Turn, Turn, Turn

Transitions can be long or short, big or small, simple or complex. They can also be sudden or expected.  I’ve gone through a few transitions since my cancer diagnosis, all of which caught me off guard.

The first was when I finished my radiation treatments.  During my last treatment, tears started rolling down my cheeks and I couldn’t figure out why.  I had been so excited that I no longer had to travel the 100-mile daily trip to the hospital.  When I asked my doctor about it, she said it was completely normal.  Coming to the hospital each day for 25 days had become my routine and now it was ending.  I’m sure that fear of what was next played a big part, too.  I sailed through radiation – that was the “easy” part of my treatment plan.  Now I had to face a six-hour surgery and five weeks of recovery, not knowing what my leg would look like or how it would function afterwards.

The next transition was when I came home from surgery.  Another hurdle had been jumped, but the race wasn’t over.  Now that surgery was out of the way, I had to face the hardest part of my treatment – chemotherapy.  The latest transition came when I ended chemotherapy.  In my last post, I talked about having to make a decision about whether to pursue a fifth treatment; I decided not to.  Ending chemo was a difficult transition because it was completely against my nature not to fight as hard as I could; however, my head won this battle over my heart.  The benefits of continuing just didn’t outweigh the risks.  In addition to being a hard decision to accept, once again, fear of the unknown crept its way into my mind.  After eight months of treatments, all of a sudden I didn’t have to be to any kind of medical appointment for a couple weeks.  What would come next?

Fortunately, the uneasiness I felt from all of these transitions lasted only a few days.  Transitions, in their many shapes and sizes, may not be easy; however, your mental approach to them can play a role in how smoothly they go.  For example, my father recently decided to sell the contents of the home he had been in for nearly 65 years.  That’s a big transition.  Yet, when he sat down outside to watch the auction begin last week, he looked around at all the items that filled an entire driveway, backyard, and front lawn and simply said, “Look at all this junk!”  He has always thought positively about every situation and this thinking helped him make the transition and move forward.

I love road trips, so I’ve often thought of life as a road map.  It is not a direct route from beginning to end.  There are interstates on which you can travel full speed and back roads that require you to slow down in order to take the twists and turns.  Then there are the detours.  Just recently, I was traveling through Chicago and had to make two detours – not planned, but there all the same.  Those detours – those transitions – are all part of the path we’re on.  We don’t always understand why we hit them; perhaps it’s to protect us – in Chicago, for example, a bridge was out – or maybe there is construction ahead that will eventually make our life better.  That’s why it’s important to continue to move forward when we experience a transition.  God designed us that way.  Our feet face forward, not backward.  Our eyes are on our face, not on the back of our heads.  Isiah 43: 18-19 proclaims: “Forget the former things;   do not dwell on the past.  See, I am doing a new thing!  Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?  I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.”  Indeed, transitions can bring wonderful new opportunities for us.  We’ll miss them if we’re looking at life in the rearview mirror as we’re driving down the road that is our life.

“To every thing there is a season, and a time to purpose under the heaven” — Ecclesiateses 3:17

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What Does Courage Mean?

I’ve been involved in some important decision making this past week – whether to continue chemotherapy.  I wish my doctor would just tell me what to do; he has been noncommittal, however.  He has simply laid out the advantages and disadvantages of either choice.  I’ve turned to a lot of places looking for guidance.  I’ve looked at the bracelet I wear every day given to me by a dear childhood friend inscribed with the words “Be brave.”  I turned to my daily devotional and the scripture read, “Be strong and of good courage.”  I’ve read some of my own words, like “The Mustard Seed” post.  The decision has been a roller coaster ride that has had me question what bravery and courage really are.

I have finished my original treatment plan of four chemo rounds.  With this regimen of chemo, patients can have a maximum of six treatments.  Of course, being the overachiever that I am, I’ve been intending on getting six ever since I started.  It’s clear to me now that a sixth will not happen because of how chemo is affecting my blood.  However, my doctor is willing to give me a fifth, at a reduced dosage, if I want it.  The advantage of one more treatment is more protection against a recurrence of my cancer.  The downside is that it will further hurt my blood, possibly even requiring hospitalization this time, and increase my risks for cancers of the blood and bone marrow down the road.  As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, my life philosophy has been to not regret not doing something.  I also make an effort at focusing on today, rather than the “what ifs” of the future.  So what’s a girl to do?

As I always do when I can’t figure something out, I go to my sister to seek her advice, which, in my eyes, is always wise.  We ended up talking about courage and bravery, and what these things really mean.  In previous posts, I’ve talked about how perseverance is part of our nature – it’s something with which we are familiar – so it’s not surprising that I would lean toward continuing chemotherapy.  However, is perseverance the same as being courageous?  My sister posed the idea that maybe courage is actually acting in ways that are not as familiar and not in our comfort zone.  Ending chemo is a lot scarier for me than continuing it.

Mark Twain said that “Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.”  John Wayne’s take on it was that “Courage is being scared to death, but saddling up anyway.”  The Wizard of Oz told the Cowardly Lion: “You, my friend, are a victim of disorganized thinking.  You are under the unfortunate impression that just because you run away you have no courage; you’re confusing courage with wisdom.”  Perhaps courage is making the choice that scares you, or turning away from something you prefer to do because wisdom is leading you in that direction.

I don’t know the answer.  I do know, however, that I was hoping by writing this post I would organize my random thoughts on paper and thus come to a decision — and I think I have.

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