Headache Reflection and my Bible

My pain today is none like I have ever experienced. I’ve screamed in agony “I’m going to rip my kidney out of my side,” I’ve burnt all my fingers by grabbing the tail pipe of my car, I’ve soaked away cancer pain in my tub with as much salt that I could put in there. This is different. I woke up with another massive headache. I am slurring my speech, when I read a text I cannot process what it says, it hurts to see and hurts inside every crevice of my head. I cannot hide nor throw off this pain and envision it in my toes. It’s different and vile. I wrapped a scarf around my head earlier and took an obscene amount of medicine I honestly at this point have no idea what I took. It has calmed down.

I prayed and received prayers. I will say, when we told the kids last night that we are starting a new treatment plan, I was angry. We all prayed together but the only words that flung out of my mouth were far from encouraging. They were angry tears more so because God isn’t listening to my little healer! My older daughter rested her head on mine and I just cried and cried. I just want to know why he isn’t listening to me! I’m in that stupid circle every single day praying for the only thing I know to pray at this point. “Heal me. Let me be their miracle. Let people come to you because they see your hand 2000 years later. I want everyone to see how awesome you are. If you’re gonna use me, heal me!! Listen to my cry. Listen to theirs; you answered Honi the Circle Maker! Answer me!!” Those are real words amidst a broken heart. Depending on friends to get into the gaps for us because I’m sending some angry prayers at the moment, and honestly I see God giggling a little, because he knows I don’t like confrontation. Almost comical.

So then what? Wait? Of course!!  That is what God is the best at even when I don’t want to wait.  “…And sometimes he says yellow light for wait…” (in a children’s prayer book maybe I should re-read sometime. Lol)I can see this two ways. I looked at Skip this morning and said with a truthful, for real heart, “I can do nothing for 4-6 weeks and let this finish it’s course (insert smile)...” There was little pause and he said he would like to keep me around a little longer.  In my head, part of me just likes that idea better but I know that is full on giving up. No one wants me to, and I’m like the most competitive person on the planet. So I guess giving up is not really an option at the moment. This radiation thing better work because dragging crap out is not my style. Giving up is way easier but it wouldn’t get me to the Grand Canyon, it wouldn’t get me to see Shawn (we are so excited insert jump and down) Mendes, and all these other big things I have in my future sight.

One of my dreams is to make it one year from December so I can go to New Zealand AND ride the sickest trails in the world, in Australia. We are going to meet up with a new forever friend Luke I found on “look at my bike leaning against stuff. “ Luke is also battling stage 4 craptastic cancer (some doctor tried to say terminal but we no longer include that word in our vocabulary) and he and his family are rock star encouragers to me. We will meet, and we will ride, and we will have a tall beer together on the other side of the world. Sounds crazy, but all these things keep your go going.

This morning in my recliner I came across something in Zephaniah. I scrolled passed “overwhelming grief” and found the words “hope.” “Hope is the silver shaft of sun breaking through the storm-darkened sky, words of comfort in the intensive care unit, a letter across the sea… It is a rainbow, a song, a loving touch. Hope is knowing God and resting in His love.”

In the midst of the gloom there is hope. Though my pain is not manageable at times, I find myself crawling out of the black and laughing at something to get out of the funk. The terror of daily whole brain radiation (WBRA) scares me beyond words. But in the midst of this fear, there is hope. There is hope that my daughter does have the gift of healing and that God is not done with me yet. There is hope that this beam works and kills every nasty cell without damaging the good ones. There is hope and I just need to rest in his love, even when it isn’t easy.

There was hope yesterday, when in the middle of two horribly painful days, my brain gave me a break long enough to go out with Skip on a bike ride. Do you know how good it felt just to pedal aimlessly through the wooods? Amazing. Every creek we stopped at every time I breathed in God’s sunshine, I felt like everything I now had would melt away. I told Skip I thought I would easily be able to sign up for a race by the end of the week, that is how no joke normal I felt. I found myself stripping my clothes off just to lay in the creek for a moment. Who does that!? No one, and who cares! It was something I could do that I’ll never have the chance to do again, hehe!! Lets do more of those!! It was magical and cold and I was sure again that it was killing the cancer.

There is something about the peace in the woods. It always makes me smile anyway.

I leave with this little gem found on the last page:

“I will give you honor and praise among all the people of the earth when I restore your fortunes before your very eyes.” Zephaniah 3:20 Before our very eyes I am convinced there will be healing. Praying for a miracle together, all of #teamnadine.