March 2, 2012
Marrow Sucking
I am sitting in the lobby at Duke Hospital writing this on my droid. Upstairs the best medical staff on the planet are pumping poison into my daughter to kill this awful cancer. I was planning to work remotely today, but forgot to bring my laptop power cord. So it has become a vacation day. Not really my choice for a vacation, but it is good to just stop all the activity for a while.
It was almost a year ago that I wrote this blog post describing the terror of our situation, https://jimazing.com/blog/2011/04/falling/. I am so thankful that I do not feel that way still. Today it feels surreal. As if this cannot possibly be happening to me and my family. It’s sort of like a dream. Surely I’ll wake up soon.
When I was a youngster, I wondered if I was living in a dream. I thought maybe I had fallen asleep when I was 7 years old and even though I was 10, I expected that I might wake up and really be only 7. Sometimes I still wonder if that 7 year old is going to wake up soon, rub his little eyes and say, “Man oh man! What a dream!”
Yet, here we are… Here I am. Sitting in a hospital lobby.
I don’t ask why. I know that many people do. It is just not a question on my mind. This Bible passage means a lot to me. Jesus said, ‘He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.” My personal translation of that verse is, “shit happens”. We do not get to choose everything that comes our way. Who among us would choose cancer!? And yet it happens… A lot! I don’t know why. Although I would never have chosen this path… (ironically autocorrect changed path to pathology)… this is the path we have walked for the past year.
Because of this journey we have received such love and support that I feel completely overwhelmed. It was there all the time, but it took this horrible situation for it to be revealed. That is a blessing we experienced as a direct result of Kat’s illness.
I find myself asking if it was worth it. And immediately I recognize that question is closely akin to, “Why?” It is a question that does not need any of my attention. Of course I would never choose this course… I am not thankful for the cancer! I am thankful for family and friends in spite of the cancer. Does that make any sense at all?
Because of this journey, I am aware of the healthcare system in so much more intimate way. I don’t know if I shared this tidbit before, but just 3 or 4 weeks prior to getting sick, Kat was promoted to full time. Because of that, she has had excellent insurance. Her benefits ended with her job on March 1, 2012 (yesterday). That is an amazingly wonderful blessing on the one hand and also, I believe it is a tragedy of our healthcare system. Why is health insurance tied to our jobs? (rhetorical question) Is my life & health more valuable when I have work than when I do not? (I truly do not mean to open the can of worms that is our healthcare system.) My point is that because of what Kat is going through, I see some of these “issues” up close and personal… and that is a blessing.
There have been many times throughout this that I wondered if I would ever have another rational conversation with Kat. When she was in such pain that nothing else mattered to her, and we wondered if we would ever find out what was causing that pain. Now it is happening. She is beginning to talk about the journey so far and her dreams for the future. I find myself treasuring those times like the treasure they truly are. That is a blessing.
“I went to the woods because I wanted to live deliberately, I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, To put to rout all that was not life and not when I had come to die Discover that I had not lived.”
–Henry David Thoreau
Like Thoreau, I believe there is life to be lived… deeply through good times and bad. Unlike Thoreau, I did not choose to go into the woods. My “woods” just happened. Somehow the the hard times have a way of waking me up. I am becoming more aware of the richness that is always there, but so easily missed.
Jimazing Thoughts 
Carey Rowland said,
March 3, 2012 at 7:54 am
I hear you.
As for the healthcare system…uh…can of worms there, who knows what will happen? but the way i see it…little like getting blood out of a turnip, or recombinant blood out of marrow.
I’m glad to see you can keep that Walden idea pond in your head.
And although shit does happen, keep the faith.
May God heal Kat, amen.
John Teeling said,
March 6, 2012 at 12:22 pm
I read your post again from last April and in your last sentence you wrote, “Right now, I am terrified and free falling with nothing to grab onto.” Well, I am glad that you are grabbing on to hope in the journey. Sometimes we choose mountains to climb or the woods to enter and other times the mountains and woods choose us. Jim, your mountain climbing abilities woods explorer skills are inspiring. You said, “I believe there is life to be lived… deeply through good times and bad.” I agree with you although it’s not easy to feel the depth of life in the pain. C.S. Lewis wrote, “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: It is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world”. I would prefer not to be deaf, not to miss out or discover that I had not lived. I would prefer not to sleep through life but to be awake and to be as you said, “more aware of the richness that is always there, but so easily missed.” Thanks for your great post, Jim.