Many of you have asked why I am so quiet here. I don't want to talk specifics except to say "I'm sorry" if anything I every wrote on this blog hurt you personally. I have never wanted this to be a place to spew anything. I have wanted to tell my truth and sometimes I know this involves sharing stories that touch your lives too. Our realities can be vastly different even when sharing the same space. This is hard to reconcile even during good times but can be very hurtful when the painful stories don't line up as we recall them. This makes me wonder why anyone takes the risk to write at all. Why do I take this risk? It seriously had me in a heap on the floor questioning a project I am finishing that I maybe should just throw away. Here's the thing. I already did that once before. I'm braver now. I'm kinder. I also know it's a call.
To know I spoke less than life here to people I cherish crushed me. It challenged everything I want to accomplish by writing. All this hurt was wrapped in what I thought was a "thank you" to each and every one of you who were making this shunt surgery possible. I am sorry I deleted that part. I meant it and needed to say it. I am on day ten post LP shunt. I am ten days free of headache. You did this for me. You did this for my family. Even if my headache returns tomorrow just knowing this is possible for me gives me insane hope. Not one time have we ever expected your love in vast measure. We don't deserve this grace. Nor have we ever once thought of someone who chooses to save another life of loving us less. This is how the Spirit works, moving and prompting certain ones to give and feed and carry other ones.
Heading into my surgery I was so emotionally wounded I had no spiritual space to prepare my heart for how difficult this surgery would be not only for me but also for my family. Now we are through and in the fragile healing part that makes you think something is going to break any moment. Did we suffer all this to lose now? There's so much praise and everyone thinks I look well. The truth is I'm not. I'm slashed in eight individual places from the three surgeries I've had since August. My body is hideous. I also experienced a traumatic venogram that is giving me recurring nightmares. I'm experiencing a host of post surgical infections and blisters and pore wound healing. I have gained ten pounds and my joints hurt so badly I cannot seem to find a way to lay and rest unless I'm drugged. I don't have a headache, and I ask God over and over again, "WHAT NOW?" He has given me sweet release from one of the most debilitating symptoms. I feel far from my children, my husband, my friends. I feel broken. I never thought this would be the hardest to heal from.
While I was away on my trip Andrea Sugaski passed away from cervical cancer. You may remember Dan and I, along with her friend, Cindi Akers, did a room makeover for Andrea and her daughter Grace early this year. You can see it here at a blog I named in honor of my best childhood friend, Angie. A Room for Angie began a long time ago when Angie was diagnosed with breast cancer. Her diagnosis brought our lives that had drifted apart back together. More than anything I wanted her to have a beautiful space to heal. Since then Angie, who had already suffered thyroid cancer, has also suffered the breast cancer, colon cancer and another bout of thyroid cancer. When I connected with Andrea I knew it was a calling. Looking back on that time talking and writing almost every day I see the joy the planning of the room brought her and especially how much she wanted her Grace to be loved and surprised with a princess room. I know I have been grieving Andrea's passing but even more the loss Cindi is experiencing. I keep trying to put myself in her place and Angie in Andrea's. Today I had a visit from a wise woman in my life. I opened up enough floodgates she should have been paid for listening. After she left I found out my dear Angie had an ultrasound on her neck yesterday that definitely shows something bad. She will have another biopsy in the next week. I called her. We cried. Seriously God, How long? And then as we said goodbye I pictured us riding home together. She and I at the great throne where none of this will even be a breath of a thought. In this world we say words we don't mean or maybe we do but they hurt someone as much as a scalpel. And we can't take them back or make a wound heal because we wish it would. In that world, the place we are going hand in hand, there is no hurt too great for that much love.
Just like that I'm done with my pity and my shame and my sorrow. This is not going to break me. I'm going to answer that call now.
Thursday, October 24, 2013
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