, was quite impressed with the state-of-the-art facility (even though I had no idea what I was looking at!), and that is the last thing I remember. I have had general anesthesia on two other occasions, and each time, I was told to count backwards from 100, a sort of warning. Not this time! I was simply out. Too bad, because I had really wanted to check out that room!

When I awoke, the first thing I saw was Steve's face. However, I did have a sort of impression of wakefulness before that, as it was quite a long time after the surgery was over before I was actually fully aware--maybe as much as two hours. My next impression was of being moved from a gurney to a hospital bed, but I remember nothing of the trip there. I said to someone, "Is this ICU?" and that was when I learned I had been taken to a regular room, ICU being unnecessary because of the ease of the operation. This was good news.

My stay was pretty unremarkable, I guess. Steve has covered that well in his blog. I did have a hard time sleeping in the hospital because of nausea, probably related to either the morphine or the vicodin or both. Starting Thurday, I went cold turkey to regular strength Tylenol and did pretty well with that. At home, I'm using Motrin and doing really well. I have to watch the clock, however, because if I wait until I feel pain to take medication, I end up hurting as I wait for the effects.

My incision is sort of a medical marvel. Even though I have 28 metal staples in my head, in a a row approximately five inches long, I was able to shower and wash my hair on Saturday, only four days after surgery. Good news for all of you who had to be near me during that time. Boy, was my hair skanky. The staples are all in a tidy row, evenly spaced. And everyone has been amazed at how little hair was shaved away. Like Mariano, Dr. Badie is some kind of closer!

One funny episode occurred on Wednesday night. My nurse that night, Sherri, came in at about 9:30, and I was watching the end of the Angels game. We chatted a little about baseball, and I told her that the Angels were actually my sister's team and that I was watching the game for her. I told her my team was the Yankees. She said that her team was the Seattle Mariners, but that her favorite player had been Randy Johnson. As most people know, he is now a New York Yankee, although there are many days when we would like to give him back! I recounted to Sherri how the Yankees, the Angels and the Mariners had done over the past few days, and she said, "Wait a minute. Wasn't your surgery yesterday?" and I asked what day of the week it was. When she told me it was Wednesday, I said, "Yes, yesterday." She just shook her head and replied, "how can you possibly know baseball scores for three different teams the day after brain surgery?" What can I say? I guess we just naturally pay attention to those things that matter most.

That being said, I would like to give a heartfelt thank you to those people in my life who matter most. Thank you so much to all of you who were with me in the hospital: Steve, Mom and LeRoy, Caroline and Kiersten, Aunt Carol, Vicky, Mom and Dad Elder, and Steve's sister Kari--your presence was an encouragement to me and I felt embraced by so much love. Thank you to Glenn for bringing my goofball kids to visit on Wednesday--that really cheered me up. I especially enjoyed our play with the inhalation spirometer. Good times. Thank you to everyone who has brought food and in other ways provided for our family, including our good Rowland friends (Kathy, Stephanie, Amalia, Ana, Jessica, Miriam, Sandi, Erin, Emily, Tracy, Linda, and many others), and to Laura for her spirit-lifting visit on Monday. To those of you who are still planning to cook for and feed us, thank you too. Not having to shop or cook has been a HUGE help to both Steve and me. Thank you to Craig, Jeff and Alicia for covering my classes and taking good care of my kids. A very warm thank you to our friends Dan and Marlene for a restful weekend away and an amazing meal at Arnold Palmer's restaurant in the US Open room! A special thank you also to all of our family and friends who have prayed relentlessly that God's wisdom would guide our surgeon and his assistants--well done! Thank you to Deb, Vicky and Pastor Dave for praying with me both before and after surgery. Thanks, Mom and LeRoy, for treating Jynx as if she were your own while we were unable to care for her. If I have left out a single effort on my behalf, I apologize. I'd blame it on my brain tumor, but my kids inform me that I can't use that excuse anymore. Praise God! But thank you too! God bless you all for the ways you have blessed the Elders this month.

A super special thank you to Steve for writing the first post-op blog, even though he posted some pretty icky pictures (all with my permission, he wanted me to assure you, but I think this one, taken one week post-op, is better), and for being the first one with whom I share my great triumphs and whisper my deepest fears. Thank you for being trustworthy with all the shadowy parts of my life and for sticking around through the rough stuff, knowing right alongside me that the best is yet to come. I love you!

The Greatest Blog Entry Evah!

Howdy folks. Steve Elder here. I have the privilege of updating you on my bride's condition after having her brain tumor resected.

But before I continue, I should give my wife credit for teaching me something. I said to her today, "Babylove, why do the doctors say they had to 'resect' your tumor instead of just 'remove' it?"

She opened her saggy eyes and looked up at me from her hospital bed, morphine and vicodin oozing from every pore, and slowly formed her lips to say, "Well, disect means to take something apart and leave it apart; resect means to take something apart and put it back together."

And then I think I heard her murmur something about "idiot" and "let me sleep" or something like that.

Anyways, so I said, "Oh, that makes sense. What doesn't make sense is that you just had an electric saw cut your skull open yet you can still recite SAT definitions." Katie is remarkable.

Let me give you a little timeline of her remarkable day.

This is Katie just before being wheeled into the OR.

Only Katie could pull off looking this sexy in a shower cap.

Her surgery began about 8:00am and was over about 9:15am. I know this because when I emerged from the waiting room bathroom family and friends told me that I had just missed the surgeon explain how the surgery went.

Dangit! Yes, that's what I said ... or something kinda like that. I couldn't believe that for one of THE most anticipated moments of my LIFE I was in the bathroom. I wondered if I was on candid camera or trapped in a Seinfeld episode.

Luckily the surgeon came out to the waiting room moments later and forced everyone to stop laughing and pointing at me.

He told me he biopsied her tumor in the OR and it was benign. It was a meningioma (benign) just like he thought. He said she'd be in recovery for about 2 more hours and that I could see her when they moved her to her hospital room. He said she wouldn't need to spend any time in intensive care and that she might be able to go home in 2 days.

I felt like crying.

This whole experience, coupled with her bacterial meningitis ordeal a few weeks ago, had my emotions percolating and they almost bubbled over when I heard this GREAT news.

When I was finally able to see her she looked like this. The time was now about 1:15PM and I hadn't seen her since 7:30AM. When I walked into her room she opened her eyes and groggily said, "Heeyyy, what a nice surprise to wake up to you."

I know what you're thinking... she obviously was still heavily medicated. True, but what she said will forever be etched in my memory as one of my most favoritest moments.

As she faded in and out of sleep, her only complaint was the extreme pain she felt in the right side of her face where they sliced through her chewing muscle when they cut open her scalp. I've got to find out what that muscle is called because I feel silly calling it her chewing muscle.

Her nurse gave her morphine for the pain but it didn't do squat. Then the nurse gave her vicodin and that seemed to help.
She had these crazy things on both her legs called Alternating Leg Pressure thingys. They keep the blood circulating and help prevent blood clots. They're like blood pressure arm bands but for the legs. My first thought when I saw them was, "No wonder Katie insisted on getting a pedicure before her surgery... she knew I'd be publishing photos of her feet."

I left her that night to go home to the kids. When I opened the garage door for a split second I thought I was in Costco. There were so many food items stacked around the garage from the wonderful, loving, caring, generous people we work with at Rowland High School. I stood there for a minute and looked at all the time and energy that went into buying us this food. And I also made a mental note of who had not given us anything. They might be sorry, nay, verily verily, they shall be sorry.

When I left work early today, er, I mean when I left work on time just like I always do and have done for the last 17 years, I drove to see Katie and this is what she looked like.

When I walked into her room she looked up at me with blood-shot eyes and said, "Daaaang Elder, this medicinral... medricinal, this medicinal mari-ju-wana is the SHIZZAZ!"

I said, "Stop hogging it all ya greedy woman and give me a hit, I've had a hard day too." It was only then that I realized she was pulling my leg. What she was actually doing was exercising her lungs. She has to suck air from this tube 10 times every hour. I forget why. But I know it's important that she suck and not blow.

A little later in the day she looked like this. Could she be any more adorable in her pink Yankees hat? I think not.

I know she looks a little stoned, but seriously, she wasn't really smoking anything in the previous picture. I think this look she's got going on here can be best described as "Ring the nurse for more vicamordinphine."

Katie has a hate-love relationship with vicodin. It relives her pain but makes her sick to her stomach. She spent the night after her surgery throwing up. All night. Until 5 in the morning.

She said to me, "Have you ever tried to vomit with a 3-inch hole in your skull and a zillion staples in your scalp? It hurts!"

She says she feels crunchiness in her head. It must be from the staples rubbing against her scalp.

I've never felt more helpless and powerless in my life than during the last few months. I would give anything, ANYTHING, to stop Katie's suffering.

Besides being in pain, Katie has to be woken up every hour because she had surgery on her brain. Each hour she's given a test, a test for her 12 cranial nerves. Did you know you have 12 cranial nerves? I mean, I knew this, but did you?

She has to touch her nose and then touch the nurse's finger, she has to follow with her eyes the nurse's fingers, she has to push her feet against the nurse's hands, etc...

It kinda looks like she's being pulled over for a DUI. I mean, not that I know what that looks like. I'm just imagining.

Today her kids came to visit her. Zack and Lizzy. I know this boosted her spirits because she's so in love with her kids. And they're good kids too. They are my step-kids and I only beat them when they truly deserve it. But I beat them out of love.

Katie is such a good mom. I only hope my own 2 children are as close to me and as open with me as Katie's kids are with her.

After Zack and Lizzy left, Katie's surgeon paid her a visit. He removed her doo-rag and this is what it looked like.

I couldn't believe how little hair was shaved off. This surgeon, Dr. Behnam Badie, is a super genius if you ask me.

Katie did a lot of research online and she met a lot of brain tumor patients in chat rooms who had doctors who were unsympathetic to cosmetic worries such as hair loss.

Besides being ultra-skilled at his craft, Katie's doctor is one of the most caring, empathetic doctors we've ever known.

Katie's pain is supposed to subside in another day or two. If she can eat and walk, and not feel too much pain, and not feel nauseous she gets to come home on Thursday.

I can't wait!

Let me flashback to the day of her surgery.

I was in the waiting room when I was visited by Gail, a neighbor of mine when I lived in Pasadena before Katie and I were married. Gail works at City of Hope and helped us get our first appointment to the hospital.

It was sooooo comforting knowing a friend of ours worked at COH. When I was introducing Gail to Katie's mom Gail said, "Katie lights up a room when she walks in it."

Then she looked at me and said, "I know she lights up Steve."

Oh man, those percolating emotions pounced on me for some reason and I had to fight hard not to burst into tears. My lip started quivering and my eyes started getting misty.

I guess Gail's right because Katie does light up me.

But it's even more than that.

Katie IS me. I mean, I wouldn't be who I am today without Katie.

She taught me who I am and how to be who I am.

When Katie and I met we discovered that we are each others anam cara. Anam cara means soul friend. Someone who always accepts you as you truly are, holding you in beauty and light.

Katie often says the two of us were scooped up, molded and formed out of the same handful of dirt. That we're connected. Soul friends. Anam caras.

I think she's right because she always views the worst parts of me as if they were beauty and light. And I'm the farthest thing from that.

But not to Katie, my soul friend.

I need my anam cara to come home.

Because she truly is beauty and light to me.

And I love her so much with my whole heart.

Bad Things

Surgery is tomorrow. Steve and I will leave the house at 5 a.m. to be at the hospital at 6:00 for a 7:45 appointment with the surgeon. As the nurse told us last week, 7:45 is incision time. Don't remind me! Steve and other family members will do their best to communicate with you throughout the day, and I'm hoping Steve will make a guest appearance right here tomorrow night to write a thorough update. I probably won't be back until the weekend.

I'm actually feeling quite calm. Yesterday I had some butterflies but I'm mostly okay. I have lots to do today to keep me busy, and fortunately the Yankees don't play today. They've dropped four in a row (ugh!), and I don't think I could stand to witness another loss right now! If they get spanked by Cleveland later this week, don't tell me! I don't want to know! There are definitely some instances where ignorance really is bliss!

A former student dropped by school on Friday. Steve and I both love Jordanne and were very glad to see her, but she seemed sad. With regard to my tumor, she said, "Life is so hard. I don't understand why good things happen to bad people." I wanted to share with you what I told her.

First of all, I believe that we live in (to quote Pastor Dave) a bruised and broken world. God created us to live in perfect enjoyment of him and each other. Illness, crime, violence, injury, death: these were never his plan. Whenever I hear about another husband who has beaten or killed his wife, I think about this. God designed marriage as the ultimate relationship, which he modeled for us through the example of Christ and his bride, the church. Our world is truly hurting when even the most sacred relationship, that of man and wife, is marred by violence. But man does this--not God.

I don't even believe that God allows these things with an "oh well" attitude. I believe he grieves for us. He feels every heartache, every hurt. And I certainly don't believe that God is punishing me or you or anyone else who suffers. He only wants good for us, his creation. But we continue to be hurt and to hurt each other because we choose to. You see, this is the double-edge of free will. God enabled us to choose freely, knowing that if and when we chose him, it would be real choice, our own decision, and would consequently have great power. Forced choice is no choice at all.

Unfortunately, being given the gift of free will often means that we will choose badly. And going all the way back to Adam and Eve, over and over again, man has chosen badly. And so bad things happen. People get hurt. People get sick. People die. Our world is broken. Paying attention to the world around me only increases my hope of Heaven. What a joy it will be to see perfect peace, perfect submission to God's will, perfect results of this submission.

But we live on this earth, at least for the time being, and so we must deal with the consequences of thousands of years of sinful choice and disobedience to God's will. Just a quick word on God's will--it never occurred to me to consider God a joy-kill. Every time we disobey, we suffer. Every time we obey, we are rewarded. This is not a guarantee that we won't suffer, however. Suffering is a product of our imperfect world. But even in suffering we can choose God's path.

And so, as I told Jordanne, most people I know who encounter suffering are able, after the fact, to look at their journey objectively and see where the bad manifested itself, over time, in good. For it is only in the dark times, through the bad and scary and wrong, that we grow and develop and become. Good and easy requires nothing of us. Bad and scary requires everything we have.

And fortunately, even though I'm hardly on the other side of this current obstacle, I can already see good. Here's how:

My relationship with God is more real than it has ever been. The restlessness that used to plague me has been replaced by a peaceful assurance that I am right where I need to be, being used by God to continue his purpose for me. Even if I can't see clearly what that purpose is, I can trust that he is using me. In Psalm 138, David writes of God's promise,

"Though I walk in the midst of trouble,
you preserve my life;
you stretch out your hand against the anger of my foes,
with your right hand you save me.

The LORD will fulfill his purpose for me;
your love, O LORD, endures forever—
do not abandon the works of your hands."

Another good thing: I have been given an amazing perspective about what matters most. These days, I seldom let myself get hung up on the little stuff. This, too, used to be a plague. I let the most ridiculously insignificant issues bring division to my relationships with the people I love. Now I can see what a waste of time and energy it is to judge others, to fight, or be angry, or hold grudges. Suffering is what unites us: we all suffer. And we all need the compassion of others during such a time. Likewise, we too must be compassionate. This life is hard, as Jordanne said. Just another reason to take care of each other. As Paul wrote to the Galatians,

"It is absolutely clear that God has called you to a free life. Just make sure that you don't use this freedom as an excuse to do whatever you want to do and destroy your freedom. Rather, use your freedom to serve one another in love; that's how freedom grows. For everything we know about God's Word is summed up in a single sentence: Love others as you love yourself. That's an act of true freedom" (Galatians 5:13).

Finally, I have rediscovered my love of writing. Since I was a little girl, I have loved to write and have known it was an act that brought me great joy. Somewhere over the course of my life, however, I had forgotten. Somewhere between a college paper on The Scarlet Letter and a graduate level summary of a book about the history of the footnote (true story!), I forgot. But now I remember. I love to write--it brings me peace and contentment to explore my feelings in writing. Better, I have been told that my writing is bringing peace and understanding to others. Praise God! Perhaps this is one of his purposes: one of the ways he will bring good from bad. For Paul writes of God's promise,

"God can pour on the blessings in astonishing ways so that you're ready for anything and everything, more than just ready to do what needs to be done. As one psalmist puts it,

He throws caution to the winds,
giving to the needy in reckless abandon.
His right-living, right-giving ways
never run out, never wear out.

This most generous God who gives seed to the farmer that becomes bread for your meals is more than extravagant with you. He gives you something you can then give away, which grows into full-formed lives, robust in God, wealthy in every way, so that you can be generous in every way, producing with us great praise to God" (2 Corinthians 9:8-11).

This is good.

Tumor bad. Brain surgery scary. Recovery unknown. But God is good. And he will bring good to me and to all of us, as we choose to take him with us on our journeys. I wish for you the fullness of God's blessings, just as they have been so graciously given to me.

Death

City of Hope requests that upon admission we present my notarized advanced directive and durable power of attorney for healthcare, and so on Thursday night we met with our friend Mike, who is an attorney, to get some advice on how best to express my wishes with regard to end-of-life decisions. Even though we had a lovely dinner, the work we came together to do was not fun. This is serious business, and boy, of all the documents I have completed in my lifetime, this is one I really want to get right. And so I have been wading through questions about life-saving measures, organ donation, coma, brain death, and my personal definition of life.

In addition, we also discussed a living will and the ways I would want my life insurance, retirement and home equity dispersed upon my death; the contact my children would have with my family once their father had sole custody; and the ways in which Steve and his children would be able to continue their relationships with my children if I were to die.

For those of you who have not yet dealt with these questions, let me tell you: it is impossible to keep a solely cognitive focus. Emotional detachment is not a possibility. And so I have been thinking quite a lot lately about death, namely my own, and I'm a little afraid. I'm sure a contributing factor is the fear I feel as I think about my surgery next week, and what that will involve: the anesthesia, the cutting, the sawing, the shaving. Will someone make a mistake? In addition, I think about my recovery. Will it be a smooth one? Will I suffer mental or neurological deficits? Will a seemingly benign tumor actually turn out to be malignant?

I could drive myself crazy with these questions. Sometimes I think I'm already a little crazy. I'm moody and temperamental at home. I lack focus and initiative at work. I've begun sleeping with a light on because of the terrible dreams I am having, dreams of being chased or having to flee or searching through the night. I wake up exhausted from the exertion of sleeping.

So of course I have to continue to remind myself that I am not in control. I have no control. Even Dr. Badie, my surgeon, ultimately will not be responsible for my life or my death. In her book My Grandfather's Blessings, Rachel Naomi Remen tells a story about her elderly mother, very ill with heart disease, who came to live with her after her first of many cardiac arrests, still responsible for managing all of her many daily medications. She writes, "I was horrified. At eighty-five, my mother was, to say the least, absentminded. What if she forgot to take a pill or became confused and took two? What then?"

And so she began, as casually as possible, to manage her mother's regimen. "Remember the blue one, Mom," she would say at breakfast. This went on and on, with Rachel's care becoming more intrustive, until one day her mother finally stopped her in her tracks. She told her grown daughter, "Rachel, do you know that I will die when it is my time? Not one second before and not one second after. And when that happens, you will probably tell yourself some sort of a story: 'It was because she forgot the yellow one or because she took two blue ones.' But that will not be the reason at all."

Rachel's mother held out to her a handful of colored pills and said, "You don't think that these things can outwit God, do you?" In the modern world, we often think this. The technology that will be used to conduct my surgery, to keep my heart beating and my brain functioning while I am deeply anesthetized, is unknowable to me. The imaging system that will be used to precisely locate my tumor, unseen to doctors from the outside, is a wonder. And we fool ourselves into thinking that our technology has some sort of power that, truth be told, it simply does not possess. Even the operators of this equipment, the surgeons, the anesthesiologists, and the radiologists, hold no real power.

On the day I die, it will not be because of the faulty turn of a dial or a surgeon's slip of a knife. It will be because my life on earth is over. Because God's plan, his purpose for my life, has been accomplished. On the one hand, believing this takes great faith. However, it also brings great comfort. I do not have to fear my death. For it is in God's hands, just as my life has always been. Psalm 139 reminds me:

You know me inside and out,
you know every bone in my body;
You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit,
how I was sculpted from nothing into something.
Like an open book, you watched me grow from conception to birth;
all the stages of my life were spread out before you,
The days of my life all prepared
before I'd even lived one day.

So because I believe that I was created by God to do the work, to know the people, to become the person he intended for me to be, I can place my medical needs into the hands of others. For God has ordained when I will die, not man, and I choose to trust God. As Remen writes in her book, Tibetan wisdom teaches that "we die, not because we are ill but because we are complete." So true.