Four years

Sunday, June 14 marked 4 years since I was diagnosed with lung cancer while living in Hamburg. Those of you who have followed my journey from the start know that my family and I went to hell and back several times during those first six months.

Here I am before, during, and after. The photo below was the last taken before my life unraveled. I went on a photography outing with the American Women's Club of Hamburg. When my doctor said my x-ray showed "infiltration" and I should get a CT scan, I put it off for a day so I wouldn't miss this event. That's how unconcerned I was. The possibility of cancer never crossed my mind, despite my severe shortness of breath.

This was my hospital room at the LungenClinic, where I learned my shocking diagnosis. I was sitting at the little table with the doctors and Leland was on Zoom. Leland had to travel to the hospital by train (an hour-plus trip) before we could process the news together, shellshocked.

This photo shows me in the depths of hell: 2 weeks in the ICU in Reston, VA, with oxygen blasting through a firehose of a cannula at 40 liters/minute while I recovered from pulmonary emboli + COVID pneumonia. I am deeply grateful for visitors like my brother (below) and other family and friends (Leland, Lily, Jeanne, Allison, Irene & Dean, Patricia, Alisa, Alix, Alexis) who kept me from total despair (as well as calls, texts, cards, emails, and messages from many other people). I had visitors all but one day of my 2-week stay.

And here are some recent family pictures, celebrating occasions like the end of Lily's junior year of high school, Mother's Day, and the USA v. Paraguay World Cup match.

credit: Lily took the photo and made us laugh

Only about 12 to 15% of people with stage IV non-small cell lung cancer make it to 4 years, and I'm grateful to be in that small group. I'm doing everything I can to keep defying the odds. I am a Christian, but I don't think it's prayer that got me here. Millions of people with cancer or other terrible diseases have people fervently praying for them, but their treatment doesn't work or stops working. I think of Anna, a young mom of two boys, who was diagnosed with the same type of lung cancer (EGFR Exon 19 deletion, TP53 mutation), in January, 2021. She seemed like a kindred spirit, and we exchanged some messages about our cancer journeys on Facebook just weeks before she died. I don't believe in a puppet-master God who sent Anna to her death while keeping me alive. What I do believe in is a God who suffers with us, who shares our pain, and who accompanies us through the love and support of community. 

What (former) Pastor Kate wrote to me after my diagnosis still holds true:

"Do not remember the former things,

or consider the things of old.

I am about to do a new thing;

now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?

I will make a way in the wilderness

and rivers in the desert…" (Isaiah 43:18-20)

"As you step into the wilderness, the unknowns and new paths ahead, remember. And when you forget, again, remember.  Remember that God is doing a new thing; making a way in this wilderness; making a way with you. You don’t walk this journey alone. Remember, you are never alone. The God of abundant life is here, in the dryness of the desert, in the promise of newness – here, with us."

I can attest that I have found a way in the wilderness, and so many people have accompanied me on the way. 

My sister-in-law asked how the last 4 years have changed me. I responded that I don't think I've become a "better person" because of cancer. I still get mad at dumb things, obsess about petty stuff, yell at bad drivers (I'm looking at you, drivers who run red lights at Park & Atherton - but you deserve to be yelled at!), stress about work, fret about things that don't really matter in the long run, get into needless arguments, etc. When I come across people who say that after their diagnosis they no longer do X (insert undesirable behavior), I feel like I should be a better person, that I'm not learning the lessons cancer is supposed to be teaching me about perspective, patience, Zen, or whatever. But then I think, @*$# that $hit. I am still human, and there's no textbook for how someone is supposed to live with cancer. 

One way cancer has changed me is that I've become more compassionate toward people who have serious health problems or are grieving in other ways, and I make more of an effort to reach out. Looking back, I wish I had checked in more often on friends who were undergoing health treatments or whose parents were dying or who were dealing with other Hard Things. You don't really understand it until you go through it yourself. And I've realized we never know the pain people are carrying around. No one would ever look at me now and guess what I am living with. 

In my last post, I mentioned this article about the "long middle" for people who are living with late-stage cancer. If you haven't read it yet, please do so. “Most of us live by chronos [time]: the quantitative time of the clock, the five-year plan and the corporate calendar. It is a predator that treats every passing second as a theft. But the long middle demands a migration toward kairos: a qualitative time. Kairos is not measured by the accumulation of minutes, but by the “rightness” of a moment. It is a frequency shift: moving from a life lived for the next milestone to one lived for the morning light of the kitchen table or the depth of a single conversation. In this state, time is no longer a resource to be spent, but a medium in which to dwell.” 

Some recent moments of kairos: 

• spotting a Baltimore Oriole (the bird, not the baseball player) while riding my bike on my cancer-versary 
• sitting on the patio talking with Leland and Lily on a perfect summer evening
• taking in the gorgeous views of Happy Valley (and Polled Herefords) on my bike rides

• interviewing incarcerated women about what being a peer tutor means to them
• playing Boggle with my BFF, who visited from Texas (we've Boggled since 1994)

• petting our kitties
• making jam and appreciating that my mom taught me how
• watching a World Cup match downtown with Leland, Lily, and hundreds of neighbors from all over the world

I will continue savoring these kairos moments.