Lymphomania: Reliance

So right now it's Sunday night, and I'm a day and a night away from getting the results of last Monday's PET scan, which should tell whether or not I am in remission. A week and a day is a while to wait for something like this, but it does have its advantages. I remember when I was getting the staging done; you'll recall that it had two components: the PET scan and the bone marrow biopsy. The scan results were back first, and as I got those, I knew that the staging was contingent on the marrow results coming back clean. It would be several days later before I was back to the doctor's office, and I could have called for the marrow results before that, but I decided that it wouldn't matter. At best, the stage would remain as-is, and at worst … well, it would be worse. So I figured I'd assume the best for a few more days, since knowing sooner in this case would do absolutely nothing for me. That's kind of like how it is now. Getting the results a few days sooner or later won't make a difference health-wise, so as long as I'm not freaking out right now, it's good to have a few more days of guaranteed normality. The trick is that whole “not freaking out right now” thing.

There's a subject I've been wanting to write about for a while, but I never got around to it. Simply put, I want to talk about the the role God has played in all this for me. People these days are so hesitant to speak of such things publicly, and I'm not really sure why, even though I am one of them. It's a personal matter, but one should never mistake “personal” for “private”. Your favorite flavor of ice cream is personal, but that doesn't stop you from adamantly discussing it. For Christians, faith was never meant to be private. “No one lights a lamp and puts it in a place where it will be hidden, or under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, so that those who come in may see the light.” We are also told, “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.” People always tell me how well I've handled this whole process. Well, here's my small attempt to shine a little light on the reason for my hope.

I mentioned in an earlier post that when I was first diagnosed, I thought about how much we think we're owed. It would be extremely understandable, when getting news of a possibly terminal illness, to believe you're getting robbed of something, as if you're owed something in the first place. While understandable, I believe this attitude is inherently dangerous. To go around believing that something has been stolen from you simply gives rise to anger without any positive benefits. What kept me from falling into that line of thinking was a parable that Jesus told that popped into my head while I was initially getting poked and prodded. In the parable, Jesus tells of workers who are not employed for the day. A landowner goes out in the morning and hires some to work in his field in exchange for a certain amount of pay. Throughout the day, the landowner continues to hire workers. At the end of the day, all the workers are paid the amount that was agreed upon for the first workers. The workers that started earlier in the day are upset because the later ones got the same pay for doing less work, to which the landowner replies that they got what was agreed upon, and what is it to them if he wants to be generous to the others? When I thought about this parable, I had to admit that I was never promised anything, and if I am given a certain amount of life, who am I to get upset that I didn't have more or that others get more. I have already had more than some, and no matter when I die, I will have had less than someone else. Of what exactly am I being robbed? Did I have to be given anything at all? After you stop feeling that something's been taken from you, it's a lot harder to feel mad.

Another thing that really helped was to focus not on the negative aspects of the situation, but the blessings that God had given me. When something like this happens, one response is to rage against God for the bad He has put in your life, but I think that's taking a very narrow view. When I looked at how I was entering into the situation, what I saw was how stacked in my favor the circumstances were. Other than the cancer, I was healthy. I wasn't too old to handle the treatment well, and I wasn't a young child that didn't understand how filling my body with poison was going to hopefully make me better in the end. I wasn't a young child who was only going to get a few short years at life if the treatments didn't work. I had a great job that allowed me the time needed to get treatments and insurance to pay for it. I had a good place of treatment that was just a few minutes from home and work. The cancer hadn't spread throughout my entire body. I didn't have one of those cancers where you only get 3-6 months after diagnosis with almost no chance of recovery; instead, if you look at the raw numbers, they were actually in my favor – more patients survive than not. I had family and a great network of friends close by. I got cancer and things could have been so much worse. I thank God for all that He has given me.

Finally, there was the actual possibility of a death that would come sooner rather than later. I have tried to keep a good balance of optimism and realism, so while I do not dwell on the worst, I must acknowledge that it is a possibility. To help me there, I recalled a comment that a friend of mine once said. A couple of friends and I had been hiking about three years ago, and somehow we got on the subject of dying while still relatively young. The only thing I remember from that conversation was my friend's attitude about it. “I wouldn't care. It just means I get to go home sooner.” I liked that. A couple of years before that, my uncle had asked if I knew how to get to Heaven. I squirmed a bit, but my answer was basically to follow the Ten Commandments and hope that in the end you were good enough. I have since learned that that is not right, though. You can never, ever be saved by merit. For a Christian, the answer is by accepting Christ as your savior. You rely not on hope that your actions are good enough (because they never will be), but on faith that your debt to God was paid by Jesus, and with that, you do not need to guess or fear. I was (and am) confident of where I will end up, be it sooner or later, so when it inevitably does happen, I will simply be going home. It's really not so much “death” as “moving”. The process may be none too pleasant, but that is temporary. I will not say that I haven't had my moments of fear here and there, and I of course have a preference of how I hope it turns out, but in the immortal words of Obi-Wan Kenobi, “If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.” So we needn't really worry about that too much. ;)

So after all that rambling, we come back to where I am now – waiting while a coin flips over and over in the air to see on which side it will land. OK, it's really more like a six or eight sided die with two bad sides, you you get the picture. It's starting to get a little weird knowing that in a bit over a day I'll get news and either be done for a while or have to do more chemo. The up side is that right now I'm not going to get any “you're SOL” news – I think the worst that it could be at this point is more treatment, which I'll handle. Still, it's been weird to, for the first time, really know that I am ultimately powerless. I can take the drugs and keep a good attitude, but it's not in my hands. Fortunately, the one in whose hands the outcome does reside are not only powerful, but good. That has a comforting feel. When Daniel's three friends were about to be thrown into the furnace by Nebuchadnezzar, they told him how God could save them, but (and this is extremely important) then continued, “But even if he does not...” We do not know God's will, and that leaves open the possibility that things will not go as we would wish. However, that is no reason to hold anything against Him. If we believe that He is who He says He is, then we must trust how things turn out. In the end, we must realize that we don't know as much as we think we do, and we are not as powerful as we think we are, and we cannot control the world as much as we try to. But it's good that someone is there on whom you can rely, and if you trust in that, then even though the world may not be peaceful, your heart still can be.