Post Number Forty-Three

Haiti and Accommodating Cancer

My Haiti mission trip is over.  I am processing what I have learned and trying to come to grips with an encounter with poverty on a scale I have never imagined. This experience has brought a huge change in my heart. My previous sorrow toward the people of Haiti and their plight has been replaced by a profound respect for their industry and resourcefulness.  These are people who have high aspirations for themselves and for their country.  They continue to scratch away at the challenges they face trying to put together a brighter future for themselves and their children.  I heard someone remark that the people of Haiti are poor because they are lazy. Nothing could be further from the truth.  You cannot be lazy and survive in Haiti. Everything needed in life requires a huge expenditure of effort.  

Terry and I have something to learn from these people.  She is coming up on chemo treatment number six of eight.  There are encouraging signs.  Her blood CEA levels have dropped dramatically.  Even Dr. Cox acted relieved.  He began to talk about a future we had not yet considered.  He talked about beating cancer back time and time again as we go about trying to live out the lives we have planned together.  Rather than a cure, he indicated a future in which we have made an accommodation with with cancer as a constant unwelcome presence in our lives.

This is not what I imagined when this battle began.  I imagined a clean victory over cancer with battle stories to tell at future family gatherings.  Now we are considering a different future - a future in which we are constantly clawing away against cancer while we live our lives as completely as we can under the circumstances.  This accommodation is not resignation nor is it submission.  It is about living, hoping and loving in the presence of an unwelcome reality.  Like the people of Haiti living, hoping and loving in the face of profound poverty we may be coming to a defiant accommodation with cancer.

Dave Gladstone