From Kirstin

I'm scared.

I’m writing this out now, before I sleep, so that I might not have to wake up still wrapped in these fears.

After my CT was clear, I was so relieved and elated that I stopped believing this cancer could hurt me. Sometime in the past few days, that fear crept back. My PET scan is Monday. Surgery is the 15th. I know that the worst that could happen, would be to be admitted for a neck dissection. I’d wake up every morning with a puffy half of my face, after that; it would recede in a few hours. After a few years, your body figures out what to do minus some lymph nodes. (Right now, we have no evidence of lymph involvement.)

I’m not afraid of a smaller left ear. Nor of scars on my neck, if it comes to that. I’m not physically afraid of the flu, knowing there’s an end date. I want to experience this—I also want to be able to put it in the past tense. If there is lymph involvement, I’ll never be able to fully trust my body again. I’ll never know that they got it all.

I’ve caught myself trying to feel my own lymph nodes. I don’t even know what I’m looking for. I could tell if something was strikingly swollen—but not just sleepily incubating. And health-wise, other than exhausted and anxious, I feel fine.

My body, and I, need so much love. I need to be gentle with it; to not attack it for being vulnerable to cancer cells. But I have this alien growing on my ear, that could start firing any time it wants to. I just want it off of me. My body didn’t choose this. Without my brain, it isn’t sentient. My body didn’t betray me. Biology, happened. Many, many people are sicker than I.

This isn’t the initial fear of not knowing—and of still being innocent enough to think and hope you’ll be okay. This is the heavy, twisty fear you could get sick on. It’s, “Oh, fuck. This isn’t just about now—I’ll have to be aware of it forever.” It could never come back. It could come back like it is now. It could come back and go metastatic. It could come back, when I don’t have health insurance.

How many people have I met, who have to ask those same questions? I’m caught up in this sleeplessness --> anxiety cycle. I know that many people are praying for me. I know God is present. I’ve lost track of where.

I’d slipped off the chapel prayer list, this morning—and I could still hear people all around me, whispering my name. That, was powerful. If you love me, if you’re praying for me, please tell me. Even if you know you did, yesterday. People tell me all the time that I'm doing well--I take strength from my community. Right now I don’t know how to pray for myself. I put up a brave front, when I need to, and sometimes I really do feel sure and strong. Other times, that’s about as real as the man behind the curtain.

Kirstin's blog is Barefoot and Laughing. Tell her that you are praying for her. Tell her that you care. I know what it's like to be too distraught or too sick to pray for myself or my loved ones. Jesus calls us, his followers, to lift each other up, to bear each other's burdens. That's a powerful ministry. I have experienced that power, the power of the prayers of many for me and mine, when I could not pray myself. It's real, and it's true.

Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.
Philippians 4:6-8