One of our favorite movies, “The Shawshank Redemption,” is on AMC tonight. I’ve always found Andy Dufresne’s statements about hope so simple yet inspiring, so much so that I even use one of his quotes on the sidebar of this blog. Lately, though, I find myself wondering if Andy’s friend, Red, has a more accurate position on the subject. According to Red, “Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope will drive a man insane. It’s got no use on the inside. You better get used to that idea.”
Right now I’m on the inside.
Over the past nearly seven weeks since Mike was released from the hospital, I have taken up residence in the front seat of the emotional roller coaster. I’ve gone from gratitude for the small things, to cautious optimism all the way to obscene anger at God. I’ve tried to be the upbeat wife while dying a little inside with each sign or symptom that things weren’t swiftly getting back to normal. Mike, weakened from the sepsis, chemo side effects and muscle atrophy from two weeks in a hospital bed, would have me as his shadow every time he’d get up from the recliner to go to the bathroom or just stretch his legs. Slowly, his strength did start to come back, but he couldn’t seem to shake a nagging pain in his left sinus. During a mid-January spinal tap, cancer was also found in the central spinal fluid, where it hadn’t been only a month earlier. Finally, on the morning of January 28, Mike woke up with his left eye swollen shut. He looked like Rocky after taking a beating from Apollo Creed. We immediately went to see both his oncologist and his eye doctor. That day was a whirlwind while various doctors conferred to try to determine if this mass in his sinus was the leukemia or a fungal infection. A biopsy that evening showed it was the cancer. In retrospect, a fungal infection would have been a hundred times worse (as the doctors explained later), but hearing about yet another location for the cancer was deflating to say the least. He was admitted to the hospital yet again, and localized radiation to the left sinus was started the following afternoon. Just a couple hours after the first treatment, the swelling already started to go down and the eye began to open. He was kept in the hospital until the following Tuesday, getting the localized radiation each day. They halted chemotherapy during this time so he wasn’t being bombarded with treatments. Since he’s been home, he’s been going in for radiation each weekday and will have his last treatment this Thursday. Then, he and his doctors will re-group to decide what course of chemo to resume and when to begin.
Aside from some fatigue from the radiation, Mike has been feeling pretty well. We’ve been doing some complimentary therapies during this time to make the most of his break from chemo, and to put our best effort into beating this. But the “what ifs” are still overwhelming. Is it healthy to keep hoping that this will all end (for the better) soon? I’ve had to battle some horrible thoughts. I’ve been holding fast to a book about Psalm 91, and have been praying that psalm over and over, begging God for his promise of protection. My anger at God has subsided a lot over the past few weeks, amazingly, but I’ve still had my issues. I still wonder if my prayers are being heard. When reading biblical or modern-day stories of healing, I feel like I should see a disclaimer flash across my eyes, saying, “Results not typical. You should not expect to experience these results.” I have to fight hard against that.
Sometimes I’m so engulfed in survival mode that my hope in previous dreams seems to fade further and further away. Sometimes reality versus fantasy collide though, like when I was giving Mike his nightly shots of Neupogen, and I’d throw the used syringes in the same detergent bottle that still hold my old progesterone needles. Dreams versus reality.
Is it worth hoping that we will get past this and actually have a life beyond cancer? Is it even healthy to keep dreaming when reality just keeps smacking us in the face? Either Andy or Red was right. I just can’t decide who to believe.
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