Cleaning out my closet

Last week was Spring Break for the Mount Vernon School District. Since I work half-time at the high school and half-time for the district office, I had to work 20 hours during the week for my district position. I took my days off at the end of the week so I could have a long weekend. Now, one of the things I’ve learned is NOT to plan on accomplishing much when I have these kind of breaks. I inevitably don’t get everything done and then I beat myself up about it. So, I purposely planned to do NOTHING and give myself a break.

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St. Theophan the Recluse

Becoming an Orthodox Christian has made profound changes in my life. My spirituality as a Protestant evangelical was mostly based on an intellectual approach to God (and sometimes emotional). It’s hard to explain the difference, but Orthodoxy is so much more . . . holistic. The Orthodox faith is not mechanical or legalistic. It is therapeutic. One of the great tools I have been given in Orthodoxy is to become familiar with the fathers of the Christian faith. One of them who has a special place in my heart is a guy named "Theophan the Recluse.” Here’s a passage I love from, What Is The Spiritual Life and How to Attune Onself to It (herein he counsels a young woman on arranging her life):

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Miracles and healing

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately about healing and medicine. I regularly pray that God will use my medical caregivers and the drugs they are giving me as a means of my cure. I know that many people--myself included--think of chemotherapy as something against nature, something that is poison, to be sure. I’ve had people try to talk me out of chemo, to send me off for alternative treatment. And while I do believe that cancer is a malfunction of my immune system and that I need to do whatever I can to rectify whatever set it in motion in the first place, I also know that there are many people walking around today who have been cured from cancer by conventional means. In fact, I read a book called Cancer: 50 Essential Things To Do by an author who had cancer and was not given a good prognosis. He eventually beat cancer and then set about to find out what cancer survivors have in common.

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A double whammy

While I was still reeling from my Thursday radiation oncology appointment and being told that I would probably need chemo, I had another blow the next day (Friday). My cell phone rang while I was sitting at my computer at the school district office. When I answered it, I was surprised to hear the voice of Dr. Astrid Morris, the radiation oncologist I'd met earlier in the week at Swedish Hospital. She was calling to tell me that the Swedish pathologists had gone over the reports sent to them by my Mount Vernon doctors. She said that the margins around my tumor were NOT 2mm (as had been reported), but more like 1.5mm. She said that 2mm is the absolute minimum required. At first, I wasn't quite sure what she was telling me. I thought that she was telling me that because of the difference, I wouldn't be qualified for the Mammosite procedure. So I told her that I'd already decided against the Mammosite treatment. She told me, "No, I'm saying that you can't go forward with chemo or radiation or ANYTHING until you have re-excision surgery to get bigger margins. There is too high a chance of recurrence with these kind of margins. We usually like to see 5mm margins."

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All bets are off

I'm writing this a few hours after seeing Dr. K., the oncology radiologist in Mount Vernon. I liked him and felt comforted by the fact that he had reviewed my chart and all of my background info before I came to see him (something I don't think Dr. J., the oncologist, had done). However, I'm feeling fairly devastated right now. Apparently, the results of my Oncotype DX test came in just last night (the $5,000 test that predicts risk of recurrence). Dr. K. asked me if Dr. J. (the oncologist) had gone over the test results with me yet. I said, "No, I've been calling to get the results, but had been told they weren't in yet." So he informed me that my test score was a "27," which is far higher than I had anticipated. What it means is that I have an 18% risk of distant recurrence (metasticized cancer) over the next 10 years. This percentage falls within the "intermediate" range and close to the top of it at that. Women with scores of 31 and higher are almost always given chemotherapy.

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Humbled by prayers and support

This seems like a good spot to mention one aspect of cancer that has been a huge blessing to me: the overwhelming encouragement and support I've received from those around me. From the moment I started to tell people about my diagnosis, I received emails, phone calls, cards, and gifts. People who had been on the periphery of my life contacted me to ask if there was anything they could do to help. I had offers from cleaning my house to bringing meals to my family and going with me to doctor's appointments. So far, I haven't had to take anyone up on those offers, but I'm keeping them in mind in case I need them during my treatment phase. Telling my co-workers about having cancer seemed to knock down all of the social barriers and bring about an emotional intimacy that couldn't have happened any other way. I've had women tell me that they, too, had cancer years ago and they are doing fine now. I would have never known this about them if I hadn't told them about my situation first.

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Lord, have mercy

One of the most frequent prayers of the Orthodox Christian is, "Lord, have mercy." The first time I visited an Orthodox church (while still a Protestant Christian), I heard it said over and over again during the liturgy and thought, "Talk about overkill. How many times do you have to ask God to take pity on you and forgive you?" But I didn't understand the prayer from the Eastern Orthodox perspective. Now that I'm Orthodox, I pray this prayer more than any other. For myself, for my loved ones, and for the world. It's a prayer that covers everything. Let me explain. The book "Orthodox Worship" describes the meaning of the word mercy as follows:

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