Two weeks...

10:10 pm... it was about this time two weeks ago i was coming to in the post-op recovery area at the Juravinski.  I remember vaguely just wanting Timothy to be there, to hold his hand, to feel his presence with me, to tell me that i was all right, to tell me that Ava was all right, that i didn't have to have a colostomy.  To tell me about this strange time in my life that i will never get back, when i was not in one little bit of control over what happened to me.  I'm having a hard time thinking back on that time without being anxious.  How can five hours of your life just disappear?  How did things really go?  I think sometimes i would have liked to have watched from a little perch in the corner of the room as i slowly slipped into unconsciousness and surrendered myself and Ava totally to the care of the surgeons and nurses and anesthetists, as i was intubated, prepped, how the surgery proceeded, what they said as they operated, how they worked together as a seamless team to make sure that this cancer enemy was attacked and rooted out from where it had taken such a firm hold on my body and spread its awful tendrils around my organs like a horrible invasive weed.  How i was wheeled out after the ordeal was over and people watched over me as i slowly came to on the other side of this valley, this brush with death, this first foray into the awful battle with cancer that we are facing.  I remember being panicky and breathing quickly and having pain and being lost and wanting to be found and finding such relief to finally feel my husband's hand reaching for mine and whispering words of comfort to a troubled soul.  How much love i felt at that point for him and also such gratitude to God for carrying Ava and myself through this ordeal!
And yet, then two weeks of ups and downs with pain and symptom management and so much love and support all around and here we are tonight.  Two weeks ago... i was whole and unscarred and now i have bits and pieces of myself missing and yet that is healing.  How hard to fathom that the scars will show that healing has begun and that this ugly tumour is now no longer threatening my life.  Sometimes i feel like it would have been therapeutic to throw it on the floor and stomp on it and declare my own vendetta against this invader, to want to pulverize it and turn it into bits and pieces... much the way my life has had bits and pieces bitten out of so many areas... my roles as mother, wife and daughter, sister, friend, neighbour and co-worker.  I've had to work on how to reform and remake those roles into something that the post-surgery Danielle can manage and handle.  Because to be honest, there are many things that feel overwhelming and huge... even the concept of chemo - how many years have i given chemo to my patients without fully considering the impact i was having on them and their psyche?  Really deep down thought about giving chemicals and toxins in the hopes that they would target and destroy those awful cancer cells that were so microscopic and yet were so destructive.
A friend of mine reminded me tonight that all of this is like going through trauma.  Things i've seen and thought, undergone and endured and yet this is just the tip of the iceberg.
God has given us grace over and over again to see His mercy in all of this - to be completely and utterly surrounded by the love and care of a community, people we have known for years, perhaps our whole lives, some of whom were casual acquaintances of, some strangers.  All of you have reached out and been our support network and you haven't let us fall.  Your constant prayers and petitions for our healing and strength are heard and no doubt are piling up in waves at the feet of our God.  We too pray for healing and strength, but also for acceptance and peace in the midst of feelings of anger and lostness and grief and sorrow.  I often find grief sneaks up on me when i'm least expecting it and throws its sad, lonely mouth open and seeks to swallow me whole.  And then a friend will call or a text will ring out and that will be my life-line in the midst of the squall, the storm.
And yet, oddly enough, as i spoke tonight to my parents and Timothy, yet oddly enough, despite being entirely surrounded, sometimes you just feel utterly alone.  Don't ask me how that happens, and it's not for lack of trying by others to be there... it's so appreciated and needed.  But with the odd combination of a cancer that doesn't often strike people my age and gender at this point, the fact that i'm pregnant, that i'm a wife and mother, that i'm a nurse... that exact combo and recipe is nearly impossible to replicate and so i struggle.. to find someone truly who can truly plumb the depths of my emotions and sorrows and i'm forced to conclude that no one on this earth could do that.  Only my Saviour, my Jesus, who knows me inside out and backwards, would be able to fathom this, would be able to speak on my behalf, who spoke the words that i feel like speaking "Father, if this cup can be taken from me... " and have a hard time adding on those words "yet not my will, but yours be done."  I am thankful that the Spirit intercedes with groans deeper than words... that God heard Job too when he despaired of his salvation, that he heard Jonah from the belly of the fish and that somehow this weak vessel too will bring Him glory through a humble and hesitating confession
Not much of an update as to days events but tonight, this was more important to get out than any things that happened or didn't happen.  Tomorrow more concrete... tonight... i'm done... over and out...

A pic of the huge generosity of my dear brothers and sisters at Rehoboth, doing their thing by surrounding us with love and kind words, material and spiritual blessings, yummy food, good books, toys for our Martha, balm for aching souls...