Cancer Journal #71 March 2

 The cancer stories I'm used to involve people who follow a plant based diet plus some other good practices and then have their tumors shrink or maybe disappear in a way at odds with what their medical doctor had anticipated.  That's kind of what's been going on with me.  Last week as I was getting my Vitamin C infusion, I shared the treatment room with a woman who does not have that story.  The cancer has metastasized from her breast to her bones.  She has to wear a neck brace about all the time because of a broken vertebrae in her neck.  She gets weekly chemo treatments which she understands she will get for the rest of her life.  The treatments no doubt account for the tight fitting cap on her head.

She (I will call her A.  I haven't gotten her permission to write about her yet.  I will ask her how she feels about that next time I see her) had a story of failure to make timely diagnosis (if they had looked closely at the Pet scan they should have seen it), indifferent health care providers who did A when they probably should have done B.  They have even refused to provide a new neck brace even though the velcro on the old one has gone out.  Both her mother and father have or had similarly bad cancer outcomes.  

A just generally feels lousy.  The chemo leaves her weak so that she had a hard time opening the door to the clinic.  She has done nutrition as medicine in a big way, bigger than me but without noticeable success.  Seems like every hand she's dealt has bad cards.  She knows that a positive mental attitude is important to recovery from cancer and she tries but that's hard to maintain with an array of failure.  I detect no self pity going on there or perverse pleasure in the hard luck.  She's fearful to ask how much time she has left.  She has four kids, the youngest, 9 and 11.  She can't imagine what the 9 year old daughter would do if she's not in the picture.  There's a husband but he's unconcerned about her (and presumably the kids).  He's "doing his own thing" although it's possibly his health insurance that is covering the treatment.  She waitressed at Perkins before breaking her neck.

As she was telling her story, a lady I know, a friend of my niece's came in for treatment.  I hadn't known she was a patient at Spero.  She is full of loud, exuberant fun and it brought out the loud and exuberant in me.  Since I had forgotten my hearing aids that day, I was happy for the loud but A wasn't.   She got up and went in another room.  She latter explained that loud noise causes her headache.  Could be my switch from engaged listening to high spirited and fun filled rapport with the other lady was hard.  It's never fun to be the third person left out when that is going on.

I later went to the room she had gone to.  She was apologetic and chagrined for having left.  I told her I respected her doing something about it if the situation bothered her.  I asked if I could pray with her.  She quickly agreed.  I felt the Holy Spirit heavily in my prayer, a flow covering all the things she talked about, a prayer that things would flip, all the things bad would turn to good and that there would be healing.  We both cried, I more than she.  The tears come easily to me.  I really wish they wouldn't although I doubt that A thought, "the big sissy" as the tears went down my cheeks.  She hugged me, an uncommon thing these days, what with the virus.  I went back to my treatment room but before she left she came back there and hugged me again.  I said, "Hang in there, Honey."

I believe that A is the only woman that I have ever called "Honey".  I'm not much for terms of endearment as my wife will tell you.  I sometimes call her "Dear."  She will say I'm being ironic.  I dispute that, saying there's no more than just a drop or two of irony.  I anticipate going to my grave without having called anyone, "Darling."  But I digress.

I have a sincere hope that A does have things flip and the the Lord will heal her.  I've been praying that since, intermittently and perhaps a little desultorily.  Shame on me but I suppose it's the common lot.  I don't understand what happens in the spirit.  I can feel the presence of the Lord, full of glorious intensity and power like a bulldozer.  You'd expect mountains to be visibly moved around but then, nothing much seems to have happened, at least not in the natural, material world.  But then I've seen remarkable healing or other prayers answered too with God as the only plausible explanation, with or without bulldozers.  

One thing about prayers that I love is that it grants a sense of agency when others feel simply helpless.  The materialist would call it false agency.  I say, call it whatever you want, I feel so fortunate to be able to pray in very difficult circumstances.  

A's hug may have reflected her feeling the presence of the Holy Spirit.  It was certainly strong in the room and on me too.  I didn't quiz her.  It may have been also her being able to tell her story to an engaged listener, not interupted by my own semi-relevant stories.  She may not have had much experience with that.  Why can't people shut up!