Shifting Sand

In June I had some cording return in my arm. I started up the exercises again, and was doing some major purging of junk in our basement. Suddenly the cording was gone. Then I started noticing that the back of my hand was swollen. That was a sure sign of lymphedema. I followed up with my oncology breast surgeon who confirmed my suspicion. The swelling went away pretty quickly and easily with some massage and exercises, but I now need to wear a compression arm sleeve on my left arm. Oh joy. At least it’s my left and not my right. Lymphedema can’t be cured, it can only be managed. Some people have hardly any trouble managing it, for others it's a huge issue and can be fatal. 

Once in July and once in August, C-Diff made it’s lovely return. No hospitalizations this time, but it still wasn’t pleasant. Thank goodness insurance pays for the meds. I nicknamed this medicine “My Gold Plated Pills.”

After monitoring for several weeks, my oncology breast surgeon is also very certain that the two lumps I found (one on each breast) are just scar tissue. Praise God for that. 

Hand Foot Syndrome (completely different from hand, foot, mouth disease) that my oral chemo, Xeloda, caused has been a real treat also. I couldn’t hardly walk for a while because of the pain. It’s basically burning from the inside out. My toenails were taking a real hit, especially my big toes. Some of my toenails are so small now that I barely have anything left. They just kept separating farther and farther back the nail. As of now, they are no longer burning or swollen, and I think that they have finished peeling (mostly). They look rather pink, and I still don’t have fingerprints. 

While I was dealing with hand foot syndrome, I pointed out the mole on my left toe that had started to kind of spread out. We weren’t sure if it had changed because of hand foot syndrome or something else. My oncologist likes to err on the side of caution, so she referred me to dermatology. I was told that I needed to wait for dermatology to call me because they were so backed up and busy. A couple weeks later I finally called dermatology to schedule an appointment, since I hadn’t heard from them yet. At the appointment, they decided to take biopsies from both of my big toes. Two weeks later, they weren’t sure whether they were cancerous or not, so they sent them out for more testing. Apparently I was quite the discussion at the Tumor Board. Another week later, and the results came in for the right toe. It’s malignant (cancerous) and considered melanoma. The left side also shows that it’s cancerous, but there is more testing being done on that sample because they aren’t sure what kind of cancer it is. They told me they would be discussing my case again at the Tumor Board to decide on how much they need to take out of my toe. This mole is right at the corner of my toenail, so it won’t be easy or pleasant. Staging and everything else can’t be decided until after the procedure and biopsy results come back. But it’s probably not good that I have a cancerous lesion on both feet. I can’t help but wonder if it originated somewhere else.

 

Last year when I got my cancer diagnosis, I was worried and scared. This time I’m angry and scared. Come to find out, women who have had breast cancer are 15-20% more likely to get melanoma than women who have never had breast cancer. Women who have had melanoma are around 11% more likely to get breast cancer. There is a definite link, and wouldn’t you know, I fall into that statistic. So I go from having one type of really aggressive cancer to having another type of really aggressive cancer. Isn’t that just peachy? 

To be honest, the last week has been tough. I’ve had a lot of anger, even more worry, my brain is scattered in different directions, and I’ve held it together surprisingly well for my students. 

One of the messages that seems to keep hitting me over the last year is being dependent on God. A recent sermon at my church talked about how when Moses and the Israelites were in the desert being bitten by snakes, God didn’t remove the snakes when the people prayed. Instead, God commanded Moses to forge a snake and put it on a pole so that anyone who looked upon it would be healed. God provided a way through their trial, he didn’t take it away. I pray that God provides a way through these trials of mine. My prayer is that the way through these trials is a complete healing by being dependent on God. Realistically, I don’t know if that is what will happen. God doesn’t always provide healing from cancer, and that’s a very scary reality. I continue to hope and I continue to pray. I continue to trust in God’s plan, even if it’s not the plan I want. We live in a fallen world, and what I’m going through is a direct result of living in a fallen world. I don’t blame God, I blame sin. 

I’ve struggled with different titles for this post. Usually I have the title figured out, and a general idea of what I will be typing. Not this time. I’m too angry. To be honest, half the titles that have popped into my head are inappropriate.

The title of this blog finally came to me while doing my Chosen Bible Study. I had just finished Lesson 7, You Are Established. Within Lesson 7 is a section that really resonated with me. Even more so a few days after reading it. The section is called Shifting Sand. 

We live in an unpredictable world. There are natural disasters, terrorist attacks, car crashes, and cancer... While there’s definitely order in creation (math, science, patterns, logic), there’s also chaos and complexity.... 

The truth is we can’t fathom all that God has made, and we certainly can’t control it. And that freaks us out. We fear life’s apparent instability because we strongly desire the opposite. We want to know our needs will be met. We want to be safe and healthy and know that we’ll have enough money to make ends meet. We want to feel solid ground beneath our feet…

Take heart, Matthew. Because all the things we don’t know and can't control point us to the One who does know and can control and is.