Unbelief

The man said "but if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us." "'If you can?'" the other man said back. "Anything is possible if you believe." You just gotta believe......how simple yet how very hard. "Help me with my unbelief" the first man begged. Turns out it was the right thing to ask for. And the second man healed the first man's son.

Of course, the above is a very loose translation from the book of Mark, the 9th chapter. But I find it so appropriate so many times. So many times, I too, have cried out for help in my unbelief. Unbelief is a word that almost sounds like a mispronunciation. Most people think of the word disbelief, which of course is totally different...no really. Unbelief is the struggle your mind has accepting something you know to be true in your spirit. Like knowing that you know that you know that God has the power to pull you out of anything, but still having times of doubt, fear and depression. That is unbelief. Disbelief is when your mind cannot accept something that is true in the physical. Say, you experience disbelief over a magic trick you see, a test result you receive, words that are said to you about yourself or someone you know. That is disbelief. That is what I can see in the eyes of The New Ones.

Ah, The New Ones. The newly diagnosed. The newly told. Surrounded by friends and family, eyes red-rimmed. Kleenex wads in their hands and at their feet. An expression on their face like no other. How many times have the girls all seen it? The doctor and NP have calmly spelled out what life will be like from here on out to.... when? The nurse has been on the stool, explaining drugs, procedures, side effects. And there they sit.....first time in the chair....first time in the veins....first time when disbelief gets met head-on by cold hard truth and an IV bag, beeping pumps and blankets, pre-meds and red-filled syringes. But it is still there, lingering despite the reality. You can see it in those red-rimmed eyes. Disbelief.

There were two New Ones last Thursday. As I bustled around, the happy new busy-bee volunteer..."clearly in my element", I was told....I kept my eyes on the faces of the New Ones.
I knew they were too stunned, too scared, too devastatingly heartbroken to really have a talk with them. I would have loved to have gotten the chance to say so many things...but that time will come when they are ready. Because the first day, being New in the chair, you are completely overtaken by everything you have been told, everything you feel, everything you see. Afraid and in a state of utter disbelief.

In time, they will let the truth take over. In time The New Ones become old hats in hats, bald and knowing that they can live while all this is going on. In time they may even start to believe they can live a very long time because they are being treated by the best of the best. Their team will work tirelessly to fight their fight with the goal of sending them down the road with hope and health and love. In time, The New Ones will get over their disbelief. In time, they can be like me, left with having to deal with the unbelief.

In November of 2001, Maha sent me a copy of my tumor marker. It was 27. The first normal reading after all my chemo treatments, and right before my stem-cell transplant. The number is circled and there is a hand-written one-word note from her. It says, "Believe!". How right she was...truer words have never been written from her to me. She knows, because she see it all the time, with almost every patient. Our biggest challenge will not be the physical toll that cancer may take, it will be our unbelief that we will ever be normal, cured, healthy, out from under the cloud of doubt and living our lives again to the fullest. So, if I do get to impart any wisdom to The New Ones, it will be simply this: Believe...and when you can't, ask for help....plead like the man in the story at the beginning of this entry. I plead a lot....still, after all this time and all that has happened....Lord, help me with my unbelief.