Uninvited, but Welcomed

(and a tumor board update)

Dearest Friend,

So we sat down together, Cancer and me. We sipped our coffee and we ate our scones and talked it out.  It was uncomfortable at times, but after a while, I think we reached a healthy understanding. And by healthy understanding, I mean that we agreed that while she has moved into the house, she is still (just) a guest, and that’s all she will ever be. 

She didn’t take over the mortgage. She doesn’t even pay rent. She doesn’t prepare meals. She never folds clothes. She rarely even does her own laundry. She generally leaves the kitchen a complete mess and hasn’t replaced a single roll of toilet paper. Not even one. She does go out to check for Amazon packages on the porch, but unless they’re addressed to her, she doesn’t bother to bring them in. And yet, she demands all the attention. She walks into a room and expects everyone to stop what they’re doing and to listen to how hard her day was.  Maybe you’ve had guests like her.

Not great.

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Here is the problem. I am still searching for the imaginary line between compassion and enabling. Between support and codependence. Between giving and giving up. Sometimes I wonder if struggling with these imaginary lines is what it means to be human. 

In The Empathy Exams, Leslie Jamison writes:

At what volume does feeling become sentimental? How obliquely does feeling need to be rendered so it can be saved from itself? How do we distinguish between pathos and melodrama? Too often, I think, there is the sense that we just know. Well I don’t.

She is not talking about cancer here. I think she was talking about the fundamental challenge of being fully human.

How do we distinguish between taking care of our bodies and letting our care for them overcome us? At what point does being responsible with our money transform into money controlling our lives? At what point does genuine and rightful concern for the direction of our society drift into obsession? At what point does love turn into idolatry? When does fighting cancer overwhelm living life?  These are hard questions, and I think she nailed it with this:

Too often, I think, there is the sense that we just know. Well I don’t.

Neither do I, Leslie. But I’m willing to face the question with integrity.

I will not ignore Cancer as she lives in my little house by the woods, and if I do, she will certainly destroy it from the inside-out. So I will take my temozolomide and I will go to radiation and I will have surgery when it’s time to have surgery. We will go to Johns Hopkins in February to get into their trials system and we will tend to cancer as we ought. 

Nor will I give her free reign over what is not hers. I cannot worship her. There is way too much beauty and life and love and way too many glimpses of the real Real all around me to let cancer cloud my vision. God’s yes is, indeed, too deep to overlook - to let cancer (or anything else) come between us. My hope is to recognize it all the more.

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I do not pretend this was ever the point of Cancer coming to stay here, but perhaps the recognition of this dilemma is one of the ways she has contributed to the health of the household. Her presence has demanded that I take stock of the things I have, over time, allowed to come between me and my true love. Things like security and belonging and safety. Good things to be sure. But if I recognize how things, even good things, have taken over and yet I do nothing to reset the balance - then I have forsaken what I know to be (capital-T) True.

So did Cancer and I make friends with one another? I believe we may have. Ironically, we are probably going to hang out together far less frequently than we have been. We will probably do a better job of respecting each others’ spaces. But maybe we like each other more than we used to. I’m good with that.

And we are willing to continue the conversation. Which seems important.

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Okay, a final note about the tumor board. My doctor called yesterday and it turns out that the area of concern in the scan was actually inside the radiation field. What does that mean? Either there has been cancer progression or what we saw on the scan was not progression at all - only inflammation resulting from the radiation. Either explanation is possible, although the doctor suggested that an inflammatory response to radiation is common, and all things considered, she believes it slightly more likely than disease progression.

Which is good.

But at this point, we do not and cannot know. We know only that additional radiation is not an option because the area has been treated already and additional radiation would do too much damage to a brain that can ill-afford more damage. And we know that the risk of surgery in this particular region of the brain is too high to seriously consider it.

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So what, then, do we do? 

I will be restarting chemo in a few days, as has always been the plan, and turn back to the work of recognizing God’s yes that is all around us. I will bathe myself in the forest each morning, letting the mist cleanse my lenses, and I will share with you what I see when the grime has been scrubbed away. Kathryn and I will drink a glass of good red wine most evenings. I will ask for grace from those who I long to see and invite them on walks and accept their invitations to catch up on the moments I have, regrettably, delayed while I let cancer spread her stuff out all over the house. We will bake more bread for friends and will visit the grandchildren and go to JHU to see what studies are out there. I will read more Mary Oliver poetry and listen to more Nick Cave and paint (poorly) with friends. I will ride bikes when the weather is good and will camp on the beach so we can wake to sunrise over the ocean. In a couple of months I will  get rescanned, and then, and only then will we know what showed up on Monday’s scan is something, or it was nothing. 

Until then, we just let yes keep growing deeper by honoring each meaning-filled moment, and loving with less and less fear.

Come with me, beloved. Let’s go!

Oremus,

Chris