Pain is a Teacher (August)
‘Survivor’
It’s been a minute since I wrote my last blog. Much has happened during this month. I left off in the last blog with a pause to reflect on how to respond to my brother telling me that “I am sick”. Of course, at the time I was fighting with my usual coping methods: refusal, defiance with a good dose of stubborn pride. Well, soon after that row, probably that same night, pain in my back and down my legs gave me a rude awakening. This was the kind of pain that is both severe cramping doubled with sharp shooting pain. It was quite intense bordering on unbearable. I for one, have a high threshold for pain, something I learned from boarding school. But this required numbing cream plus a pain patch, plus painkillers. At one point I gave in to Oxycodone and it was the lousiest experience to be so heavily sedated, and the pain was not even gone, it just took the edge off. Then there are other problems like constipation, cramping, and body aches.
After resisting the pain, resenting it and wishing it’d go away, I had to turn to being grateful for the day and remember all the blessings in friends and family, love and prayers and all that I had to support and care for me. My body began to settle into the pain, and I could hear myself. Then I realized that my general state despite my denial was indeed sickly. My body mass had dwindled, I was bent most of the time, could not support my body or my head. I felt very weak to the point of being shaky and I had constant coughing, vomiting, and phlegm. I could not eat anything.
I was sick. I saw it clearly. My brother was right. He was not being mean or callous. He was deeply concerned, frightened even, that I was fading right before his eyes. Meanwhile, I was insisting that I could travel back to Mexico, pursue my treatment there mostly on my own and be fine to take care of myself. Once I saw the reality it hit me that my stoicism was part fear and part a coping method I’d lived with, and it had worked for me for most of my life. Except this time was very different. I am facing death, and it occurred to me that I have what may have been known as consumption because I sure felt like something was consuming me.
A friend came to visit, and I had that convo about the impending treatment of chemo and radiation plus medications enough to open a mini drug store. Not to mention my aversion for drugs and how crummy I felt with Oxycodone and the steroid medication. I just dreaded the whole journey and wanted so much to be put to sleep. I had ambivalence about euthanasia but at some point, during those dark days, I totally believed in it and wanted my Oncologist to do me the honor of dying with dignity. So, I told my friend who also happens to be spiritual and religious. She is also a person God has tested with fire, and I have a deep respect for her. She said to me, “I understand how you feel. God will give you what you ask for but be careful how you choose.” I’m paraphrasing. It got me refocused on what God wants for me and not on my fear of suffering. It isn’t that I do not savor my life. I love my life and especially the last three years felt like I had found my place in the sun, but suffering and consumption and death after a long bout of pain and convulsions wasn’t going to be my choice. In all this one thing that got lost was the bold act of Faith. That God would turn everything for my good and for the good of all. That God would walk with me every step of the way and upholding me by His righteous right hand. That no matter what I will be in God’s mighty hands. Once I turned my focus on God and began to call on the name of Jesus, I was reminded of the covenant with God.
Months before my diagnosis, I had gone on a SEEK fast with the Alfred Street Baptist Church. The focus of my fast and prayer was to know God more, to do His will and to seek Him not for the blessings but for Him. There was one day earlier in my diagnosis when I was alone in Mexico when I was overcome by the Holy Spirit and felt the deepest love for God and I said, “Use it for your purpose. If it’ll reveal you through me, I gladly go through any thing you ordain.” I meant every world, and I knew God would not forsake me nor would I be able to do such a monumental thing on my own strength but purely by the Grace of God and the power of the Holy Spirit.
So, here I am a few weeks after my convo with my brother and my friend and there was a day when I confessed to my friend, Lucy, that I am terrified but I got to a place where I declared I am a miracle.
