Thoughts on Lent and Quarantine

It seems apropos that we are on quarantine during lent.  Quarantine, after all, comes from the Italian words "quaranta giorni", meaning 40 days.    Back in the 14th century, ships arriving in Venice from other infected ports had to sit at anchor for 40 days before landing, to prevent the spread of disease.  Lent is our 40 days of waiting, preparing.  We are quarantined in more ways than one.

Of specific hardship during this time of isolation is the suspension of the sacraments in many parts of the world right now.  Catholicism is not merely a spiritual practice.  Catholicism by nature is concrete, a melding of the spiritual and physical, because it is founded by Christ, who was both divine and human.  The sacraments are a physical sign of an invisible grace.  And right now, the Church Militant is being denied the grace we so desperately need, because we are not allowed to participate physically in the mass and sacraments.  This feels like a blow by the evil one, a siege of sorts - a starvation of the soldiers of Christ, in the heat of battle.  Of course we can watch mass online.  We can pray.  We can read and meditate on the scriptures, and participate in any number of private devotionals.  God has not abandoned us, He will never abandon us.  He has promised us that. But this time without access to the sacraments feels like a spiritual deprivation.  We have grown used to having ready access to the Eucharist - daily if we want!  We have had access to confession whenever we have needed to unburden ourselves of guilt and sin.  We have been able to baptize our children, sacramentally marry our spouses, and receive anointing with every serious illness.  More than any other time in history, the sacraments and the grace they provide have been available to us, and maybe... maybe it was all too easy.  Maybe we took them for granted because they were so readily accessible.  Maybe we forgot their importance, did not appreciate the strength they instilled in us, because they were always right there  if needed. And now that they're gone, for the time being at least, we feel their absence painfully.  The strongest spiritual weapon available to us has been taken away, worldwide, by an invisible foe.

Personally, I'm comforted by the fact that the mass is being said daily, all over the world, whether we lay people can participate or not.  Privately, in churches and rectories the world over, our priests continue to offer the sacrifice of the mass.  It cannot be stopped, no matter how this pandemic tries, and we need to trust and rely on our good priests for the moment in that regard.  They are continuing the battle for us right now.  And I remember the story of the Christians in Japan, who were converted through the efforts of St. Francis Xavier and the Jesuit missions in the 1500's, only to be thrown out of the country soon after, with Christianity severely repressed.  When Japan reopened to foreigners again 250 years later, missionaries found that the church had survived intact, all that time.  Without priests, without the sacraments save marriage and baptism, under constant persecution... but intact nonetheless.  For two hundred and fifty years.   Generations upon generations.  God does not abandon His children.  We are never alone.

So we live through this Holy Saturday, this time when the Church seems still and silent, with doors locked.  It feels for all the world as if Christ is in the tomb.  He is not.  He continues His resurrection daily with every private mass.  Easter is here, still. 

This too shall pass. 

Meditation for the Day: What God sees, that we are

"Set free from human judgment, we should count as true only what God sees in us, what he knows, and what he judges. 

God does not judge as man does. Man sees only the countenance, only the exterior. God penetrates to the depths of our hearts. 

God does not change as man does. His judgment is in no way inconstant. He is the only one upon whom we should rely.

How happy we are then, and how peaceful! We are no longer dazzled by appearances, or stirred up by opinions; we are united to the truth and depend upon it alone.

I am praised, blamed, treated with indifference, disdained, ignored, or forgotten; none of this can touch me. I will be no less than I am. 

Men and women want to play at being a creator. They want to give me existence in their opinion, but this existence that they want to give me is nothingness. It is an illusion, a shadow, an appearance, that is, at bottom, nothingness. 

What is this shadow, always following me, behind me, at my side? Is it me, or something that belongs to me? No. Yet does not this shadow seem to move with me? No matter: it is not me. 

So it is with the judgements of men: they would follow me everywhere, paint me, sketch me, make me move according to their whim, and, in the end, give me some sort of existence ... but I am disabused of this error.

I am content with a hidden life. How peaceful it is! Whether I truly live this Christian life of which St. Paul speaks, I do not know, nor can I know with certainty. But I hope that I do, and I trust in God's goodness to help me."

— Bishop Jacques-Benigne Bossuet

Thought for The Day

"Keep the joy of loving God in your heart and share this joy with all you meet, especially your family. Be holy."

— St. Mother Teresa of Calcutta 

Putting Sola Fide to rest...

"For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but the doers of the law who will be justified."

Romans 2:13

Not sanctified (made holy) by actions, but justified (saved).  But how is this?  Does faith have no part?  Are we merely to "do the stuff" to be saved?

"For this very reason, you must make every effort to support your faith with goodness, and goodness with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with endurance, and endurance with godliness, and godliness with mutual affection, and mutual affection with love. For if these things are yours and are increasing among you, they keep you from being ineffective and unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ."

2 Peter 1:5-8

Peter and Paul, those two stalwart pillars of the Church, show us the way.  Faith is the base, the root of everything, and grows with the support of goodness and knowledge, into action, which is LOVE.  Love is a verb and a noun.  In truth, the noun and verb cannot be separated, because love by it's very nature is a movement, an action.   Works are love, rooted in faith, or they are nothing.  Faith alone is as those who merely hear the law.  It's not enough.  TRUE faith is action, it's being God's hands in the world.  Joan of Arc showed me this.  In her trial, she was asked if God sent her to raise the seige of Orleans, and she said yes.  The inquisitor asked if God wasn't powerful enough to raise the seize on His own.  She responded  "In the name of God! The soldiers will fight and God will give the victory!"

God worked through her, as He desire to work through each of us - our job is to cooperate and be willing vessels.  

On Relics and Joan of Arc

I'm rereading one of my favorite books, Mark Twain's "Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc".   How I love this book.  It was Twain's favorite of his own works, and very rightly so.  It is the most personal of his books, the closest to his heart.  Twain writes in the first person, taking on the persona of "the Sieur Louis De Conte", one of Joan's childhood friends who is with her as her scribe throughout her endeavors.  It is obvious to me that Twain has inserted himself into the story as this loyal and loving friend, signing his name "SLC", which are the same initials as his own (Samuel Langhorne Clemens).  Joan is dear and intimate to him.  She is not merely a subject.  As such, he brings the peasant girl to such vivid life... he understands Joan, from the inside out.  He has such a sense of her faith, her convictions, that I assumed he must be a believer himself.  A quick google search showed that, outwardly at least, Mark Twain was very critical and resistant to formalized religion.  But in Joan, his muse... he understood.  It rings with every word, every vivid description.  There's no way he could portray her as he does without comprehending in very sharp detail her true inspiration; her true motivation wasn't France (in the larger picture)… it was God.

I am horrified by the modern representations of Joan as some kind of proto-lesbian feminist schizophrenic.  That wasn't who she was.  That is modern people stealing her history to apply it to their own causes, and it makes me sick every time I see it.  Twain, though, captures her as I know she was, because her testimony during her trial shows it, and it rings so true.    Twain describes Joan as a study of contradictions - a small girl with a powerful purpose; humble but undeterred and confident.  Bashful but brazen.  Gentle, and yet a fierce warrior.  Honest to a fault, and yet cunning.  Uneducated and illiterate, but brilliant.  It is seeing the tenderness and meekness of who she is at her core that we can see the work of God in her.   That fascinates me.  And seems wholly accurate and true.

As I'm reading this portrait of Joan, I'm drawn to know more about her.  I wonder about the actual words she spoke, recorded in her trial transcript.  I wonder where her sword is, her helmet, her armor.  Given that she was burned to death (except her heart and her intestines, and possibly one fragment of bone that did not burn), and her ashes thrown in to the Rhine, there is no grave site to visit.  But there is this desire to see, to touch, to be in the same place, to know that she is true, to know what she was like, what her world was.  There's this desire to have something tangible to link our time to hers, to link across the ages something concrete. In Joan's case, tragically, the French Revolutionists largely destroyed the artifacts that had been saved and treasured for centuries, in their anti-religion zeal.  But my desire to see such things remains, and I realize that for all of Christian history, this has been the case.  It is why we have relics.

Christianity, more than any other world religion, is TANGIBLE.  It is CONCRETE, because Jesus was tangible and concrete.  God came down to earth as someone we could see, and touch, and hear.  A man that we could break bread with, and left his mark upon the planet, in verifiable ways.  God gave us our senses, created us to experience reality through seeing and hearing and tasting and smelling and feeling.  And then He came to us, in time and space, so that we could interact with Him in just the way He created us to be.  God is pure spirit, but for US, He came as a child, who grew to a man.  And for those generations who got to be in His presence, how did they pass on this experience?  Not just with words in a book, as important as those are.  But also with concrete things.  "Here, child.  These were the nails.  This was his cross.  This is where he was buried.  These were the cloths that He was buried in.  See, remember, and believe."  Just as a family heirloom gets handed down from generation to generation, so did these tangible bits of the greatest story ever told.  And as the story continues into the present day, as the work of salvation takes fruit in Christ's bride the Church, those palpable things provide the illustrations.   They are the perceptible bridges that link us to our own heritage.  They ground us in time, place, reality.  And that is a powerful, powerful gift.

Relics seem to be a very Catholic phenomenon, and at times rather morbid or superstitious.  But truly understanding human nature, it can be seen why we crave them, why we need them.

On Sin

"Thus sin renders the soul miserable, weak and torpid, inconstant in doing good, cowardly in resisting temptation, slothful in the observance of God's commandments. It deprives her of true liberty and of that sovereignty which she should never resign; it makes her a slave to the world, the flesh, and the devil; it subjects her to a harder and more wretched servitude than that of the unhappy Israelites in Egypt or Babylon. Sin so dulls and stupefies the spiritual senses of man that he is deaf to God's voice and inspirations; blind to the dreadful calamities which threaten him; insensible to the sweet odor of virtue and the example of the saints; incapable of tasting how sweet the Lord is, or feeling the touch of His benign hand in the benefits which should be a constant incitement to his greater love. Moreover, sin destroys the peace and joy of a good conscience, takes away the soul's fervor, and leaves her an object abominable in the eyes of God and His saints. The grace of justification delivers us from all these miseries. For God, in His infinite mercy, is not content with effacing our sins and restoring us to His favor; He delivers us from the evils sin has brought upon us, and renews the interior man in his former strength and beauty. Thus He heals our wounds, breaks our bonds, moderates the violence of our passions, restores with true liberty the supernatural beauty of the soul, reestablishes us in the peace and joy of a good conscience, reanimates our interior senses, inspires us with ardor for good and a salutary hatred of sin, makes us strong and constant in resisting evil, and thus enriches us with an abundance of good works. In fine, He so perfectly renews the inner man with all his faculties that the Apostle calls those who are thus justified new men and new creatures."

— Venerable Louis Of Grenada

More on the Incarnation, by St. Bernard of Clairvaux

"And so the idea of peace came down to do the work of peace: The Word was made flesh and even now dwells among us. It is by faith that he dwells in our hearts, in our memory, our intellect and penetrates even into our imagination. What concept could man have of God if he did not first fashion an image of him in his heart? By nature incomprehensible and inaccessible, he was invisible and unthinkable, but now he wished to be understood, to be seen and thought of. But how, you ask, was this done? He lay in a manger and rested on a virgin’s breast, preached on a mountain, and spent the night in prayer. He hung on a cross, grew pale in death, and roamed free among the dead and ruled over those in hell. He rose again on the third day, and showed the apostles the wounds of the nails, the signs of victory; and finally in their presence he ascended to the sanctuary of heaven. How can we not contemplate this story in truth, piety and holiness?"

Augustine on Genesis

“Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of the world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he holds to as being certain from reason and experience. 

Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men.

 If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason?

 Reckless and incompetent expounders of Holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion [quoting 1 Tim 1:7].”

― Augustine of Hippo, The Literal Meaning of Genesis, Vol 2

On Incarnation

"Now man need not hide from God as Adam did; for He can be seen through Christ's human nature. Christ did not gain one perfection more by becoming man, nor did He lose anything of what He possessed as God. There was the Almightiness of God in the movement of His arm, the infinite love of God in the beatings of His human heart and the Unmeasured Compassion of God to sinners in His eyes. God was now manifest in the flesh; this is what is called the Incarnation. The whole range of the Divine attributes of power and goodness, justice, love, beauty, were in Him. And when Our Divine Lord acted and spoke, God in His perfect nature became manifest to those who saw Him and heard Him and touched Him. As He told Philip later on: Anyone who has seen Me has seen the Father [John 14:9]."

Venerable Fulton Sheen

St. Patrick’s Breastplate

I bind unto myself today The strong Name of the Trinity, By invocation of the same, The Three in One and One in Three.  I bind this day to me for ever. By power of faith, Christ's incarnation; His baptism in the Jordan river; His death on Cross for my salvation; His bursting from the spicèd tomb; His riding up the heavenly way; His coming at the day of doom;* I bind unto myself today.  I bind unto myself the power Of the great love of the cherubim; The sweet 'well done' in judgment hour, The service of the seraphim, Confessors' faith, Apostles' word, The Patriarchs' prayers, the Prophets' scrolls, All good deeds done unto the Lord, And purity of virgin souls.  I bind unto myself today The virtues of the starlit heaven, The glorious sun's life-giving ray, The whiteness of the moon at even, The flashing of the lightning free, The whirling wind's tempestuous shocks, The stable earth, the deep salt sea, Around the old eternal rocks.  I bind unto myself today The power of God to hold and lead, His eye to watch, His might to stay, His ear to hearken to my need. The wisdom of my God to teach, His hand to guide, His shield to ward, The word of God to give me speech, His heavenly host to be my guard.  Against the demon snares of sin, The vice that gives temptation force, The natural lusts that war within, The hostile men that mar my course; Or few or many, far or nigh, In every place and in all hours, Against their fierce hostility, I bind to me these holy powers.  Against all Satan's spells and wiles, Against false words of heresy, Against the knowledge that defiles, Against the heart's idolatry, Against the wizard's evil craft, Against the death wound and the burning, The choking wave and the poisoned shaft, Protect me, Christ, till Thy returning.  Christ be with me, Christ within me, Christ behind me, Christ before me, Christ beside me, Christ to win me, Christ to comfort and restore me. Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ in quiet, Christ in danger, Christ in hearts of all that love me, Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.  I bind unto myself the Name, The strong Name of the Trinity; By invocation of the same. The Three in One, and One in Three, Of Whom all nature hath creation, Eternal Father, Spirit, Word: Praise to the Lord of my salvation, Salvation is of Christ the Lord. 

On Fear

"For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the spirit of sonship. When we cry, 'Abba! Father!' it is the Spirit himself bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him."

Romans 8:15-1

"When one has nothing more to lose, the heart is inaccessible to fear."

— St. Théodore Guérin

Chuckle of the Day.

It is said that Friedrich Nietzsche once challenged God, "I too can create a man." God replied to Nietzsche, "Go ahead and try." Nietzsche took a fistful of dust and began to mold it. God said, "Disqualified. Get your own dust."

-- J. Budziszewski, Commentary on Thomas Aquinas's Treatise on Law

Thought for the Day: Love

"God cannot cease to love me. That is the most startling fact that our doctrine reveals. Sinner or saint He loves and cannot well help Himself. Magdalen in her sin, Magdalen in her sainthood, was loved by God. The difference between her position made some difference also in the effect of that love on her, but the love was the same, since it was the Holy Spirit who is the love of the Father and the Son. Whatever I do, I am loved. But then, if I sin, am I unworthy of love? Yes, but I am unworthy always. Nor can God love me for what I am, since, in that case, I would compel His love, force His will by something external to Himself. In fact, really if I came to consider, I would find that I was not loved by God because I was good, but that I was good because God loved me. My improvement does not cause God to love me, but is the effect of God's having loved me."

Fr. Bede Jarrett

From the Ever-Wise St. Thomas Aquinas

Evolutionary Thought of the Day

Francis Chan is starting to get it.

This video shows an awakening.  He's starting to get it!!  Prayers that the Holy Spirit continues to work in him!

Thought For the Day: The Big Picture

"For He became man that we might become divine; and He revealed Himself through a body that we might receive an idea of the invisible Father; and He endured insults from men that we might inherit incorruption."

— St. Athanasius of Alexandria

Back again, back again, jiggety jig

So, last week I completely lost my voice for the third time since September.  Enough enough enough.  This time it was out for 2 days, and then kind of got grumbly for the rest of the week.  I emailed Dr. Stan,  and he wants me to come back to see the throat surgeon I saw last time, just to make sure things haven't gotten worse on the vocal cord front.  To me, it's hard to quantify "worse", but since I've been totally silent three separate times in such a short amount of time, I think it's definitely worth getting checked out.  I do notice that my voice fatigues at night when reading to Reagan after about 10 minutes or so now.  Beyond that, how does one quantify such things?  I have no idea.

The parotid gland still acts up every few weeks or so.  I don't mind the salty taste in my mouth.  That's not big deal.  But when the "Charlie horse" starts in my cheek and below my jaw bone, it gets downright uncomfortable.  I've tried biting on a lemon... that's what the dentist suggested to do... and massage.  Neither seemed to work very well.  Apparently, because there's no fluid being produced by the gland anymore, salt crystals form.  The pain comes when the crystals get stuck.  So, kind of like passing a gall stone.. in my cheek.  Annoying, and ouchy.  But it only happens every few weeks or so.  I'm a big girl.  I can handle it.

Bottom line, Rob and I will be heading back to Mayo next week, to visit with Dr. Kasperbauer, the ENT who discovered the paralyzed vocal cord, and who stated last time that he COULD do ethanol ablation on that lymph node full of cancer on my one intact laryngeal nerve, but wouldn't recommend it at that time because of the risks, and the fact that he couldn't reach the other two in my chest with his needle.  Now wondering if it might be "worth the risk" of dealing with at least the one, if there's evidence of cancer invading the nerve.  We will see what he says.  We will see.

A full day at work last Monday with absolutely no voice whatsoever made me realize how impossible it would be to do my job without benefit of vocalizing.  I NEED a voice.  The text-to-speech app on my phone works some, but is not hands free and takes way too much time.  I had one little one who knew some sign language, and that worked awesome for her session, but... not all kids know sign language.  I just need to be able to talk.  So best be safe rather than sorry, and back to Mayo we go.

Please pray for good roads and good news!

 

Results of Round Two

I was so prepared to get the FINAL good news.  That hope has kept me completely at peace over the past four months, despite the irritations of radiation-induced menopause and the discomfort of parotid-gland inflammation.  I've been noticing that my voice is a little lower, more raspy when I talk, can't sing for the life of me, and I've completely lost my voice twice in the past few months... once for three days.  My voice fatigues really easily at night when I'm reading out-loud to Reagan, which limits our sessions (well, that and the mama falling asleep mid-sentence....).  So, there have been these annoying little things that are minor, but didn't phase me much at all because I was so ready to hear "you're all DONE!"

My follow up trip to Mayo was last week. Rob scheduled himself some appointments, since he was going to be there anyway. The day ran like clockwork, without a hitch.  Lab work, ultrasound, Rob's xray, EKG, Rob's doctor's appointment, and then... finally... at the end of the day.... my appointment.  When he walked into the room, Dr. Stan smiled and said "are you ready for good news?"  I was like "YES!!  Give me good news!"  I had anticipated, given his demeanor, that he had already reviewed the results and was building me up to drop the "all clear".  But actually, he pulled up the results and looked at them for the first time right there with us.  First he reviewed my chart and history, to make sure he remembered everything.  Then he pulled up the ultrasound.  "OK.  The lymph nodes are a little bigger.  But not much bigger.  Just a little.  And they don't have much blood flow now.  That's good."

Bigger?  That's not what I wanted to hear.  "Shouldn't they disappear if the radiation worked?  Wouldn't they be obliterated by the radiation?"  Not necessarily, he said.  Could be just the cancer inside was killed, but the lymph node itself remains.  OK.  I won't let "a little bigger" bug me.

The ultrasound itself couldn't tell me for sure if the cancer was still there or not, at least in the one or two lymph nodes they could visualize by ultrasound.  Whether there are two or three cancerous nodes is still vague, because the PET scan showed three, and this ultrasound visualized two.  But I know the other one off my aorta, behind the carotid, is too deep to visualize by ultrasound.  So I think there's probably a smaller node in between the two larger nodes that they're most concerned about, under my breast bone somewhere, but more near the neck so they can get an ultrasound picture if they look straight down under my collar bone.  I digress.  But because of their position limiting the full view of all three, and the fact that two of the nodes had gotten a little larger, the ultrasound alone couldn't give me the good news.  Victory would come from my tumor marker.  Come on, tumor marker.  Sock it to me.  Show me the zero, baby.

It's not zero.  It's 2.  Two is BETTER.  It was 106 last time, but that was stimulated in preparation for treatment, so not a realistic number.  That's comparing apples to oranges, because I'm definitively NOT stimulated now.  Then, my TSH (think of TSH as cancer food) was 52. That's a smorgasburg  of cancer food.   Now my TSH is below .01, so low that their lab equipment can't even measure it.  Essentially zero.  We're starving that cancer as absolutely much as we can without me throwing up and being jittery all the time, like I was a few weeks ago.  To compare apples to apples, we'd have to look at my suppressed tumor marker numbers, and those were 3.2 in May, and 9 in March.  So two is definitively better, and the lowest number I've EVER had since this whole cancer thing started.  I'll take it.  It's in the right direction.  TWO.

So, the war is not over, but this battle was won.  I was hoping for the end of the war, so have to admit to being a little disappointed.   BUT, this is good news.  I like good news.  Not the BEST news, but good news.  We will carry on.  Current plan initially was to follow up in February, but we do NOT want to drive fourteen hours round trip in February, so we moved that to April.  Roads should be better in April.  At that time, we'll do another ultrasound and blood work.  If the tumor marker hasn't gone to zero, he'll have me do the low-iodine diet again, and come back in May or June  for a whole-body scan and likely a third round of radioiodine.  If my voice starts consistently getting worse, I'm to call him before that and move everything up, bad weather or not.  He told me he doesn't want me to go back to Marshfield at all now.  We need to stay with Mayo, and I'm totally fine with that.  Dr. Stan is awesome.  Mayo itself is thoroughly impressive.  I was only going to go back to my Marshfield doctor if we had the all clear, and I just needed periodic monitoring, and only because it's so much closer to home.  We're not there yet, so I cancelled my November and December appointments with them.

Haven't written the final chapter yet, like I was hoping to, but I think we're in the "denouement" now.

God is good.  All the time.

In Anticipation

Tomorrow, I get the news as to whether treatment worked or not.  I'm actually excited about this appointment, because I am so confident it will be GOOD news, after three years.  This is not a place I've been in before on the eve of a big appointment.  Typically, I'm scanning the research, mentally preparing myself for a blow, steeling myself for the inevitable bad news (or at least "meh" news).  This time, I am fully prepared to celebrate.  Stay tuned.

If I DO get to celebrate, I've been thinking about the toll this stupid, annoying cancer has taken.  The final score, so to speak.  Cancer has taken my thyroid, one vocal cord, one parotid gland, and two ovaries.  Given that I have a second vocal cord, another parotid gland, and the ovaries were gonna go eventually anyways, I feel like that's pretty cheap.   A side effect of losing my metabolism regulating organ at the same time as my ovaries has caused significant weight gain, and I hate that. I do not feel like myself at all in that regard. Score another one for big C.  Cancer has cost me thousands of dollars, months and months of time off work, and been a holy pain for three years.  It has, in all honestly, cost me some relationships, as I have not been able to go out west to maintain those relationships due to the time off treatment has required.  That is something I regret more than anything.  But we will earn more dollars.  I will regain PTO.  I will try to lose weight if I can. And the three years of my life have been a learning experience, a time to grow stronger, and experience innumerable graces.  Overall, I have been abundantly blessed.

I'm so ready to say goodbye to this chapter of my life.  Cancer has scored some points, but in the end, I WIN.  Not because of anything I did, because of the kindness of a good and gracious Father, who allowed me an experience to challenge me, but not break me.

Final buzzer tomorrow.  Let the countdown begin!!!

Thought Of The Day

”For when men no longer understand the infinite charity of God, they will no longer prize the most striking revelation of that charity, the love of mothers.”  Cardinal Mindszenty

Why I Love My Job

I love getting to be a part of the lives of families.  I love being chief cheerleader as a child reaches goals.  I love helping kids do things that they didn't know they could do.  I love being able to support parents as they grieve, and rejoice, and grapple with life with a child of special needs.  I just feel blessed to be able to be a part of people's lives in a very intimate way.

Status Update, 2 months post treatment

I was so hopeful after radiodiodine therapy in June, and I still am.  I still have all kinds of hope that this journey is over (we'll find out in October), BUT... I'm starting to feel the effects of that treatment now two months later, that I didn't feel at first.  I was feeling SO GOOD initially, and it was so wonderful.  I felt NORMAL.  That's something that should never be taken for granted, that feeling NORMAL.  For the past few weeks, though, I've been feeling super tired, and bloated. I've gained a ton of weight, even though my eating habits haven't changed.   I haven't had a period in 3 months.  My body "zings" when I wake up in the middle of the night...oh, and I'm waking up in the middle of the night, every night.  I'm getting right flank pain.  I'm an air head, and have a hard time motivating myself and concentrating on things.  I'm stiff and walking around like a 90 year old woman. I have to hold on to the railing to do stairs, or do them one at a time.  That's ridiculous.   I get short of breath after doing very little work.  And I have been super queasy/nauseous, which has caused me to lose hours at work, and that's not good.  So general BLAH.  Malaise.  I just feel incredibly OLD.  And I am NOT OLD, dang it!!

So, I made an appointment with a gynecologist, as I suspected that the old hormones were out of whack.  And yes.  They are.  Again, therapy stunned my ovaries, and pushed me back into "post-menopausal" numbers, meaning they are not working AT ALL (FSH 40.4, Estradiol 15).   I figured as much, given what happened after the last treatment.  Last time, after about a year, my ovaries started coming slowly back to life, in a sputtering, half hearted manner.  We'll see if they decide to wake up again eventually this time, or if they've just given up for good.    So that explains some of my symptoms.  But last time when this happened, I didn't throw up or feel so queasy, and I didn't have right flank pain.  I didn't feel quite so weak or jittery, either.

Labs came back with a TSH of .02.  We want that number low, to starve the cancer, but WHOA.  It's supposed to be below .1, and at the start of 2019 I was running around .07.  Now we're getting pretty dang close to zero.  That could certainly cause some symptoms, too.  The disturbing thing about my lab values, at least in my mind, is that my liver function tests are all out of whack, which is probably causing the flank pain and nausea.    Apparently, hyperthyroidism can cause liver damage.  I can't actually get much more hyperthyroid than I currently am, given my super high dose at the moment.

Don't know what all this means, besides something needs adjusting, to make me feel better.  It's such a beautiful summer, I don't want to waste it feeling yucky.

It's all just minor stuff, though, and I'm acutely aware of that.  I'm still abundantly blessed.  An acquaintance's son just got diagnosed with stage three lymphoma, at 18 years old.  He's on his second round of chemo already and has been in and out of the hospital this entire summer.   And the son of a friend of Rob's  just died of cancer as well.  These kids getting cancer.  It's not right.  They have to deal with far more than I do.   I don't want to "navel gaze" or perseverate on my stuff, because it is such an easier battle than what others are going through.  Mine's not terminal, or life-consuming. It's just annoying.  So, I'm not complaining, just documenting.  It needs to go away already, and I think it has.  Now I just need to feel back to normal, and we'll be all good.

For The Record

The family and I went camping this weekend... the first time in years.  It was not planned, it just happened at the last minute.  The weather was gorgeous, the water was gorgeous, and after much complaining by the teenaged set on the way there - we had a fabulous time.  Just tons of happy family memories, and it was awesome.  No devices.  No tv.  We spent a glorious day and evening enjoying each other's company and the beauty of God's good earth.  I couldn't help myself, I had to take pictures.

The rest of the family got irritated by this.
"Mom!  Stop taking pictures and just enjoy the moment!"
"You're going to put this all on your 'quirky blog'."
The ribbing started edging towards mockery, and my feelings were getting hurt.

Do you know WHY I take so many pictures, family????
They guessed that it was to show the world what we're up to. To brag about a happy family. To present an image to the world.   NO. NO. NO.  Their answers made my heart hurt.

I will tell you why I take so many pictures, why I blog.

Dementia runs in my family.  My poor grandfather couldn't remember anything, and kept a pencil and notepad on him at all times to remember people's names, important things that happened to him.

My own father's memory is starting to fail.  I see it and it scares me.

I know I will be the same way.  I know it, because I feel it already.  And I don't want to forget.  I don't want to forget this beautiful, blessed life I've been granted, and I don't want to forget the happy memories.  I want to remember my family as it is RIGHT NOW.  So I document it.  It's my external memory, because I fear my internal memory will fail me.  It already has.

So I capture it as much as I can.  So I don't forget.  If I take a picture of it, if I write about it, if I video tape it.... it doesn't disappear.  Time is so fleeting, and I feel it passing so quickly.  So much of my own childhood has disappated and is gone forever.  I'm trying to grab on to it, one photo at a time.  To freeze these moments that mean so much to me.

So be patient with your sentimental mom, and smile for the paparazzi, dang it.

The Mini-Miracle

On June 14th, 2019, I returned home from Mayo Clinic, radioactive.  I found my bedroom transformed into a beautiful, peaceful, flower-filled spa room, and heard tales of my friends gathering in prayer to bless the space, and the healing to take place there.    Here are what the daisies looked like on that day:

Well, here it is, over a month later, and you know what???  Here is what those daisies look like after five weeks:

What the WHAT??? 

Cut flowers do NOT last 5 weeks, people.  They just don't.  I'm lucky if I can get something to stay fresh for a week.  

I believe that all that grace that filled my little spa room spilled over onto these daisies.  And THAT is a really good sign.  Obviously my room was filled with life and love!

On Virtue

"Chastity is the most unpopular of the Christian virtues. There is no getting away from it; the Christian rule is, ‘Either marriage, with complete faithfulness to your partner, or else total abstinence.’ Now this is so difficult and so contrary to our instincts, that obviously either Christianity is wrong or our sexual instinct, as it now is, has gone wrong. One or the other. Of course, being a Christian, I think it is the instinct which has gone wrong ... God knows our situation; He will not judge us as if we had no difficulties to overcome. What matters is the sincerity and perseverance of our will to overcome them. Before we can be cured we must want to be cured. Those who really wish for help will get it; but for many modern people even the wish is difficult ... We may, indeed, be sure that perfect chastity—like perfect charity—will not be attained by any merely human efforts. You must ask for God’s help. Even when you have done so, it may seem to you for a long time that no help, or less help than you need, is being given. Never mind. After each failure, ask forgiveness, pick yourself up and try again. Very often what God first helps us towards is not the virtue itself but just this power of always trying again. For however important chastity (or courage, or truthfulness, or any other virtue) may be, this process trains us in habits of the soul which are more important still. It cures our illusions about ourselves and teaches us to depend on God. We learn, on the one hand, that we cannot trust ourselves even in our best moments, and, on the other, that we need not despair even in our worst, for our failures are forgiven. The only fatal thing is to sit down content with anything less than perfection."

C.S. Lewis

Meditation of the Day

"My great God, you know all that is in the universe, because you yourself have made it. It is the very work of your hands. 

You are omniscient, because you are omnicreative. You know each part, however minute, as perfectly as you know the whole. You know mind as perfectly as you know matter. You know the thoughts and purposes of every soul as perfectly as if there were no other soul in the whole of your creation. 

You know me through and through; all my present, past, and future are before you as one whole. You see all those delicate and evanescent motions of my thought which altogether escape myself. You can trace every act, whether deed or thought, to its origin and can follow it into its whole growth and consequences. You know how it will be with me at the end; you have before you that hour when I shall come to you to be judged. 

How awful is the prospect of finding myself in the presence of my judge! Yet, O Lord, I would not that you should not know me. It is my greatest stay to know that you read my heart. Oh, give me more of that openhearted sincerity which I have desired. Keep me ever from being afraid of your eye, from the inward consciousness that I am not honestly trying to please you. 

Teach me to love you more, and then I shall be at peace, without any fear of you at all."

St. John Henry Newman

Jesus Shock

Peter Kreeft is one of my favorite theologians and authors.  I just re-read the book "Jesus Shock" for I think the third time, but the first time in several years.  Needless to say, I got out my little pencil and was underlining EVERYTHING in there.  He is utterly correct.  HOW can we claim to be Christians and go on about our every day lives as if that's no big deal?  If what we're confessing to believe is TRUE, how does that not impact every little thing in our lives?  How can our lives be boring or plain or typical, if this is true????

I have to admit, I am blessed with many friends and family with a sincere faith, and I am incredibly thankful for that.  But I also have to admit feeling frequently like "the crazy one", the one who "takes this religion thing a little too far".  Like it's a hobby I'm obsessed with, and not the reason for existence.  Not that I am any holier than anyone else.  Not that.  Just... if it's TRUE, then why are we not all "the crazy ones?"  If we truly believe what we say we believe, how can we be NORMAL?  Because it is 99.99999999999999% unbelievable, this Christianity thing, and yet, we all claim to accept it like it's not a big deal, when it TOTALLY IS.  And that should generate a whole lot of passion, not platitude.  Not comfort. Not normalcy.   It should be wholly UNCOMFORTABLE, and discombobulating, and off-kilter.  It should change EVERYTHING!  Kreeft gets that.  And revels in it.  And reminds me of this fact, every time I read this book.

Kreeft says something in the book that sticks with me every time I read it.  He talks about how we shouldn't just know about Jesus.  We shouldn't just believe in Jesus.  It's not all theology.  It's not all dogma.  We should know Jesus, body, blood, soul and divinity.  Not just spiritually as "my personal Lord and Savior," although He is that.  But concretely, in the matter in which He gives Himself to us in the Eucharist.  Mind blowing.

GO FORTH, and get thee "Jesus Shock" by Peter Kreeft, fellow kindred spirits! Or borrow mine!
And feel free to make your own little notes in the margins.....

Radioactive

Getting to Rochester was tough tough tough.  It was a long slog, during which time I struggled to stay awake and alert, and the trip took an additional two hours because of stops to sleep, walk around, get a coke, fill up with gas... just anything to not fall asleep at the wheel.  So I was terrified of what Friday would bring, when I would have the same drive time-wise, only in further hypothyroidism, with radiation, and late in the afternoon and into the evening, when I wasn't allowed to stop anywhere public to revitalize.  So, I unabashedly asked for prayers from any and all praying friends and family members.  PLEASE pray for the safe trip home of both my husband from Lansing, where he was at a conference, and myself from Mayo.

I woke up Friday morning with the typical headache and fatigue and swelling and BLAH BLAH BLAH that I'd had for the past two weeks.  Being off meds really isn't fun. It makes me look like this, and I feel just as miserable as I look:

Hypothyroidism is for the birds, let me tell you.  And this is WITH makeup on.  Yamma Hamma.  

ANYWAYS.....

 I was checked out of the hotel by 6:30 am, and was in having a whole body scan by 7:15 am.  By my 10:45 am doctor's appointment, Dr. Stan had all the results ready and waiting (well, I guess HE was 45 minutes late, but the results were there.  I was sure of it!)  He had already physically talked to the nuclear med doctor in person about the scan - not just read a report. He called him up and got his impressions mano y mano. The collaboration and communication in this place blows me away.  I am thoroughly impressed by it.

Six weeks ago, Dr. Stan gave radioiodine a 34% chance of working.  He told me not to get my hopes up, but since surgery and ethanol ablation weren't options, he was willing to try a less viable option if I was.  I was.  Obviously.  Well, yesterday, after seeing my scan and talking to the nuclear med guy, that story all changed.  He said "We couldn't have asked for a better scenario.  Usually things that show up on PET scan don't also show up on radioiodine scan, but these did.  The same spots lit up, which mean they are iodine-avid.  And only the two spots we already knew about lit up.  Which means that we're pretty sure we found all the cancer, and it's treatable with radioiodine.  This should work."  He was actually SMILING as he said it.  SMILING!!  I was like.... WHAT?!?!?!?!?!  He also was very explicit about telling me "These are not life-threatening lesions.  They are vocal-cord threatening lesions".  I already knew that, but it was GOOD TO HEAR in such plain language.  "We're a go for 2 pm today for 75 mci of radioiodine!"

Bottom line.... Dr. Stan was telling me that he thought I was going to be CURED OF CANCER with this treatment.  CURED people.  Not watching.  Not monitoring.  Not controlling or slowing down.  CURED.  After 2.5 years.  After my Marshfield doctor had very explicitly told me that being cured wasn't even a goal of his, he was there to "manage" it.  That it would never go away, because radioiodine didn't work the first time, and the remaining lesions weren't candidates for more conventional therapies.  And here Dr. Stan was, the chair of Thyroid core group of the American Thyroid Association, at one of the top medical facilities in the world, telling me that he was pretty sure he would CURE me, by not following the protocol. By looking at my individual situation and doing what his gut told him best, despite protocol.   I wanted to scream.  Maybe I did?  I'm sure I waited until I was in my car to do that, and not in front of the man himself, but I was ELATED.  OVER THE MOON.  Light me up, buddy.  I'm ready.

He wants to follow up in 4 months time.  I told him that I already had an appointment scheduled with my Marshfield doctor in November - would that suffice?  He paused, looked at me, and said carefully, "well, you know... the ultrasounds you had there were read as clear, and they obviously weren't.  They missed the cancer for two years.  I want to know that this is gone, and I trust our staff here.  Let me make sure the cancer is gone, then you can follow up there all you want."  DEAL.  DEAL. DEAL.  Plus, he wants to make sure that my tumor marker goes down from that horrendous 106 number to Zero.   FINALLY.  So I will be back in October.  Fine.  By.  Me.

It really didn't hit me until I was radioactive and on the way home.  What I haven't had in the past two years, through this entire saga.... what I was lacking...was HOPE.  Hope of a life after, where there was a real possibility of an end.  A way to put it all behind me, and not have it looming.  I was getting really good at pretending it all wasn't there until I had to.  But it was there.  Always in the back of my mind, always wondering about it, always lurking.  I had never allowed myself to hope that it could all go away completely.  I was too busy processing the thought of having to live with it for the rest of my life until either it or something else did me in.  But be rid of it altogether?  I wanted that, but had not allowed myself to believe it was an actual possibility.  So when Dr. Stan smiled and said "this should work"... MAN.  Hope!!!  Such a grand feeling.  I floated all the way home, and did not even get tired once, without the aid of tea or coffee, or Five Hour Energy, or Coke-a-cola, or naps, or stops to get out and walk around.  Nothing.  I floated home on hope and prayers people.  Hope and prayers.

When I walked into my bedroom after the drive, I was greeted by a surprise transformation.  There were flowers everywhere.  Slippers and a robe waiting for me on my bed.  Books and tea, and food in the fridge, and lovely notes, and essential oils with diffusers, and lotions, and soaps, and all kinds of wonderful, thoughtful, kind things!  My friends had broken into my room while I was gone and transformed it into my own private spa, and it was amazing.  IS amazing.  I won't want to leave, even after I'm allowed to be around people again, I assure you!!!    Take a gander at THIS:

I have the best friends in the world.  And I just can't help feeling blessed and happy.  This horrible day that I was dreading turned out to be an enormous blessing, and one I will remember with joy and gratitude FOREVER.  THANK YOU GOOD AND GRACIOUS LORD!  And THANK YOU, dear and wonderful friends, that I don't even begin to deserve.

I am blessed beyond measure.