Sunday, November 4, 2012

It's the wreck of the day...

Ok, so I stole the title for my blog from an Anna Nalick song.  I have turned to music to soothe my shattered soul.  It works.  For real.  I literally get lost in lyrics and youtube takes me on twists and turns through all different genres until I find a song that makes me say WoW.  Wreck of the Day is one of those songs.  Also Shine, and don't forget Just Breathe.  Anna is breathtakingly beautiful with a voice that touches my heart.  She is my new favorite, that's for sure.  One of the lyrics that plays over and over in my head is "Driving away from the wreck of the day and I'm thinkin bout calling on Jesus."  That right there is why I said WoW when I first heard the song.  There are more days than not that I feel like my life and my job and the way cancer affects our lives, that we are driving away from the wreck of our day.  Once I lay down to sleep at night, that's how I drive away.  My only escape from my wreck of a day.  Sleep.  Because then I can pray.  I can speak to Him and tell Him what is weighing heavy in my heart and hard on my mind.  He listens.  He carries the burden for me and He gives me my hope and my faith back.  Even though it seems every single curve and bump in my life is major and life altering and shattering and unbelievable, I can always pray.  He will always be there.  No, I don't attend church every Sunday and I am 100% ok with that.  Your church is where you pray.  Doesn't matter your location.  Doesn't matter your state of mind or how you are dressed or if you decided to not comb your hair that entire day.  My faith in Him does have its' times where it waivers.  When I ponder too much on the past, confused about the present, and vividly petrified of the future.  So my location of choice does not have to be church on a Sunday morning to know that He will always be present and living within me.  Holding my head, laying beside me when I feel like I can not face another day smiling.  It's a powerful feeling to know that my faith is still there.  I will admit I did lose faith.  As a matter of fact I can tell you exactly when that was...April 2012.  the month where the doctors told my mother that it was time to go home and stop the treatments, get her affairs in order, and start living.  My faith was pulled out of my body, thrown against the brick wall and shattered into 3,000 pieces.  I never thought I would fully piece it back together.  Would I ever have faith in a God that has beat down the most unbeatable woman I know?  I was skeptical for a long time.  Eventually the faith came back, and my praying became more intense.  More frequently, and most importantly, naturally.  I knew that I had regained the faith back when I could walk into my mother's house late one evening as she was suffering a major attack of excruciating pain and sit on the couch with her.  Hold her head on my chest, and tell her things would be just fine.  That her pain would subside, we would control it, and that she was going to get through this.  Faith is back.  And I like that feeling.

Not going to blow smoke here, though.  This weekend tried to waiver my faith and knock it down.  Didn't work.  As an EVERYDAY ritual, I text my mother in the morning making sure she is not suffering, not vomiting, not nauseated, not in pain.  And almost every morning, I receive a text with good news.  Says she is doing just fine, no pain, and that she slept like a rock.  Saturday was not the case.  I did as I normally do, and waited for the response.  I get a message back...."Not good".  I swallowed hard and forced myself to read the rest before I started freaking out.  She explained she was vomiting but was doing the right things to get it under control.  As you know, vomiting for her is NOT on her list of fun things to do.  Two abdominal surgeries, which include one where they completely 'replumbed' her insides, and another to fix a football sized hernia would make any sort of wretching, coughing, laughing, or sneezing extremely painful.  Imagine what vomiting would do.  She despises it with all her being.  She hates it.  It makes her very very very angry. Very angry.  Pi$$es her off to be blunt.  Pi$$es me off, too.  It's the nature of the beast, though.  She has learned to deal with it and combat it quite well now fortunately.  She got the anit nausea meds on board and waiting for them to take effect before any other action was done.  It worked.  But not without that twinge of fear and loathing that each episode brings.  It brings us one step closer.  One step in the wrong direction.  Not at all what we want to happen.  They evened out her pain and nausea about two weeks ago by upping all her medications and that always puts her in a 'better place' for about two weeks.  Her body then becomes immune to the higher dosage.  The breakthrough pain storms in like it owns the place and we all feel like we are back at stage one, fighting to keep her comfortable.  It is what it is, and this is her life.  The day will come when the pain will not go away.  The meds will be strong enough to render her speechless and all the suffering will be over.  I am not ready for that to happen, nor is she for obvious reasons.  She has so much to live for.  Her husband.  Her grandkids.  And me.  We love her to the moon and back.  It's not her time yet.

So this is her life for now.  On again off again.  Hurry up and wait and see when the pain and the nausea will return and for how long it will stay.  It's a life no one should have to lead and I pray that none of my friends or family will ever have to go through the same thing that her and I are dealing with.  It's not fair to anyone that cancer gets full control.  Whoever decided that cancer would be uncurable needs a high five...in the face...with a chair.

Life's like an hourglass glued to the table...
No one can find the rewind button boys...
So cradle your head in your hands, 
and BREATHE....JUST BREATHE