The List

I MAY HAVE FELT I was on to something when I decided to measure success by listing my acts of service at the end of each day, but, frankly, I would rather have continued measuring success in the ways I had before my diagnosis. My return to the office was frustrating, not only because of what had changed in my absence, but also because the people I worked with knew my limitations far better than I did. They were kind, concerned, helpful, and solicitous. It was irritating and a blow to my pride.

AND THIS IDIOTIC NOTION I’d come up with—counting my acts of service . . . Did it mean I had given up on me too? Would I no longer be able to prove myself in the grind of the work-a-day world? Did I believe this list was all I was capable of? Each mid-afternoon when I dragged myself home, I knew it might be true. Making this list might be all I was equal to. Maybe it was more important than I wanted it to be.

I DIDN’T LIKE IT, but it wasn’t as if I had a choice. I desperately wanted to feel useful again, and I couldn’t think of any other way, so I worked on the list.

I COUNTED EVERYONE I helped. I counted everyone I prayed for. I counted everyone I offered so much as a moment’s focused attention to. When I was too tired to do anything else, I sent notes of encouragement and signed them, “The Crazy Old Lady.” And I added these to the list too. It seemed sad and futile, as if I were fooling myself, but still I did it because not doing it seemed worse than doing it.

THE LIST GREW LONGER, and I grew stronger. I began to look forward to each day. I was flexing a spiritual muscle I hadn’t know I possessed, and it was sustaining me. Who would I help next? What opportunity would come my way? It was an adventure. It was exciting . . . It was a blessing to me.

I HAD ONCE BELIEVED that time wasted could never be recovered, and that productive time resulted in items crossed off my “to do” list. I was driven by the belief that I could do more if I hurried, and in the rush, any sense of accomplishment had been crushed by a “to do” list that had no end.

NOTHING FROM THOSE DAYS made sense in my new world. In my tightly managed former life where I had believed my timeline to be unlimited, every second counted. Now that I could no longer hurry, and my time seemed short, I’d discovered how to be generous with it.

AFTER A FEW WEEKS, I was able to work most days without wearing out. I managed to do the things that were important and occasionally see to those things that weren’t.

SOME DAY I MIGHT AGAIN be able to complete the lengthy “to do” lists I once prided myself in, but maybe not. I don’t care whether I can or not. I have no need to prove myself. That’s no longer success to me.

I FEEL BETTER NOW about what I do to earn my living than I have during any of the previous thirty-seven years I spent in the work force. And I have the list to prove it.

WHAT’S THAT if not job satisfaction?

You’re blessed. Be a blessing!

Blooming in a New Way

AFTER SEVERAL WEEKS’ absence from work, I began to feel the pull of the office. I missed my colleagues and my clients, so I mustered as much energy as I could and reappeared. Everything looked the same, but nothing was the same. Over twenty-six hundred years ago Heraclitus said no one could step into the same river. I could see his point. Life had rolled on, and the well-oiled machinery of the place where I had spent much of my adult life had continued without me—very well indeed.

I WAS SOMEWHAT PLEASED. I’d been a good team player if my absence could be worked around, but mostly I was disappointed. Did I make so little difference to an organization I’d doted on for so many years?

WORSE, WHEN I COMPARED MYSELF to that formerly efficient self whose memory was never fuzzy, whose energy never flagged, I was even more deflated. By noon I had that leaden sensation exhaustion brings. I went home feeling that the race was passing me by, feeling I’d been kept in from recess without quite understanding how the punishment could have been avoided. In a world I’d once believed was governed by “Can he?” and “Will he?” I could no longer answer either with a yes.

I WAS IN DANGER OF FEELING USELESS. It doesn’t take a read of the first two chapters of Genesis to know man was meant to work. Uselessness would not lead me anywhere I wanted to go. I needed to redefine success for myself. Using accomplishments as a yardstick was only going to frustrate me.

I HAD TO LOOK TO SOMETHING that gave a rebirth to my sense of self-worth, and I found it in Colossians 3:23. “Whatever your task, put yourselves into it as done for the Lord and not for your masters . . . You serve the Lord.”

I’D NEVER paid much attention to this verse before, but here was an answer. I began to list the things that, at the end of each day, I could count as serving. A kind word. A smile. Encouragement. Willingness to accept help. Showing gratitude to others. Now I was on to something!

You’re blessed. Be a blessing!

Going It Alone

WHEN CANCER COMES CALLING, I don’t know how anyone can make the journey without God. But I have a friend or two who try.

ONE FRIEND HAS LET SUFFERING, pain, and anger separate her from God. As if He hadn’t suffered or didn’t know pain. Still she blames Him. If He’s in charge, she says, He’s not doing a very good job—as if He’s the one making the mistakes, and the rest of us, including her, are blameless.

SHE POINTS OUT HUMANITY’S SORRY LOT and thinks she’s alone in her suffering, abandoned in her time of need. And who of us haven’t felt that way—with or without cancer? She shakes her fist at God and refuses to worship Him. I want to ask her Dr. Phil’s question, “How’s that working for you?”

SO WHY DO I THINK WORSHIP is the answer? Does God need to hear her praises? No. Not at all. Worship is a reminder that she is here for His good pleasure and not because she deserves to be here. (If merit had anything to do with it, I wouldn’t have made it past my eighth birthday. That was when I discovered boys, and it was downhill after that.)

SHE MAINTAINS CHRISTIANS are hypocrites. Well, of course we’re hypocrites--with the best of intentions perhaps, but hypocrites nonetheless. The problem is she’s looking at the sheep and not the Shepherd. Christians can’t stand up to the ideal she expects of us. Even with the best of intentions, we all pave our way to error.

MY RESPONSE TO HER? Get real. Church is a hospital for sinners, a refuge for fellow sufferers. It’s a means for us to offer a little comfort to each other as we stumble along together. Attending church is a sign we need help, not a sign we’ve figured everything out!

BESIDES, I like the music.

You’re blessed! Be a blessing.

God's Deadline

PALE, HER ABDOMEN DISTENDED by her illness, my dear friend cast her sweet brown eyes in my direction and said in a listless voice, “If I were to get better, of what use would I be?” I cried all the way home, knowing I had just said goodbye. My friend had lost her purpose and with it her will to live. Suffering and a sense of being overwhelmed had taken their toll.

BUT, AS I EXPERIENCE the same disease, I find there is something I didn’t see before. Life, even my own, seems to go on with the beat of an implacable fate. Sometimes I stand on the curb and shout at the parade of my life as it seems to pass me by, and other times I find my place and manage to fall into step as if everything were perfectly normal.

AND IT WAS THAT WAY from the very beginning. After eleven years of diligent writing crammed into every spare moment (resulting in two 500-page manuscripts), I was offered a five-book contract as a novelist. Two days after that, I was diagnosed with almost certain death.

I WAS NEAR TEARS as I prepared to meet with the publisher. How could I let this kind man—who of the countless submissions I had made was probably the first person to actually read one of my manuscripts—squander resources on a woman who might not have the energy to do the required edits and who would certainly not live to promote a book?

AFTER I EXPLAINED to him why I couldn’t sign his contract, the publisher gave me a thoughtful look and pushed the papers across his desk to me. “You ought to go ahead and sign it,” he said. “I’ve seen publishing help a lot of sick writers get better.”

FOR MONTHS I had drifted from doctor’s appointment to doctor’s appointment. I could no longer drift. I didn’t know what cancer had in store for me, but I did know God wanted me to finish this book. The publisher’s words made that clear.

FROM THAT MEETING on, no matter where I was, every moment I could squeeze out of my day was now focused to the task of making this first book—which would likely be my only book—the very best it could be. I was in a race. While editing and fact-checking I put my disease and pain aside. The publisher’s deadline for me wasn’t as much my worry as was God’s deadline for me. And I had to finish first.

You’re blessed. Be a blessing!

You Haven't Got a Hair!

WHEN I WAS A TEENAGER, the ultimate challenge was, “You haven’t got a hair,” and the phrase raced through my head as my friend spoke of the chemo she would undergo that would rob her of what she prized as her best claim to beauty: her lavish, blonde, shoulder-length hair. I haven’t had to endure that experience yet, and I had no words for her, so I had found a friend who had and arranged a meeting.

I LISTENED as they connected, the experienced one now sporting a cap of curls. My friend said very little, but when we met for lunch the following week, I almost walked past her. She had transformed herself into an alluring red head. She gave her hair a toss that reminded me of a movie star popular in the days of black-and-white movies and laughed.

“WOW,” I SAID. “You should have done this years ago.” I sat down beside her to wait for our table.

“I ALWAYS WONDERED what life as a red head would be like, and now I don’t have to worry about the dye ruining my hair, do I?” She laughed again and told me she had chosen to do the chemo first to get the thing she dreaded most out of the way. I marveled at the strength of this woman I knew so well. She was proof of my personal definition of bravery—overcoming fear.

WE LAUGHED over lunch about all the photographs her husband had taken of her when she’d come home from the salon. “When he got over being stunned, he ran for the camera.”

I KNOW THERE WERE DARK DAYS for her as she paced herself through chemo. Losing one’s hair is only worsened by the loss of eyebrows and lashes, which in her case followed soon after. Keeping a sense of humor must’ve been a challenge more than once, but in all those times she had the photographs of herself as a look-alike of Veronica Lake, and the knowledge that she would live and that she might choose to do again something she’d never expected to do even once!

You’re blessed. Be a blessing.

Mind Over Disease? Or Only Mind Over Illness?

DISEASE IS WHAT MEDICINE concentrates on; illness is what the patient deals with. They’re related, but they’re not the same.

IS IT REALLY ONLY MIND over illness? Or could it really be mind over disease? Could how we think really affect the disease itself?

THOSE OF US WHO KEEP OUR PRAYER muscles well exercised certainly have a different illness experience than those who don’t. By reframing our mind’s references, we affect the way we experience disease. But, it goes further than that.

THOSE WHO STUDY psychonueroimmunology (PNI)--and they’re a pretty impressive lot--tell us that the immune system can be taught. To prove the point, PNI studies have found that under stress the body uses energy to prepare for survival. If stressors remain too intense for too long, the energy that the body would normally use to fight disease is misdirected to the fight-or-flight response. In time, the immune system is suppressed.

CANCER PATIENTS, AND OTHERS who are ill, are desperately in need of a well-tuned, “smart” immune system. They have to reverse this suppression, and those of us who believe God have an edge. When doctors tell us we mustn’t give up hope, we know what they mean. Fear dwells in hopelessness, and fear—a major trigger for survival instincts—is the immune system’s enemy.

WELL, I’M NO SCIENTIST, but I do know how to send fear out of my life and bring hope in. . . on my knees.

You’re blessed. Be a blessing!

Radial What?

DISAPPOINTINGLY, results from the trial I completed in March 2003 would prove inconclusive. I remained a candidate for the second trial, but during the five long months that I waited for that trial to be approved by both the FDA and the hospital board, the lower of the two tumors began to misbehave. Painfully.

ANOTHER CANCER “ADVENTURE” was on my dance card, and so, in late June 2003 I began a course of Novalis shaped beam surgery. Radial beam surgery. High energy radiation. All names for the new kid on the radiation block. It had an incredible record of remission for various forms of cancer, but almost no history with melanoma.

ONCE AGAIN, I, WHO HAD always had an aversion to finding new frontiers, would try something few had tried before. Six times I was arranged on a glass table and fired upon by the arm of the Novalis body machine. The pain the tumor caused stopped for several days, and then returned to become my constant companion.

ON HALLOWEEN the radiologist who had assisted with the Novalis treatment told me that it had not been effective. My tumor was still evident. He was very sorry.

HE WAS SORRY, but I was devastated. Another door had slammed shut. That left the second trial, and I prayed that the FDA would approve it and that the hospital would find the funding.

SIX WEEKS later they did.

EACH PARTICIPANT was thoroughly tested and scanned for a baseline. When the results came back, I was told that the radiated tumor no longer appeared on the scan. The Novalis had worked after all! I couldn’t believe it. It was the first good news Tom and I had had in eighteen months.

THERE WAS MORE, however, and it wasn’t good. A new area appeared showed signs of cancer. It was spreading. Was this the news that announced the beginning of the end? Was this the first inkling that the cancer was going to take over my body? Was it going to win?

MY HUSBAND REMINDED me that this kind of thinking wouldn’t take us where we needed to go, and I made a decision to take the good news to heart and not let the new tumor tarnish it. After all, we laughed, two tumors were gone. What did it matter that two were yet to go? I hadn’t lost any ground.

THAT DAY I also decided to think of this disease as a search-and-destroy mission that would remain a constant, though unwanted, companion in my life. Setting my goal on a cure and crashing down with each setback would be too hard on me and the people who loved me. Any advances the cancer might make couldn’t be allowed to determine whether I was having a good day or not. I didn’t have the luxury of bad days. Period. I simply couldn’t allow myself to get discouraged. I had to remain hopeful, and I began to read the best source about hope I knew of, the Bible.

IN ROMANS 5:3-5, I found the answer. “. . . suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit . . .”

THERE IT WAS, in terms simple enough even for me. Suffering→ endurance→ character→ hope.

I HAD BEEN LOOKING at my circumstances all wrong. Suffering wasn’t the beginning of the end as I feared, I had simply made the first step toward hope.

You’re blessed. Be a blessing!

Being Number One Isn’t What It’s Cracked Up to Be

BEING A PIONEER has never held any allure for me. I prefer the tried and true, but I’d never before encountered a medical problem without a known solution. It was time to try the untried.

MY APPOINTMENT WAS with a man with a formidable international reputation and a very responsible position who seemed uncomfortable indoors. His rugged physique was restrained by a pristine lab jacket. His steel-gray hair looked to be the tool by which he pulled ideas out of head. His explanations flew over me like starlings before a storm. Seemingly lost in the joy of his hopes for melanoma patients, he energetically tapped a puzzling microbiology rendering on the flip chart behind him with his pen, resumed his seat at the tiny conference table in a room that his entrance had made seem even smaller, and gave me yet another outpouring of vernacular. When he finished, he fixed intense coffee-colored eyes on me.

I NODDED MY ENCOURAGEMENT but understood almost nothing he said. I was certain I was dealing with an intelligent being from another planet. Someone understood what this dedicated scientist was saying but, unfortunately, that wasn’t me. “Let me see if I understand you, I said. “This is an experiment designed to awaken my own immune system to the presence of the tumors I have. If awakened, my own immune system is capable of consuming these tumors and possibly making my body free from cancer for the rest of my life. Is that it?”

HIS HEAD BOBBED up and down. His student was grasping the idea. He attempted to refine my understanding and to warn me of the unlikely but potential dangers: vitiligo, lupus, auto-immune disorder. He sobered. I would be the first to undergo these vaccinations. There might be other problems that he had no way of predicting.

HE HANDED ME A SHEAF of papers with frightening disclosures, but in the last few weeks I’d signed so many similar difficult-to-contemplate pieces of paper that I did not hesitate. I followed Yogi Berra’s advice. When faced with a fork in the road, I took it.

SOME PEOPLE ARE OPPOSED to clinical trials. They turn, they point out, an already ill person into a guinea pig. I don’t feel that way. I’m careful, of course, about choosing what I’m willing to undergo, but the standard treatment for what I have is just that. Standard. And in my case, the it didn’t have a good track record. Initial remission rates were sometimes good, but recurrence rates were not.

OUR MINISTER WOULD BE PLEASED to know how far his advice had taken me. I had become equally comfortable with living and with dying.

I DIDN’T HAVE TO BE BRAVE to sign on the dotted line because I wasn’t afraid.

You’re blessed. Be a blessing!