Forgive my shallowness.

I have thought for two days about how I would write this next entry. I am torn between the blessing and the curse....back between the rock and a hard place.....beween gratitude and shallowness..........

"Were your ears burning last night?" asked Janet as she walked in for my exam before my next round of chemo. It seems that my case, my history over the past seven years had been reviewed the night before by a local group of physicians called the Tumor Board. It was really exciting to hear about their response to my latest progress and success with Ixempra. Everyone was impressed by how well I am doing. I told her and Maha both that it was such a blessing for me to know that my case was being talked about. A witness for the medical aspect as well as for my Lord. Wow. I wish I could have been there, hidden somewhere in the back to hear them talk about me.

So why is this victory so hollow for me today? Because no matter how much I write about my faith and hope and blessings. No matter how many times I declare the works of the Lord and my medical team.....it doesn't stop the ever-relentless reminders that my reality is that cancer
has taken its awful place in parts of my body and we are always fighting......
fighting the advance, fighting the side-effects, fighting the pain, fighting the depression, fighting the urge to just say "woe is me" and climb in the bed for a whole day. The reminders are everywhere...I cannot hide from them. And now, as I suspected it would, my hair is falling out for the fourth time. It is time to use the wig that is sitting on my dresser. Now, at least for a while, every time I look in the mirror, denial will be impossible, for I will be bald. I don't care what kind of woman you are, that's a hard pill to swallow.

And so, amid all the wonderful news of the past two weeks, I am dealing with yet another loss.
What am I?? Some kind of ingrate? What is a little hair when I have come from the dark depths of that awful phone call on November 1 to the wonderful calls of January 3rd and 10th? I wish I could tell you why it is such an issue, a tear-producer, a defeat. I think it has always been because I cannot look healthly without hair. I now will look like someone with cancer again. An unavoidable reminder......

So joy and gratefulness and blessings are now intertwined with sadness. A sadness that will go away shortly as I get on with my life, living it with everything I've got, praising God ....always praising God. He knows where I am caught. He knows this place between the rock and the hard place. And faithfully, He will pull me out of it and set me on solid ground with my feet pointing forward, my hands lifted, and my bald head held up high.

"The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit." Psalm 34:18