August 29, 2016 - Monday Came (Gena)

It's been a trying week, and as I climbed into bed last night I was eager to see Sunday take it's bow, knowing Monday would bring a new week. Next week would bring me back to feeling better (this respiratory infection was holding a grip!) and I was eager to see the Plastic Surgeon on Wednesday. I simply wanted to hear his vantage point. The ultrasound/mammogram results were still non-conclusive citing "possible implant rupture" (that wasn't on my radar), "possible alloderm sling", "possible" we don't know what it is. Well, I like knowing. I'm a known kind of gal. "Possible" won't work all that well for me for the long term, so meeting with Lead Plastic Surgeon surely can help me narrow that down. We did this mastectomy to be peaceful and sure. "Possible" doesn't meet that goal. I'm feeling a biopsy in my future because "definite" is way more my style. "Definite" is something I can do. You simply pick it up and walk forward. "Possible" is too wayward for my liking. In just a minute you will understand, but we had to push the appointment from this coming Wednesday now to September 14th. I'm trusting God's timing. He's choosing this timing for some reason. So I'm being patient, and I'm pushing thoughts of "possible" aside while we wait. And I thank you in advance for prayers for this upcoming week and on into September as we continue on this path.

Late last night, my grandmother, Gena, passed away.  She would have turned 98 this October. She shares a birthday with my wedding anniversary, and I can still see her smile as we brought her the birthday cake during our wedding reception. She had that kind of smile that was easily remembered. It was soft, and genuine, and seamlessly seeped into the rest of her face. Her soul was quiet, rugged yet softened by life's experiences, yet she had a hilarious candor and frankness about her. As I grew up, I started to detect an endearing pride and astounding faith underneath her surface, not newly surfaced, but newly discovered on my end. It's as if there was this whole side of her I was not mature enough to see before. I like that, discovering new nooks and crannies in people as you grow. It's like a gift that you get to keep unwrapping. But what I remember most about her was that she was resilient. She lived through the hard years of her generation and kept stepping forward. And in that, she was humble. Her last few years in life proved her resilience time and time again as she teetered in her health but continued to bounce back as if death was something she got to choose, when she was ready. She must have been ready on Sunday, and then, Monday came.

I wish I could step back and ask all the questions. I wish I could dig into the stories I've yet to hear. I simply wish. I'm built that way, nostalgic for yesterdays. Fearful of never discovering, or afraid of losing what stories just left this surface. I'm acutely aware today, the morning after, of how my memory of the deep set lines around her face will fade with time. There will be a day when I will have to rely on a picture instead of readily pulling the details of her face back into a memory. But I won't forget her resilience. Or the way her smile pulled you in. She's whole again now and her smile now permanent. It was 98 years of a life well lived, she serving me better than I could ever had served her, and I'm left in awe. This is a tribute that doesn't even begin to do her justice, but it's where my heart landed in these few spare moments I had to write before starting work today. She simply wasn't meant to be captured in the confinement of a few words. Her's is a story that will continue to be told.

She was my last surviving grandparent, so now I step over that threshold from grandchild to simply child. It's a place that may take some time to get used to, but we are all in good hands. Prayers for my parents and aunts and uncles as we all gather this week to celebrate "mom" and "mamaw". Prayers as we pull back into view the memories we've gathered over 98 years. She will be celebrated. Family will be celebrated. And I'm grateful in knowing that even in her death, there are memories still yet to be made. God has an uncanning way of bringing you back to awareness of life outside of yourself, back into a better defined perspective, and back into reliance and trust that his timing is nothing short of perfection. This coming week, that I was so acutely looking forward to last night as I climbed into bed, brought something different than I expected. But I dare say it will be absolutely full of blessings and renewing as only He can do if I just stay focused on His plan. For even in the loss of someone we hold dear and in the ongoing wait of life, he makes all things new.

August 25, 2016 - Life has a way of tweaking itself

I don't even know where to begin. I feel like this has been the craziest morning. Just bizarre with all these little snippets of stories running parallel to each other yet intertwining on beautiful upholstered sofas and then in hallways in passing, then on tables, and under machines. It's a bizarre globe of swirling matter that seems a little surreal in this fog of coughs and sneezes and masks and such. I feel horrible as if this cold is purposely out to contain me. And I am certainly contained. I need some sleep. But despite this swirl of intersections, and weight of snotty noses and barking seal coughs, I feel calm and peace,

I will cut to the chase. You can immediately stop praying for fat. It's not fat, and I don't want that prayer to back fire and me take on fat in areas I don't need it, so let's nix that prayer right now. Don't utter those words again. My hips are counting on that! But thank you for your diligence all the same. So we know it isn't fat, and now we also don't think it is malignancy (more on that below) nor fluid, nor calcium deposits, nor...well to use her words " I have absolutely no idea what this is."

It started with me sitting in a waiting room of 12 women, that number would fluctuate as as I sat, all clad in the same two layers of muddled grey gown. What struck me first about the room was the 3 daisy shaped light fixtures hanging above my head, and then the modern wood paneling draped on the far wall and the sage green paper on the back walls. I felt as though I were in a luxury hotel lobby. I kid you not. This place goes all out to make you forget the sterility of the halls leading to this particular imaging area. After absorbing that awesome scenery, I was left with the utter silence of the room. I mean not a word. Not a spoken voice, not background noise, not a TV or a phone call. Just twelve women clad in gray sitting in silence. The silence would come and go as the morning went on as women exchanged themselves out for another and as technicians called out names thus prompting the exchange. But the silence left in between spoke a novel. There were untold stories in this room. Ongoing stories. And I've never heard such heavy silence.

I went back for my ultrasound and the radiologist poked and prodded. There is was the black blob next to my implant. "Ms. McCollum, I was really hoping I was going to get this up on the screen and immediately say "this is nothing" and send you home. But honestly, I have no idea what we are looking at here."

Me: "is it a mass?"
She: "I don't know. Let's get the mammogram and see what comes up."

So she sent me back out in to the luxurious waiting room where now new faces sat (all staring at the mask I was wearing), but the same silence remained. Then I got called back to mammogram. Shove the boob into the slot - picture. Turn the boob shove back into the slot- picture. Shove the side of the boob back into the slot- picture. "ok, you can go back to the waiting room." Back to the silence and yet more new faces. It's as if they passed out a sheet of paper to everyone who entered asking them to respect the silence. But i knew what it was. It was a room full of worry.

"Ms. McCollum?"

I go up to meet the radiologist who says we need to re-do the mammogram. "I am seeing something and I just can't tell what it is." Ok, at this point she had my attention. I was perked first when she said the ultrasound is non-conclusive and sent me to mammogram. But now TWO mammograms? You have my attention.  Insert boob, squish boob - picture. Insert boob , squish boob- Picture.  Back to the the luxury waiting room.

Now we have found ourselves down to 4 women (myself included). Also in silence. Until....Until the lady next to me turns and looks at me and says, "you look like you feel really bad. I hope you are ok? (me, yeah, I just had a cold that won't let go) I know this sounds crazy but, do you believe in heaven?"

What?!?! No you can't make this stuff up. I sputtered, then clamored to think quick on my feet and said "yes, It's what gets me through these kind of waiting rooms. It's amazing how you can find peace in the knowledge of a heaven". Well, the flood gates opened and the whole waiting room started chiming in. Some told stories about how they got there. Others talked about how heaven played a role in their journey. The women kept asking the touch questions. And I just kept praying God would give the words she needed to hear. Right smack in the middle of that rush of conversation "Ms. McCollum?" I got up and grabbed my stuff and walked over to her and said, "I have to go now, but whether or not you ever believe there is a heaven, you can believe in relationship here on earth and that as a result I will be praying for you and let that give you hope." Mercy, I'm sure I flubbed that up but it is what I had in the 4 second walk out of that room to meet the radiologist! Surely, I could have laid out the saving grace of Christ and all the grace of that, but alas my mind landed where it landed in the split second I had. What a crazy dialogue at such a time as this!!! I'm hoping the conversation continued after I left the room, I'm hoping just the right words were uttered to get her through her day. Something to give her the hope she must have been looking for. Those 4 women will be permanently etched into my brain. Their stories. Their search for hope. Their hunger for more. I was broken by that. On my way out, another women stopped me and said "I'm praying for you, and crossed her heart." Here I was feeling like death warmed over with this awful infection and the mental strain of being anywhere but in my bed and God brought me this little nugget. I know this isn't what you opened this page to read, but it truly is the highlight of the story. Relationship. Trial is a lonely place. And if you don't hear me say anything else today, here me say that. We absolutely have to support people in trial. I've never felt more lonely then in the middle of "stuff" and I know you feel the same. These women proved that to me.

Ok, now I am back with the radiologist in a dark conference room. "Sally, I have no idea what this is. I can say with certainty it is not fat. It is not calcium deposits. And it's not a malignancy, because I have never seen malignancy look like this. I called Lead Plastic Surgeon and spoke with him on the phone about you. I wanted him to look at the scans, but he is out of the country right now, so we decided to have you go see him for an exam and for him to look at the scans with you. He's going to call you to set it up. I'm suspicious it is the sling that is under your implant (to help hold the weight of the implant), but I have no idea what a sling looks like on imaging. I even googled it and there are no pictures out there. So I want him to see it. But for now, rest that we don't think it is malignancy, because if it is, I have never seen one look like this. It looks 'man made' in a lot of ways because it is so dense. Very dense. But it's not the implant itself" (paraphrased slightly off my memory). No malignancy from what we can tell, that's really all I needed to hear.

So, I'm now back in normal clothes, sitting on my bed, very eager to climb under the sheets and take a nap for I feel rough, but I totally feel at peace. This whole day was somehow peaceful, despite 3 sets of imaging, despite knowing they were seeing something, and despite having no idea what it is. God totally orchestrated this day. And I now have 4 women who broke the silence to keep my mind company. That's a score!

I will keep you updated. I imagine my plastic surgery appointment will be next Wednesday. Maybe a biopsy is in my near future, but definitely another exam and lookey loo (there's little dignity in malignancy as you pull out body parts at every turn). I've emailed him and Lead Breast Surgeon who I saw yesterday and am waiting to hear back. He's going to laugh, because I had promised him at my last visit over 6 months ago that I planned on never seeing him again and to not take it personal. Be careful what you promise ladies, Life has a way of tweaking itself as you go.






To access previous blog posts - click HERE.

August 24, 2016 - "The McCollum"

I've said it many times before. There is something about a cancer center waiting room. You can do the best of interior design, the most brilliant placement of soft lighting, and the perfect combination of artwork and still, your heart skips a beat when you walk in. It's been almost a year since I've been in that waiting room (for a visit, I am often there for work) and it did its thing, changed my mood.Mine was the last appointment of the day so the waiting room was deserted minus one couple also waiting their turn, so the calm of the wait brought me back to center and away from the initial heart gallop. Lead Breast Surgeon was as delightful as usual. She has an almost supernatural ability to put someone at ease. I didn't necessarily need easing, but she certainly maintains status quo. I told her if you are going to have a breast lump, you might as well enjoy the great people along the way. Present company included.

The appointment went exactly as planned. Strip down, bare a boob, touch and feel, get dressed again. She agreed there is something there that shouldn't be there and in her supernatural ability told me she wasn't worried yet. I said "okay then, I won't worry either." To which she responded, "but let's image it." She picked up the phone right then and there and called over to ultrasound and landed me an appointment tomorrow morning. I chuckled at that and made her promise me she still wasn't worried. I pinned her down. "What is on the differential?"  I guess she was expecting that question cause she dove right in with a response. "I'm very hopeful t is one of 2 things: A collection of fat necrosis (dying fat cells),or scar tissue." (Us gals have been laughing that never before have we been so willing to pray for more fat! LOL). I said "and what else?".  She said, "well it could be the negative things: a mass of malignancy or fibroma. If it looks like a mass on ultrasound, we will biopsy it. But let's just assume it won't come to that." See, she is awesome at putting someone at ease. I had to push her to list the last 2 because she wanted to leave on a high note. Despite her super optimistic approach to medicine, I really do think she is leaning toward fat necrosis, or else she has an awesome poker face (and I think she does, but that is besides the point). So we will continue to pray for fat and for a good night sleep and see what comes tomorrow. Oh, and while you are praying, I have the nastiest of respiratory infections going on right now too and could use a pick-me-up from that. It's really pulling me down, and I don't want to be down. I want to be up.

Funny story. During show and tell she says, "I really can't believe how great this all looks (refering to my reconstruction). You've had 6 surgeries and I was expecting to come in and see a railroad of scars. Sally, you should be thrilled. (she went on to remark about my cleavage but I will save face and spare you those details)!" So there you have it, we have a thrilling breast job! I could use that good news. I chuckled a little saying "well he (Lead Plastic Surgeon) told me he was going to do his best work ever! (well I made him promise that)". She said "speaking of him, do you know that we now refer to the procedure we did on you as 'The McCollum? (mastectomy, wait 2 weeks, start reconstruction)". I said "huh?????"  "Yep, that was the first time I had done that (wait to do recon) in prophylactic mastectomy." I don't know if I should be thrilled or not, but it totally got a laugh out of me. So if someone says to you, "do you want the McCollum and all the works?" Know you may be "thrilled" with the results. (Chuckle!) I reminded her I did have 4 more surgeries after that so the jury is still out. She reminded me "The McCollum" was still a huge success.

Oh the joys and ins and outs of mastectomy. It's never boring.

Ultrasound tomorrow. Pray for fat, or scar tissue is fine too if you want to overachieve. and pray for this respiratory infection to resolve too. Might as well shoot big! Hoping to have good news to report back to you in a few days.

Ta-ta for now!





To access previous blog posts - click HERE.

August 22, 2016 - Wherever we will go

I’m still lying in wait. But I did it “Sally Style” by going to the Caribbean for a week. This trip was planned well in advance, but the timing could not have been more perfect as breast lumps seems almost non-existent while swimming along with seemingly weightless sea turtles in St. John’s. My world was weightless too as I bobbled up and down with the undulating waters around me. I purposely floated alone, away from others. The sea was mine, if only for a few quarters of time, but it was mine as my view held only the waters around me. (I will spare you the intricate details of snorting water up my nose almost sending me into a flopping display of panic, but know that moment was there along with also almost losing my swim bottoms as I dove off the boat). I’m a sucker for creation. And the creation in these incredibly blue waters provide nothing short of mental healing. One rolling tide can sweep away any angst that lie at your back doorstep over to be discarded out over the coral reef that protrudes up from below. It’s therapeutic. And it’s simply glorious to lose yourself in the vastness of magnificence under the water line. But now, well now, I’m back. Back to the ins and outs. Back to THIS side of the water line. Back to the timeline of the ticking clock our society spends so much time trying to tame. There is no clock in the ocean, or rather I found none in my weightless stroll, but now I am back. Back to waiting.

Habakkuk 2:2 has been ringing in my ears non-stop ever since stepping on the plane heading back to my reality. “I will wait to see what the LORD says and how he will answer” (NLT). The verse flooded my thoughts before leaving town and again flood my thoughts now that I’ve returned. Aren’t we particularly horrible at waiting? Do we not conjure up every known horribleness that could possibly be while we wait? Anxiety is real. Worry is real-ER. Fear is real-EST. Somehow, for I know not how by my own merit, I’ve been able to keep these predators at bay. They creep in (mainly in the middle of the night), but then they creep back out. Crystal blue water surely played some role, but I struggled more as the week went on. Flying home was more like flying back to this breast nodule and all it may hold. I’m adoring the statistic of 8 out of 10 (8 out of 10 breast nodules go on to be benign cysts), but I’m finding less comfort around my own statistics for I know not what they are. I did this prophylactic double mastectomy to keep breast cancer at bay. So what does it mean when my risks were so high pre-mastectomy to now find a lump post mastectomy? You can roll that around in your mind until worry is all you know. I’m not there. I am not worrying. But I worry I will START worrying while I wait. See, that is the vicious cycle of worry so easily portrayed by us Type A folks. We truly can worry about worrying. Worry serves no purpose here. Waiting serves all the purpose here.

I’m so gracious in knowing that even through this nodule, and its imposed waiting mode, I am being refined. Ron is being refined. Our “We” is being refined. And for that I give thanks as I lay in wait. In turmoil we get glimpses of our self that we don’t see in the ins and outs of everyday life. There is a camaraderie that can be found in struggle.  There is a depth that can come in turmoil. The lack of guarantee of tomorrow brings a filter which strains out the superficial and brings back a focused lens aligned on the irreplaceable moments of life. I don’t want even a single second of that surreal focus to be muddled with the spoilage of worry. Worry is a predator that lurks behind each corner ready to squeeze out any blessing that lies just underneath. It’s a thief of everything great.  So I very much want to choose to get ahead of that so my lens of perspective remains cleansed by the hope and clarity that comes during refinement.   I want more time in the irreplaceable moments and in the sifter of refinement, and less time flooded by the corrosive nature of fear.

I say all of this out loud on this page as an active process for myself, for if I fall prey to the passive alternate, all will be lost. Sadness may come, pending a specific outcome, but Christ has taken the sting of even that before it makes itself known, so I will choose to see the incredible instead of giving merit to the damning (over and over in my head will I say this until I start to see the fruit! I’m terrible at being purposeful. But I’m getting a lot of practice, and I have as much role in this as anything else does.) My joy will not rely on outcome. For such a time as this, as we lie in wait, his promises are just as true! 

I have the last appointment of the day on Wednesday. The odds lie in getting good news. This “peanut” has just as much right to benign as anything else and I’m claiming that. I’m quite sure the appointment itself will simply be a “touch and feel” session just to get the initial impressions from Lead Breast Surgeon. She is beyond delightful so there is a high probability I will actually show up for the appointment (smile). After that, we will find ourselves back in wait. Then from there, we will go wherever we will go.  




To access previous blog posts - click HERE.

August 10, 2016 - If it takes a nodule...

I’ve mentioned before that I often struggle with what to keep private (my introverted heart protecting my everything) versus what to share here openly. It’s a constant internal battle of vulnerability versus honoring my commitment to model “doing life together” and letting my Story be His Story. It’s not always easy doing life His way. But I know that when I do, He honors that, and He uses that. Three days after my double mastectomy, I made a commitment to God that if He brought me to mastectomy I would do everything I could to be open to Him using my story. All of my story. So I’m laying my vulnerability on the line, and stepping in to His command for us to do life with other people, not in solidarity. And also because it is related to my mastectomy story that you have been following for 4 years now, and I want to stay committed to my transparency in that for hopes it helps one of you should you find yourself in similar shoes one day.

It was 1:30 in the morning and I was jolted out of a very deep sleep. I sat straight up in bed, eyes wide open, heart racing, and my mind attempting a record speed to orient myself to time and place.  I originally thought I must have heard a noise, but no, that wasn’t it. The house was very quiet. Beyond still. Beyond quiet. Often Oliver (the cat) comes up and hits me on the forehead when he thinks I need to be up and about. He’s brutal about it when he thinks it is time, but not this night, he was tucked in at the end of the bed on Ron’s side heavy in sleep. I laid back down and immediately felt a “twinge of something” in my lower right breast. Earlier in the day, I had done an arm/chest workout and now the muscle was in a cramp, no doubt its way of getting me back for what I had done to it hours before. I reached up to massage the area back into submission as I laid back down to fall back asleep, and there it was.

It’s the perfect text book “lump” I’ve heard described so many times before. Small, round, peanut sized, rubbery, non-tender nodule. It’s location: one inch to the left of midline and ½ inch up from the base of the breast (ok, there, that IS too much information, but location matters). Had it been in any other quadrant of the breast, I would have thought it to be a swollen lymph node, but lymph nodes don’t live in this region of breast tissue. But here it is, all the same, in MY quadrant of MY breast where it had not been invited. Something. Something that shouldn’t be there. Something that wasn’t there before. Immediately, I mean immediately, panic set in. And then a furious investigation of the situation (thankful to have only found this one). Then, the wondering of “what in the world?!”, “I had a double mastectomy”, “there is little to no breast tissue in my breast”, “It’s August! My heavy month! My Celebration Month. My Mastectomy Month. My ARE YOU KIDDING ME month” and then all the other things that run through your mind when you are in panic mode. Then, no sleep for many hours as I watched the room get lighter and lighter as the hours ticked on (I may or may not at one point reached down and tapped Oliver unrelentingly on his forehead until he raised his head. Just because I could. But don’t worry he got a lot of belly love too). 

The following day my rational side returned. It always does. And this time it was in record time. I felt this flooding of peace, aware and anxious, but underlying peace. I could hear in the back of my head that this story was his story, and that he has purpose in even this. He was calling me, even in this private moment, as reminder that he has a purpose. And it just may not be all about me.  

We often think God’s story comes when we have a “known”. Once we know the outcome (a diagnosis, a decision, a plan), we then bring our inner circle into our story for moral support. It’s as if we need to have it all figured out before we allow God to publicly do his work in us. I think it can be a rookie mistake, and a mistake that I make often. I’m learning we can miss some crucial moments that are ripe for the blessing that can come in chaos.  These are the core moments of this “period of wait”. There is huge value in this period! Where prayer may have its biggest outcome. Where friends can rally and remind you that your story is also their story, because they love you and they want to do life beside you. Where anxiety can be repurposed into astounding faith. Instead we sit in silence and in the privacy of self, and often rob ourselves of the beauty and restoration that can come while waiting with others in tow.

This journey of mastectomy has been all about this for me. Teaching myself to do life with others in the moment that life unfolds, and teaching me that every aspect of my story can be used for something. It may not mean a hill of beans to me, but it may mean something to the young wife who finds herself in tears while standing in front of the mirror the week after her surgery, or the middle-aged friend who doesn’t know why she feels so overwhelmed while emptying her breast drains, or the forty-something mastectomy soul who wakes up in the middle of the night and finds a lump. There is always someone out there who is just like you. And maybe they too need to know they aren’t alone, they aren’t a failure for feeling what they feel, and they aren’t strange for the thoughts that creep in when they don’t expect it. God is re-training me to be the version of me he designed me to be. And maybe 25 years after my lymphoma remission is the perfect time to remind me to stay aligned with faith in His plan. For His way is perfect, even in the waiting, and there is much to be learned (I’m working on this, but boy is it challenging! Be gone, negative thoughts! Be gone, fear!).

Lead Breast Surgeon (who did my mastectomy) is taking me back under her wing. She wants to see me in her office next week for an initial “touch and feel” session, and then I imagine imaging or biopsy or something is likely in my very near future (update: the appointment had to be moved to the following week due to a scheduling conflict on my end). But let’s look at the totally reassuring statistics that we all need to remind ourselves of in these situations. 8 out of 10 breast nodules are benign. 8 out of 10 ladies!!! That's only 2 being breast cancer! That’s for you too! So let’s relish in that truth when we find our lumps and bumps! Not worth worrying about 20% right? And for me, I had a prophylactic double mastectomy. These boobs are man-man, “his best work ever” he promised me, I have little to no breast tissue left (picture and orange, you cut a slice, then chew the fruit off the skin. You get almost all of the fruit, but there are bits and pieces left behind on the skin. Same with the boob after mastectomy, most but not all). So having so little breast tissue there, I am wondering how this nodule even found its way here. I must be very likable for it to choose to do all that work to reside in an area where it will have no friends. But it’s here, and we are going to pray it to benign-ville! The outcome just may lie in our prayer, not because God is our puppet, but because we grow closer to him through our prayer. Hurry is the death of Prayer. There are times we must wait and listen. And if it takes a nodule, it takes a nodule.

I’m a work in progress, and maybe because of His work in my story, you are too. Hello, nodule, welcome (eeek!) home. 

Habakkuk 2:2 says, “I will wait to see what the LORD says and how he will answer” (NLT). 

You guys are my people, for such a time as this.


To access previous blog posts - click HERE.

August 1, 2016- Deflated Balloons

Tomorrow is August 1. August as a month holds a lot of memories for me. Twenty five years ago my lymphoma when into remission in August. Ten years later, I was labeled as “cured”, also in August. Four years ago, I had my double mastectomy, also in August. Four years ago, I had surgery number 2 in the breast series to start breast reconstruction, also in August. Last year, I had surgery number 6 in the breast series, also in August. August holds a lot. August is a heavy month.

I’ve never been one to celebrate cancer mile stones. I don’t exactly know why I don’t do that. Almost everyone I know does that. I love celebrating your milestone with you. Balloons, cake, dinner, trips, whatever, whenever. It’s all wonderful and something almost everyone does, and does well! But for me, I always held this moment as a memory, not a celebration. I don’t know if this is survivor’s guilt? I don’t know if this is because I am terrible at celebrating (really, I am, I build something up in my head and it turns into deflated balloons and a molded piece of cake that never got eaten)? I don’t know if this is because it feels awkward? Most likely it a combination of all of the above plus a few more for good measure. I have plenty of friends who don’t get to celebrate milestones because they didn’t survive the diagnosis. I’d much rather celebrate their journey and the lives they touched even in their death rather than my “success”. It also always felt a little weird to celebrate an achievement because when it really comes down to it, I didn’t do a single thing to survive. I simply showed up each day when they asked me to and got my treatment. My survival is no great achievement on my part. So it just felt weird flaunting this stepping stone year after year. This year, it was a biggie. Twenty-five years lymphoma-free! That's crazy. So I wanted to try this attempt at celebration …..And I even flubbed that up. I wanted to go simple. Ease my way in. I can pull off simple, or so I thought. I bought two slices of cheesecake (guess Ron should have one too, huh?) on a whim while doing my grocery shopping earlier that day. Dinner rolled along, I pull out the cheesecake, popped the plastic lid open, grabbed a fork, and took a bite….and then…well what am I supposed to do next? Make a speech? Thank Ron and Oliver for attending the celebration? Give Ron a high five? Give a shout out of “I did it! I survived!”? It just simply felt awkward. Really awkward. I took my one bite (I was too full from dinner to finish the slice), close the lid, put it back into the fridge and we headed back out to the garage to finish cleaning.

Maybe I didn’t do it up enough. Maybe I should have planned a dinner out and invited people over. Maybe I should have set aside something other than just opening the fridge and pulling out a piece of cake shoved in a plastic takeout container. Maybe I should have realized that today was July 31 and not August 1^st. Yeah, I remembered that just before sitting down to write this tonight. Maybe my thoughts shouldn’t have been on the people that didn’t make it.

Hours later, it was getting dark outside and I could hear the thunder rolling in so I went outside and laid down in my driveway.  I wanted a few moments to decompress from the day. And while staring up at the lightning show God had given me, it hit me. I’ve had it wrong all along. Just as I was feeling let down and out of sorts, God gave me my favorite thing: A thunder storm. And it was spectacular! And I was reminded that none of this celebration rig-a-ma-roll should have ever been about me. I was missing the boat! I was trying to feel something I didn’t feel: accomplishment. My celebration should have instead been about God’s accomplishment: His provision. He gave me the thunderstorm to remind me he gave me survival. For some, death comes and even in that God has provision, particularly for those left behind who may grow closer to him and to others around them in the process of loss. In death he can bring restoration, forgiveness, longing for something outside of ourselves, a purpose to propel us forward as we grieve. Sometimes we don’t understand what he brings us, but it’s there, just waiting to be discovered. For others, like me, He may give survival.  He gives us provision in and through our stories that follow survival. We have the opportunity to be a conduit of his grace and mercy as our stories unfold. I think had I had THIS be the  focus of my celebration of what he is and has done in my life for the past 25 years of surviving, my celebrations would have been heartfelt and purposeful (for me who struggles to celebrate self). My celebration simply needed to be realigned around his provision to me, my family, and my friends by keeping me around to finish My Story.

So I’m having a do-over (or I am at least going to give it a try!). I am finishing my piece of cheesecake tomorrow actually ON August 1^st. It’s kind of late, so I am not going big for tomorrow. I’m sticking with the store bought cheesecake that is still sitting in my fridge, but then I am going to have little celebrations throughout the month (maybe a dinner out with a close girlfriend, maybe asking for cards or posts here on social media with bible verses of provision to be sent to me by friends - would you do that for me?, maybe set aside a day with Ron to just love on life, find and cherish time spent with family) as a testament of God growing me through the last 25 years. This feels manageable, something I actually could get in to, and better focused by focusing nothing on my achievement and all on Him, because really, all I did was show up.  

Here’s to twenty five years of awesome memories, incredible friends, life changing moments that I hold dear, storied shared, mistakes made, boobs removed, lungs challenged, hearts touched, challenges accepted, Christ-focusing journeys journeyed, lives loved, and even lives lost for in your loss I continue to find myself. He’s not finished with me yet. I am better for knowing each of you, and I hope you are better for knowing me too.

Hear ye, Hear ye! Let the celebration month begin!






Click  www.tradinginthetatas.blogspot.com to access other posts.