Take caution: severe vulnerability up ahead.

Cancer comes back and takes on bizarre forms that you are completely unprepared for- no matter how much you think you know about cancer.

Depression doesn’t just “go away” and can resurface its nasty daggers back into wounds you thought were healing….leaving you challenged to face temptations that are still too easily within your reach.

Infections can form at the most inopportune time and in the most unfortunate places that force you to be humbled beyond measure-more than you ever thought possible- for a need of assistance from others.

Remission may only be an illusion or temporary.

I wrote this from a hospital bed where I was in need of help from others to do things I have done for others as an RN for almost 25 years.

And…it…sucked (forgive my language-my son says that is a swear word).

But…it.did…bad. And the memory of what happened paired with the journey yet to come still does.

Without detail, let’s just say I am mortified at what I need help with.

I hate it.

I appreciate the help I am receiving but it is something I have not wanted to deal with ever since I was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease at the ripe old age of 14.

I find myself crying uncontrollably at the inability to make this be something it is not…to make it “look better” , to “disguise it” with a pretty coat or make up as if the appearance will change the shape of the actual condition.

Does that make any sense?

But no matter the look of the package the reality of what the package actually is remains.

You see, whatever you may be dealing with, be it cancer, depression, illnesses, or whatever else, it can’t be hidden or disguised because they just are there.

I am not saying they define me or you…I am saying that medical conditions may lay dormant or can be hidden from public view but that does not negate the fact that they are there.

Here is my problem- and many have this same one- I have thought that the treatment is the cure when in actuality it is the process of recovery that leads to the healing.

This has been my thinking:

I take my medicine so therefore I should be fine.

I eat healthy so therefore I should be fine.

I go to therapy and make significant life changes so therefore I should be fine.

I have surgery to remove the tumor and chemo to kill the cancer so therefore should be fine.

I have surgery to drain the abscess and have pain significantly diminished so therefore I should be fine.

Fine can be relative folks.

I am not trying to be pessimistic as I am usually an optimistic person…but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t be more realistic.

My perspective is forced to shift as I am struggling with my own pain, my own future uncertainties and adjustments, and as I wait to watch the process in those I love deepest as they deal with their own future uncertainties.

For me, therefore, hope cannot be found in the cure only…because, perhaps, there is no cure but only a recovery process.

The hope has to be in something so much more as hopelessness beckons me and so many others. It has to be grasped onto sooner and not in the promise of the cure or healing.

I need the light to shine on me in the process, in the pain, in the questions…

I need warmth in the cold of disillusionment.

So here I am…challenged to cling to what I believe and not what I feel. I am challenged to live the faith I encourage others to have. I am challenged to practice what I preach.

So…

My process looks like crying.

It is listening to music that contain words meant to wash over me and through me and beg for their truth to resonate within me.

It is to spend time with my mom.

It is to lay in bed with my boys and just be with them.

It is holding hands with my husband.

It is talking to my friend on the phone and simply let myself give into the love I have for her.

It is enjoying the simple pleasures of life like listening to the child of my heart humming, eating cake he and my son made for me, watching my husband laugh with our other son and play with our dog.

The process of recovery is not a fun place to be.

I am not thankful for the circumstances around me one little bit.

But I want to be thankful for the lessons that come from it all.