Thankful.
About seven weeks ago...I spotted a mole on my back that just didn't look right. It was small...but something about it gave me an uneasy feeling. I asked Jon about it, he looked at it, told me it was fine. But I couldn't shake it. So I made an appointment to have it looked at. If you know me at all, you know that I HATE all things medical and that doing something like this is totally 100% out of character for me. But I did it. I will say it was God prompting me, because really, there is no other reason I would have called. I actually had her look at two moles...one she said was fine and the other she took one look at and said, "Wow...that needs to come off" Ok, great...she could do it right then. So I gave my boys's suckers and prayed they would sit well while she quickly scraped the thing off my back.
About 10 days later we found out about David. That totally consumed my mind...and my heart...but then my good friend "worry" crept in and I figured if something so random could happen to David...it could also happen to me. So I called on the results (since I still hadn't heard). They didn't have any info, but a day later the nurse called to tell me that the mole had been sent off to Mayo Clinic. I figured that wasn't especially good news. I gave it a few days and then Wednesday while at work, I just couldn't handle it anymore. I was so worried about David...and emotionally consumed with him, I just needed to get this mole thing taken care of and swiped off my plate. So I called again, and begged for them to STAT it. The nurse told me she had the results, but that the doctor had to look at them before she could tell me anything (clue number two that things weren't looking great). An hour later, the doctor called me back. She said the mole came back "Severely Atypical" and that is very rare. She said often they come back mildly atypical...but very rarely severely. That was the bad news. The AWESOME news was, it isn't Melanoma!!! Praise the Lord. I have researched Melanoma since then and found that it is way more serious and deadly than I ever knew. So I was on top of the world that it wasn't that. The other piece of news was that since it was so atypical (whatever that means), I had to schedule a visit for them to cut out the margins around the mole...5 mm around the perimeter. I heard that it hurt, but I really didn't care...bc it wasn't Melanoma!!!
I went today for that margin taking. As I was sitting in the office I was reminded how scary places like that can be. How as the patient, the world stops and starts in those rooms. The news dashes or builds hope. Life is given or death can be pronounced. In the silence and stillness of that room, all one can think about is that you hope the news is good...but the fragileness of life is so tangible in those moments. I typically feel so invincible...so healthy. But being there in that sterile room...everything else stopped and I just wanted good news, and I wanted out of there...to come back home and play outside with my kids...go on bike rides and play in the sprinkler. I love normal life. And I thought of David, and many others like him...and wondered how they find the strength and the internal fortitude to endure their diagnosis.
So she did the "surgery", and yes...it is that. I will spare you the detail...but it was way more involved than I ever dreamed. Right after she started, I guess I was bleeding a lot and she was concerned...but apparently she got it under control. After the procedure, I was light headed so I laid there for awhile before getting dressed and getting back into my car and driving...probably a good idea. Now I am home, back in my normal life, and awaiting the final piece of news. I should know within two weeks if they got it all and if I am home free. I have to schedule a full body scan sometime soon so they can look at every single mole on my body to be sure that they are all fine. I really don't care what they have to do to me...I am just so glad I don't have Melanoma.
But life is fragile. I keep hearing of such sad stories in my real life and in the blogosphere. I don't know if more bad things are happening or if I am just more aware of it. I have always struggled with worry...at times to a clinical anxiety level. I feel that I have grown a lot in this way, but the real and written about people in my life that are hurting are nearly jumping at me, reminding me that it could happen to me...to my husband...to my kids. I know that God is in control. And I am constantly trying to hand my faith and trust back over to His capable hands. But sitting in that room today, so many thoughts went through my mind and I felt almost physically entangled with fear. Being a parent is difficult...there is so much more at stake than just yourself. It is so difficult to love someone as much as you do when you are a mother; to pour yourself out 110% to protect and love and care for your children and then to stare in the face that ultimately, you are not able to control what happens to you or to them. We serve a good and loving God...that is not in question. The humanness that is ever-present within me is constantly enduring the the battle between faith and fear. The battle between holding too tightly to this life and this earth, and looking forward to eternity and our true home.
I serve a God who pours Himself out 110% to protect and love and care for His children. A God who, unlike myself, is fully capable and able to control what does and does not happen. But He also has unfathomable wisdom that I do not have and He has to contend with the fact that His perfect world was and is terrorized by sin (the effects of which are sickness and death and dying), because of the Fall. The world as we know it is not what He created. His version was perfect. And this knowledge reminds me that just as we Mama's mourn the loss or sickness or tragedy in our lives, our Father mourns...but unlike us, He has the power to REDEEM the bad that happens.
So as I sit here with a ginormous bandage on my back and the wind flowing through my open windows and my children rhythmically breathing as they sleep...I am filled with gratefulness. Really...that for this very moment, I have everything to be grateful for, and nothing to complain about. And the worry and thoughts that attempt to corrode my brain...I will just keep battling them back, as I have my whole life. I do have more to lose now than I had 10 years ago. But I have so much more to gain as well...
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