Naked Mind

NAKED MIND: December 4, 2009




"What are you doing, Sweetie?" Rog asked at 1130 PM. "I'm loading the dishwasher. I'm almost done," I replied. "I don't want to start out behind tomorrow." We shuffled off to bed. Nest adjusted, good night wishes and kisses given, eyes closed then drift to sleep, right? Wrong. I should have been tired, but I was wide awake. I can't believe watching 20 minutes of weather during the eleven o‘clock news is stimulating enough to result in this level of alertness.  The truth is, the implications of my pathology report were looming over me.



I started to pray and that led me to cry "quietly." You know what I'm talking about, first you squeeze your eyes tight, your cheeks raise up and drag your mouth into an ugly, closed, clown smile. Hot tears roll down your face and you feel your abdomen bear down as you finish exhaling. Quickly, you open your mouth to inhale as silently as you can. Don't shudder...it will shake the bed and alert Rog, who is drifting off to dreamland. I lie there staring at the ceiling fan with my fists on my forehead and it comes to me like it never has before, "This cancer is really trying to take my life."



I had felt relatively comfortable with how science and statistics had packaged the first round of data into a very "manageable" disease. But now, the lumpectomy pathology reveals that my "Goliath" is sneaky and on a mission. It was no longer a casual statistic that landed in my lap nearly a month ago. The lumpectomy revealed the expected invasive ductal cancer. A nice, cancer-free zone was excised around it. As is my surgeon's practice, she excised several centimeters beyond the cancer-free zone, all the way to the edge of the chest wall. In the tissue that backed up to the chest wall, an additional cancer was found. It was another ductal cancer, but it was "in situ," meaning it is still contained inside the duct. "We weren't expecting to find that in the report. This is uncommon. I'll take it to the Tumor Board," Dr. Wheeler said.



Meanwhile I'm wondering, "Gads! Are my breasts minefields of cancer?" They found the second cancer incidentally. I couldn't help but wonder if both breasts were randomly biopsied, would there be more that they hadn't seen like this new cancer? When I first learned I had a tumor on mammography, I talked about the option of hacking both of them off, but didn't want to if wasn't necessary. Lumpectomy was the scientific, statistical choice and I was content with that. Bilateral mastectomies may be in my future now and the new pathology report makes me very comfortable should it come to that.



My thoughts are interrupted by Rog's warm hand landing on my forearm. All efforts at silent crying cease. It is such a relief to liberate the sobs. "It'll be okay," he says. "We don't know that," I return. "Nobody knows if it will be 'okay.'  I only know that God is with me through anything, but not whether I will be cured.” I continued, "And don't feed me 'fluff'.' It's NOT comforting!" "Try to get some sleep," my very tired and well-meaning husband said.



In the next room, my eleven-year-old son John cries out in his sleep. He's been sick with a cold the last few days. Happy for any distraction, I hop out of bed and go in to touch his forehead, no fever. I straighten his blankets, tuck them snuggly around his shoulders and kiss him. He is truly a beautiful boy. He has always had the Opie, Mayberry RFD, all-American-boy look. He is so easy to love and adore. I pause and just drink him in. He stirs fitfully and mutters. So, doing the only thing a mother can do, I raise his covers and slip onto 2.75 inches of his mattress. Lying on my side, I wrap my left arm around him. His body relaxes. My nose is by his hair. It smells faintly of the new coconut shampoo he's been using. He is sweaty, but that is only because he likes sleeping with two down comforters AND his fleece "tiger blanket." His rice paper moon nightlight is illuminating the precious cross-stitch made by his grandmother. Her handiwork commemorates John's birth and baptism. At the top it reads, "A Gift of Love." And he truly is. Even his name means, "God is merciful and generous."



After several years of infertility and unsuccessful treatments trying to conceive John, we were told that we needed to proceed to the highest tech option, “ICSI,” offered at Virginia Mason Hospital in Seattle. It would involve the spendy egg stimulating injections, egg harvesting, injecting each egg with a sperm, multiple embryo implantation and frozen “left-overs.” I forgot to mention the second mortgage to pay for all of it too. As Christians, we weren't sure how far we should step into God's kitchen.



So many questions needed ethical and unselfish answers. The doctors want to implant eight embryos with the hopes that a few will take. If too many take, a "reduction" of "excess" embryos would need to happen so that the remaining would have a chance of surviving. Then there would be the “left-over” embryos on-hold in the freezer... Would they work with us if we only implanted three embryos? They really don't like going to all that work for diminished odds. We thought if all three embryos took, it was possible healthy triplets could be born. We knew we could not put ourselves in the position to "reduce" a multiple pregnancy.



We also felt obligated to follow-through with the remaining embryos in the freezer. I found some Christian Medical Ethicists in Portland, read books, prayed and sought all kinds of counsel. I desperately wanted another baby. Emily was around 11 years old then. I never wanted her to be an only child. I knew the joy of having a brother and two sisters. I'd always wanted her to have siblings and not be alone later in life. At night, I literally dreamt of being pregnant and nursing a newborn on a regular basis. Rog had never had children. I could not bear the thought of him remaining fatherless because of our faulty chemistry combination. I will admit that most of my petitions to God for a child were selfish, "I want..." or "Please give me..." Of course there were the joint requests too, "God, help us have a baby..." and "Please bless us..." It wasn't until one particular night in April 1998 that I dropped all of that and only prayed, or rather begged with all my being, for ROG to be able to have a child. It was an epiphany of sorts for me to drop my own desires and just think of Rog.  So, we marched forward to Seattle with a specific request on the celestial table that God make it perfectly clear whether we should proceed with the high tech fertility treatments.



Once in Seattle, we met staff, toured the facility and learned about the program. That same day, they needed to take an Ultrasound measurement to know how long the implantation catheter needed to be. The US tech noticed a tiny cyst in my uterus and declined inserting the measuring device. Just to be safe, they drew some blood for a pregnancy test. It was negative. So we returned to Portland to decide if we should move forward with the treatments. Two weeks after Seattle, the “red flag” of clarity we had prayed for was dropped in front of us. I had just tested positive on an in-home pregnancy test! Simple math and stringent record keeping revealed that my prayer for Roger's fatherhood during a particular intimate moment in April had been answered.  A week later, we heard John’s heartbeat on ultrasound. Almost eleven years later, the "cyst" is nestled beside me. John is truly a gift from God and a concrete answer to prayer for clarity about further fertility treatments. As I lie next to him looking at the framed cross-stitch, I found myself begging once again, "Please God, let me finish this. Please, oh please God."



I slip out from under John's covers and sit in the family room. I continue praying with my head in my hands. Footsteps come from down the hall. It's Rog. Oh, geeze, I feel awful for keeping him up and mumble something to that effect. He puts his arm around me and says that he's not going to let me be alone in this. How did I end up with a guy like this? Oh, that's right, another gift from God. Crawling back in bed, I touch his arm and simply say, "Thanks for trying to comfort me."