Pregnant again! (Don't worry it was only a dream!)

NOMO CHEMO!!!! 

This one is very deep!

Jesus  woke me up at 4:30 this morning! Ricky held me really close as I began to cry. This whole journey began in the middle of the night almost a year ago. I remember being gently awakened by Jesus. He often speaks to me when I think I should be sleeping. Could it be that in the busy-ness of my day I don't pay close attention to him? Some where around April when I was awakened in the night...  I remember when I woke up  I  was laying on my back and my left hand was oddly placed on my right breast. And before I moved to get comfortable Jesus told me to press firmly where my hand was and I immediately felt the lump in my breast. For someone with fibrocystic breast disease, that is not uncommon, but something was different. Not what I felt in the tissue of my breast but what I felt in the core of my heart. That day Jesus gently placed the word cancer on my heart and I knew my life would be changed forever. When I woke up for the day I  called for an appointment right away with my gyn. When I saw him he was not alarmed, and said it was most likely my fibrocystic disorder but not to ignore my yearly mammogram! (which was only a few months away) In retrospect I should've gone immediately, but that would've left me without the gifts of this wonderful/terrible journey. So although I medically should've seen about it sooner, I spiritually needed to grow through some pain! Then  a few weeks following that  I was at my friend,  Sandra's, "shopping" in her closet for an outfit to wear to Malorie's Bridal shower. As I am trying on clothes, I show her what I called a weird "cellulite dimple" under my arm. I'll never forget her face when she said, "Madelene, promise you will see about that soon, you may have a tumor attached to your breast muscle pulling that skin causing the dimple." I was shocked and said that I did have a fibrocystic tumor there and had seen about it but was scheduled for a mammogram soon after Mal's wedding. Sandra is a chiropractor by profession and had a little inside knowledge about health issues that I obviously needed to hear. She said how important it would be for me to get an ULTRASOUND in addition to my regular mammogram! That day I walked away grateful to my friend for a great outfit for Malorie's shower, later to learn I would be forever grateful to her for saving my life as I know it today. My radiology oncologist commented that her speaking out to me was vital for me getting the prompt and proper ultrasound that I needed. Sandra knows how I feel and how much I love her!!!  Ironically, this week as I searched for the perfect RODEO outfit I went back to Sandra's closet to shop and found the perfect skirt to go with my denim jacket. When I got home, I called her and said that I had just realized I had started the journey borrowing an outfit and how weird it was without even realizing I was ending the chemo journey by borrowing yet another outfit. I laughingly said, "I need to start buying my own damn clothes!" to which she replied, "If you had done that in May you might not have found your cancer as soon as you did and it might've progressed too far to successfully treat!" Everyday I am aware that breast  cancer, when not caught in time, can be fatal! Those words resonate to me OFTEN. Please don't ignore Jesus when he wakes you in the night!

So any way, this morning as I cried AGAIN to Ricky about the exhausting emotion that comes with celebrating my LAST chemo combined with the new person this experience is molding me into is wonderful, yet frightening. I  told him I don't want to rush anymore, I want to peacefully embrace the moments of the day! I am willing to embrace the new  radiation treatments and the new doctor and nurses and technicians, but am I ready to embrace the new me? Who is she, what does she love about life? I  know its about the journey, that I won't arrive somewhere and find the new Madelene... she is a work of art not yet completed... she is evolving. The journey will not end, I will not arrive at some magical destination in this lifetime... So I just need to embrace the journey, with my eyes on my Heavenly Father and know that my destination is of another world. For today I embrace health and life and claim it to be mine for a very long time! I embrace the beauty of my world and the people in my path who nourish my spirit and lift me as I struggle at times.

When I was getting ready for my day today, Blanche called to share with me a  "bad" dream she had, probably at the same time I was awakened by Jesus and felt a wave of odd depression, as I cried  to Ricky. Keep in mind that Blanche is one of my kids who doesn't just go through pain with me, she bears it herself too! So she has taken on more of my pain than I would've hoped. She said that she dreamed that it was my last day of chemo and to celebrate, the whole family went on a little trip to, but she said I was all depressed and not happy and as she put it "Mom, you were being such a bitch!"  (I then told her how I had waken in the night feeling confusingly sad and anxious. Right then I starting praying I wouldn't act like a bitch today!!)  But then she said wait mom, in the dream you finally said that you needed us to understand why you were so upset... you were pregnant!!!     Right away, we laughed at that and I thanked her for sharing her dream with me and told her how on target she was with my feelings of anxiety. After we hung up it struck me that my friend Robin, who is a spiritual director, always says that when we dream of births, it can actually represent a part of ourselves we give birth to as well as giving birth to something or some part of us that is new!! So I think, it is no accident that Blanche, she who bears my pain, should reveal to me a thought of me "birthing" the new me.  Blanche said in the dream they were all concerned that the "BABY" would not be okay because of all the cancer and chemo, but what I know for sure is that the new person I am giving birth too could never have emerged as the person she will be, without the cancer and chemo.   Each member of my family has changed in some way because of this experience. We are all "giving birth" to a new part of us as a result of this cancer experience. I love my family so much. God has blessed me beyond measure. Some days it makes me sad that they all had to suffer and watch me be in pain. But my children, just like most children, are resilient and will find ways to take from this experience the good things they have learned. I trust in a God who heals us when we are broken.

So off I will go to my last chemo. It is an awesomely beautiful, emotional day. I love my life!

Here is a poem that Robin emailed me called "A BIRTHING" after I shared the dream with her. It is awesome! Enjoy!

  

A Birthing

Holy Midwife,
you rejoiced at the birth of creation.
I hold up to you the intuited mystery
of something new being birthed in me.
It has no face, no name, no sound, no shape.
I only know that something unperceived
is meant to come to life
inside the womb of my deepest self.
Is it greater depth or valuable clarity?
Is it a whole new way of being?
I fail to understand what it might be.
My knowing is as faint as the light of a new moon.

I know I must trust in your unfailing care.
You will be attentive to this unnamed one
who struggles mightily to be released within me.
Help me to be attuned to the contractions of my spirit,
to relax when I ought and push when I must.
Encourage me to believe in what I cannot yet see.
Be by my side as I await this mysterious new life,
still curled up inside my pregnant spirit.

Let me have faith in something good slowly taking shape
and be trusting enough to stay in the birthing process.
Let me be willing to endure the sweat and the groans
and to cheer wildly when new life comes bursting forth.

Prayers to Sophia p.18
-Sr. Joyce Rupp