Post Number Sixteen

A Longer Journey Than Anticipated

It has been some time since I have been able to come back to this journal.  After a week at home, Terry returned to the hospital on October 29.  She remained there for nine days while a number of issues in her recovery were addressed.  She came out of the hospital a week ago.  Only now have I had a moment to think and reflect on the direction this experience has taken.

Everything is more complicated than anticipated.  Everything is taking longer than we thought.  Pain persists.  Anxiety grows.  We are still optimistic of the final outcome, but the finish line keeps moving farther toward the horizon.  This is going to take some patience - more patience than I have found in my life to this point.

Now I am beginning to realize that our lives have been profoundly changed.  Terry's life is forever altered.  In response, my life has taken on a new reality.  Our life together must now adjust to a reality we never thought of nor anticipated.  This is going to take some work.  The adjustment is made more challenging by the fact that we both experience this new reality differently.  We are traveling the same road, but our experience of the journey is shaped by the difference in our points of view.  At the present time all we can do is reassure each other that we are on the same road; headed in the same direction, and confident of the same destination.  

Consider the road in the picture above. The end of the road is too far off to see.  For the present we must be attentive to the path beneath our feet.  Terry may be walking on the right and experiencing the journey from that perspective.  I may be walking on the left attentive to those things within my view.  From time to time we come together in the middle to share what we have learned and to reassure one another that we are still together on this journey.  Right now I think we would both agree that the long road stretched out before us is daunting and much longer than we thought it would be when we started.

Post Number Fifteen

Help Is On The Way

Before I write anything else I must write that the wedding of our daughter, Mary, to Andrew Highland on October 11 was a glorious and joy filled time.  We were able to set the issue of Terry's illness to the side and focus on the gathered and extended family.  Mary and Andrew designed a wedding ceremony that was beautiful, unique and appropriate to their relationship.  It was a true celebration of love and will long be remembered.  It was a blessing in all respects.

We returned home on October 13 and on October 15 Terry entered the hospital for surgery to remove her cancer.  Things were more complicated than anticipated.  An expected two hour surgery took five hours.  What we had hoped could be accomplished laparoscopically could not be done and Terry underwent full open surgery - first a hysterectomy then the removal of the cancer and a colonostomy.  Needless to say, her recovery was made much more difficult and will take longer than we had hoped.  Yesterday I brought her home.  She still has a long road ahead, but being home is a blessing.

I must tell you that all of this combined with trying to be a pastor to my church and keeping up with caring for Terry's aging and infirm parents has really taken its toll on me.  There have been times when I have felt like one of those jugglers that used to perform on the old Ed Sullivan Show - those guys that used to keep eight plates spinning on sticks.  I have been frantic just trying to keep all of the things going without it all crashing down and creating a huge mess.

This past week, on one of Terry's most difficult days, I entered the hospital elevator feeling like I could hardly put one foot in front of the other. "I need help." I whispered as I pressed the button to the third floor and starred blankly at the control panel in front of me.  For the first time I noticed an instruction on the control panel that had escaped my attention.  There was a little red light and a sign that read, "When flashing, help is on the way."  

How great. A hospital equipping its elevators to detect when people needed help.  This was certainly me at the present time.  I was a little disappointed that the light was not flashing, but it was early in the morning and perhaps the elevator was still waking up.  I arrived in Terry's room and announced to her that help was coming.  I thought that by noon I would find the elevator ready to assist me.  But at noon as I went to the cafeteria for some lunch the light was still not flashing.  I blamed my tendency for impatience and told myself that many people in the world need help right now and that certainly by the evening the light would be flashing.  All last week I entered that elevator every day hoping that the light would be flashing.  Every day it remained unresponsive to our needs.  Yesterday I brought Terry home.  I looked to the elevator.  From whence cometh my help?  My help cometh from the Lord.

Post Number Fourteen

One Wedding and A Surgery

On October 11 our daughter, Mary, will wed Andrew Highland at the United Methodist Church of the Deaf in Baltimore, MD.  On October 15, just four days later, Terry will undergo surgery to remove the tumor that was discovered last July.  Ever since the discovery of that tumor we have measured each medical decision and schedule by the need to travel to Baltimore for the wedding. Would Terry be recovered sufficiently from the radiation treatments to travel? Can the required surgery be delayed safely until after the wedding?  At the present time it appears that the answer to both of those questions is, "Yes."  I regard this as one of the hidden blessings of our present situation.

Terry and I intend to throw ourselves completely into the joy of the wedding celebration.  This is an exercise in healthy denial.  By that I mean that we intend to deny this cancer's efforts to steal this joyful moment from us.  We shall not go to Baltimore and pretend that this cancer reality does not exist.  That would be an unhealthy denial.  We shall go to Baltimore and be joyful in spite of the cancer.  This is possible because as unwelcome as this cancer reality is, it does not own us nor does it define who we are.

Post Number Thirteen

How Can I Keep From Singing

Since 2002 Terry and I have led an adult choir retreat at the Lake Huron Retreat Center on the weekend following Labor Day.  This year Terry had to stay home and I went to the retreat alone.  I was tempted to cancel.  Ann Emerson, the director of the center, gave me an opportunity to bow out.  I certainly went with a feeling of sadness that Terry and I were not sharing this experience this year.  Several of the people attending expressed surprise that I was there.

I found it difficult to work up the excitement I usually feel for this event.  I arrived early.  I set up the rehearsal room and laid out the music for people to pick up as they came in.  I did all of this as though on auto-pilot. Sometimes these days that is all I can muster.  It was not that I wanted to be sad.  I knew that Terry was home feeling pretty good for the moment, and I knew that she wanted me to be at this event.  It was just that things have been so overwhelming lately that it is difficult to break through the spiritual fog.

Then the singing began.  "O let all who thirst, let them come to the water.  And let all who have nothing, let them come to the Lord.... Bring the ones who are laden, bring them all to the Lord" How I wish in this space I could have you hear the music that goes with those words.  I was reminded of a promise that I had offered to others but which I could not access for myself.  

We turned to another anthem.  "Father hear the prayer we offer: not for ease our prayer shall be, but for strength that we may ever live our lives courageously. Be our strength in times of weakness, in our wanderings, be our guide;  through each danger and endeavor, be always by our side."  Now the sound of this pick up choir made up of people from around the state who simply love to sing filled the emptiness of my heart and my spirit began to lift.

We picked up the tempo. "O Lord, there's a hungerin' in my soul.  Fill it up, Lord and make me whole." Each word of text, each note of music poured into the spiritual emptiness that had become me.

My sadness lifted.  I began to bounce has I conducted the rehearsal.  We made jokes and we made music.  Once again I was reminded of what I had preached to others that in this moment of trouble I had forgotten applied to me as well.  God's default position is joy and love, peace and hope.  The troubles of this or any other particular moment are not God's final word.  Happiness may not be possible all the time, but joy is.  

Another song text comes to mind. "No storm can shake my inmost calm while to that rock I'm clinging.  If love is Lord of heaven and earth, how can I keep from singing?"

Dave Gladstone

Posting Number Twelve

 The Isolation of Pain

We managed to get away this past weekend.  What a blessing.  As Terry said more than once during that time, "If I have to be sick, at least I can be sick in the place I love - Lake Louise." 

We no longer think in terms of good days and bad days.  We often speak of good hours and bad hours.  Every day brought both.  We are impatient.  Now that the radiation is over we want her to feel better immediately.  We have discovered that the body follows its own counsel.  One cannot will it any other way.

This experience is teaching me something about pain.  Pain is extremely isolating.  Pain can be reported, but it cannot be shared in any way that truly lets the observer in.  Terry's worst moments are beyond my capacity to appreciate.  I can hug her.  I can tend to her needs, but I do not truly know what the experience is like for her.  In that sense this experience is hers alone. 

Likewise, pain pushes out the other experiences in life.  It takes all of her will to cope with the pain when it comes.  There is no capacity left to do things with others - things that help her still feel connected and valued.  Time and again Terry expressed saddness at missing out on the expereince of being together.  Pain commands one's complete attention and reduces the horizons of life.

Moving beyond Terry's experience, it makes me wonder how much of the trouble we encounter in our world is a result of pain.  Could it be that behind the anger and the hatred we see so much of these days there is pain that is unresolved and raw?  Could the isolation and the closed mindedness we see so much of be understood as a manifestation of pain - physical, emotional or spiritual?  Perhaps the best treatment for pain is a generous application of community and connectedness.  If pain is isolating, then one of the things needed is for we who are not in pain to focus on being present with the one who is hurting to let them know that they are not alone.  Is this not a way that we understand the life of Jesus?  The technical term is incarnation.

Dave Gladstone