A Page Out of Ethel Merman's Book

MY APPOINTMENT with the oncologist six weeks after surgery was to plan my treatment. Radiation would be followed by course of chemotherapy, how much and how long dependent on my response to radiation.

I MET WITH THE RADIOLOGIST the next day. He studied my history and gave me a long face. Given the location of the tumors, radiation was impossible. Several vital organs would be damaged, and the blood flow to my right leg would be impaired. My face grew hot enough to melt my self-composure.

LATER, THE DOCTOR’S REPORT said that I became too emotional for him to continue. He was being polite. My stomach surged, and I bolted for the restroom, trying to contain the sound of my sobs with a wet paper towel pressed over my mouth.

I CALLED THE ONCOLOGIST that evening after I’d gotten myself together. He gave me the next piece of bad news. Chemotherapy for melanoma had been most successful as a preventative for patients who were tumor-free. He’d planned on the radiation killing the tumors. The response rate for cases like mine was not good. The face of the friend I’d lost to melanoma floated in front of me, and I decided he’d downplayed the results. The oncologist told me to check if the surgeon had any answers.

I BEGGED AND BULLIED my way into the surgeon’s schedule the following morning. He slapped my file on the examining table and said, “The good news is you’re healing nicely. The bad news is I’ve consulted with a preeminent oncologist-surgeon, and he and I agree, any more surgery at this time would be more likely to kill you than help you.”

“SO, THERE’S NO HOPE?” I asked.

“YOU CAN TRY the cancer research centers.”

I HAD ALREADY SEEN what they’d done to my friend, and I had more concern than confidence.

MY HUSBAND, TOM, and I made it on the elevator before tears started spilling down my front.

HE PATTED MY ARM. “This reminds me of my favorite song,” he said, “Everything’s Coming Up Roses. I can hear Ethel Merman right now.” He began to sing the words.

HE HAD A POINT. I was putting too much stock in the doctors. I had pinned my hopes on them, and they weren’t in charge of hope. They weren’t in charge of healing either. Only God was.

I GAVE TOM A SMILE. “If this means I’m worth more to you alive than dead, then I’m glad I don’t have more life insurance.”

“SO AM I, SUGAR.” He gave me a hug. We laughed. It was time to call in a professional. We made a phone call and headed to our minister’s office.

You’re blessed! Be a blessing.

The Sound of My Own Voice

THE SURGERY WAS ONLY PARTIALLY SUCCESSFUL, and my doctor’s words to me as he signed the forms to release me from the hospital were, “Keep a positive attitude.” Right.

I BEGAN TO READ everything I could about people who’d survived cancer.

WHILE THERE ARE MANY ACCOUNTS written by the grateful and the jubilant who were able to use their positive attitude to survive, darn few told the reader how to put a winner’s slant on life. So I decided what the world wouldn’t deliver to my doorstep, I would have to create for myself.

ONE THING WAS CLEAR, I needed dwell on what was possible. Fear triggered stress. Stress retarded healing. I had to find a way to substitute hope for fear. And I had an idea how to do that.

FOR YEARS I HAD SUBSCRIBED to a prayer guide that was filled with affirmations. Over the years I had accumulated several that seemed especially hopeful, and these I recorded. I had forty minutes of positive thoughts and healing commands, and every night and every afternoon I listened to them.

SOON I FOUND that the ideas on that tape were so ingrained that when someone said something thoughtless (like “it’s God’s plan, or you can’t deny your fate,” etc.), I would respond with one of the thoughts on my tape.

WHEN YOU HAVE CANCER, there are many, many dreadful places your mind can carry you. Tumors seem to be sending out deadly missiles to all parts of your body. You wake up in the early hours envisioning cancer taking over all your vital organs.

I REFUSED TO ALLOW MY MIND DWELL in those dark places. A positive attitude was all that I could do about what was happening to me, and I had to develop a way of thinking that left no room for doubt. From what I’d read, it was the thing most likely to keep me alive.

AT THE FIRST INKLING OF FEAR, the earphones would go on my head, and the play button would take me to a place of healing and love. I had a future to look forward to. God loved me. He was with me. I had no reason to be afraid. Healing and restoration were going on in my body every moment of every day.

THE CANCER DID NOT BELONG TO ME. It represented only a tiny part of my otherwise well and beautiful body, and would, in time, be ushered out by the health that was increasing in me each and every day. No matter outward appearances, I would be healed. I would move forward in confidence even if I could not see the way.

AND I LEFT BEHIND THE ME who had doubts about her faith. The me who had difficulty staying in touch with God. The me who often only went through the motions.

THIS WAS A TEST, and I would turn all my energy toward it because failing was not an option. And somewhere along the line the old me would be left so far behind that later I would have trouble remembering her.

You’re blessed. Be a blessing!

When Frogs Hop Out of a Friend’s Mouth

EVEN BEFORE MY SURGERY, the phone calls and casseroles began to overtake our home. If Methodists could cure cancer with food, the disease would’ve been eliminated long ago.

I WAS REMINDED OF JOB’S FRIENDS. Although sympathetic at first, a few managed to say all the wrong things. “What could you have done to cause this?” one asked.

“YES. IT IS SCARY, isn’t it?” I said.

HER SAD EYES CONFIRMED IT ALL. If melanoma had struck me without warning—as healthy as I appeared to be—why, it could strike her too! Where was the order in the universe? How could a person who didn’t play with carcinogens be roasted in the fire of cancer?

OTHERS FOLLOWED. Some hinted that I was paying for some sin. “Well, there are certainly plenty to choose from,“ I admitted, “but, I’ve asked for forgiveness, and I think I’ve received it.”

THEY ALL MISSED THE POINT. The question isn’t, “Why did you get this?” but rather, “Why have you been so lucky up to now?”

MERIT HAD NOTHING to do with my previous escapes from illness, and the wages of sin hadn’t given me cancer. If God were only about justice, believe me, I’d have been taken long ago. The cause-and-effect my friends are looking for just doesn’t exist. The simple truth wouldn’t comfort my friends—I have this because it’s my turn.

AND I WANT TO COMFORT them because they are my friends, and they face fear and loss just as I do.

FEAR HAS DISCONNECTED THEIR BRAINS from their hearts and caused frogs to hop out of their mouths. They don’t realize how condemning their questions are, and I prefer to leave it that way.

JUST THINK. Job’s friends asked those same froggy questions nearly three thousand years ago, so I think I’ll just cope in the name of friendship—like Job did.

You’re blessed! Be a blessing.

Sticking My Head in an Oven

LATE THE AFTERNOON of July 2, 2002, Tom and our minister, Robert, and I waited in the doctor’s examining room, joking to keep dread at bay. It was time to hear the diagnosis from the biopsy, and we were all nervous.

EARLIER THAT JUNE my physician had sent me for a sonogram. He’d thought I had ovarian cancer, but the sonogram indicated liver cancer. A CT scan after that showed a pattern the radiologist thought was lymphoma. But, when I came out of the biopsy, the surgeon had said he thought it was melanoma—the disease that had, in rapid progression, taken the life of a good friend before I’d had time to prepare myself for the grief of her departure.

TODAY I WAS TO FIND OUT MORE, and I had trouble keeping my hands still.

AT LUNCH, Tom and I had decided what our reaction would be if the news were terrible. I’d sat at my friend’s hospital bed through repeated courses of chemotherapy that had left her a burned-out shell of her former vibrant self, her smile and encouraging ways lost to painkillers and antidepressants shortly before she too was gone. I didn’t want that for me or for Tom--not without the assurance of some darn good results.

WE WERE BOLSTERED WITH PRAYER and with our minister’s presence, but tears were jabbing my throat, and I knew I would not be brave if the news were bad.

THE ONCOLOGIST ENTERED the room and shook everyone’s hand. He fumbled with the pages of my file, as if he were buying time.

LITTLE BLACK DOTS danced in front of my eyes.

“IT’S MELANOMA. Stage III or IV. We can’t tell yet.” The doctor rested his gentle eyes on me. “I’m so sorry.”

THE TEARS I’D ANTICIPATED evaporated. Instead I felt a wave of air surround my face as if I’d thrust my head into an oven hot enough to bake a cake. I’d expected something more dramatic to a sentence of death. Screaming, fainting. But there was none of that. Only this arid heat blowing in my face. “How bad is it?” I asked, using someone else’s voice.

HE BLEW OUT A LITTLE BREATH, which seemed to combine frustration with sympathy. “It’s pretty bad. But there’s much we can do.” He gave me an encouraging smile. “I want to do surgery right away. Next week if possible. We’ve got to excise all the cancer.”

“AND THEN?”

“RADIATION AS SOON as you’re able.”

“AND THEN?”

“CHEMO.”

“AND THEN?”

“AND THEN, we’ll see.”

I MANAGED TO EXHALE. The memory of my friend’s face floated in front of me. She seemed to disapprove. “How long do I have if I don’t get treatment?”

“I DON’T LIKE to say.”

“I UNDERSTAND. But I need to know. Tell me the statistics.”

“STATISTICS? Melanoma is very aggressive, particularly internal melanoma like yours, and when it shows up without any preliminary skin lesions . . . Three months, maybe six. But, you must keep a positive attitude.”

I LOOKED AT TOM. All the feelings I couldn’t manage for myself showed on his face. Now my tears gushed. I’d long ago given up believing life was fair, but this seemed too cruel.

SURROUNDED BY THE PRAYERS of my friends and ministers, and concentrating only on a positive outcome, I was rolled into surgery on the fifteenth.

Waiting

DURING THE THREE WEEKS that I waited for test results and waited for specialists to schedule the next battery of scans and tests, I became someone I didn’t know. I sat in the back of church at services so no one could see me cry when the choir sang. My journal pages were splotched. I couldn’t handle myself at the office so I quit going in. At times my chest was too tight to draw a breath. None of that mattered. The waiting went on.

IN THE RESTROOM OF ONE OF THE CLINICS a woman was talking on a cell phone, fussing with a curly crop of strawberry blonde hair. She seemed to be trying to wake up someone. She put the phone in her handbag with a snort, pulled the curls off, and set them on a shelf of wigs I hadn’t noticed before. She turned to me. “Teenaged boys. Bah.” She gave me a once-over. “What are you in for?”

MY EYES WELLED UP. “I don’t know yet.”

“OH,” SHE SAID. “That’s the worst part.” She tapped her chest with a finger. “Breast cancer. I’m an oncology nurse, and I nearly went crazy with the waiting.” She pulled a scarf out of her purse and draped it over her head. “My family too.” She eyed her handbag. “Not that you’d know it now.

“THERE’S A LOT OF WAITING in this game,” she tied the scarf behind her head. “Most of it because the doctors are over-committed and therefore never on time, and then of course, we’re dealing with more of them than usual.” She shrugged. “Get yourself a nice hobby.” She opened the door for me. “What’s your name?”

I SWIPED AT THE TEARS that seemed determined to embarrass me. “Tamara.”

SHE HUGGED ME. “I’m going to pray for you.”

I NEVER SAW HER AGAIN, never thought to ask her name, but I took her advice. Cancer patients just do a lot of waiting. The ones who knit could outfit the Swiss Army with socks.

MAKE THE WAITING COUNT. Find something you’ve never had time to do, that you’ve always wanted to do, and do it.

I DON’T ASK FOR THE PATIENCE OF JOB, I ask for the patience of Abraham. He waited ten years for the birth of Isaac. (But, I'll bet he wasn’t in the doctor’s waiting room that long!)

You’re Blessed. Be a Blessing!

Hope Has A Lesson Plan

SEVERAL TIMES I'VE BEEN ASKED if I were going to write about my "cancer adventure," though none of those who asked me were crude enough to put it quite that way. Most of them referred to my current situation as a fight or a battle. I'm sure that's how they felt it would be for them, had they been the one to receive the diagnosis. It's difficult to put yourself in someone else's position and imagine how you would behave or feel. And so it is with cancer. Everyone who doesn't have cancer thinks of it as a struggle. Those of us with it know it's more about carpe diem. Every day should be seized and the maximum wrung from it.

ALL OF US HAVE OUR MOMENTS in the barrel of life's adversity--we climb in and hope that the ride won't take us over Niagara. But climb in we do--mostly because we have no other choice. The barrel turns and bucks, and we ride in the dark--sometimes fearful, sometimes thrilled. And at a rare and intensely personal moment in that careening and spinning we are given the unmistakable understanding that we are not alone.

IN DISCOVERING MORE AND MORE of those moments, we find we are never alone, we just think we are. And we--muddling along in our self-constructed cocoon--miss most of them. More importantly, we miss out on a firm relationship with God.

I HAVE ALWAYS BEEN GIVEN to introspection but, unfortunately, rarely to insight, and so I can't promise you a front row seat at an earth-shattering revelation. I can only share an ordinary woman's road to faith, and in the process, her road to hope.

I MADE THE TRIP with almost no tools and too much of the wrong kind of baggage, but I made it. Hook elbows and walk with me. We have much in common. Our only real difference is that I know what will probably take me away from this world, and you may not have discovered it yet.

AND, WHEN YOU THINK ABOUT IT, that's not such a big difference.

You're blessed! Be a blessing.