A year past

What a strange, strange day. Ellie slept longer than both Lindsay & I for the first time. She is growing so quickly. Her attention and focus is amazing. And her smile melts my heart everytime.

So at 8:00am, Ellie, Savannah and I walked around the block as I bragged to friends what a joy Ellie is. It was a beautiful and sunny day; nothing could have been more perfect. As I walked I just watched Ellie, she was wide awake taking in every sound and sight her mind could absorb.

When we got home from the walk, Lindsay's friend had cancelled their get together. So Lindsay and I were able to spend the morning together.

Then the phone rang.

You know it is never good when the doctor's office wants you to come in to talk about your "test results." I've had professors make similar requess, but their results were never a matter of life and death. So I was schedule to come at 4:15 that afternoon. Also, it's never a good sign when a doctor who is hard to get an appointment weeks ahead of tiem, needs to see you today.

Therefore, I was given seven hours to wait and wonder and worry.

I decided I would go to chapel. Unfortunately, this was the worst thing I could have done. I snuck into the back row filled with deep anxiety about my progoniss, wearing my sunglasses as long as possible to the inadvertent tear would not be noticable.

This experienc was unfortunate because for the first time in a long time, I cam to church deeply hurting, the one with a deep need, hoping that God would speak softly into my heart.

What I received, instead, was a 20 minute lecture about liberation and feminist theology. At the end of the sermon, people clapped! A sat there in saddened shock.

It made me wonder; I truly was the one was about to find out he had an illness. nd I sought God's words of comfort, healing and hope. But instead I found myself in a self-consumed tirade as to why the women were added to Matthew's geneology. No Gospel, No Cross, No Hope. I was in need of the good news, and a seminary campus' chapel could not provide it--how sad.

The rest of the six hours were uneventful meandering as I sought solitude and distraction.

I tried to life weights, but found myself consumed with thoughts. Have I cherished the moemnts with Ellie? Why not? Why do I watse my time doing x, when I could be holding her. Not the most motivational ideas for lifting. So I left.

Finally 4:15 rolled around.

And the doctor entered.

Level III, Malignant Melanoma--before today I could not even spell nor decipher malignant from benign, always trying to remember which was the "good type"--now I know.

He tried to explain--but honeslty, the words flew over me. The information came too fast. What to do, when to come back, what the success rate was. Like a waterfall I was so drenched in information I could not feel the weight of the water rushing over me...I have cancer.

After meeting with the doctor, I was given serveral references and tasks to complete while still really unsure as to why or what I am supposed to do.

And the final page of today was going to dinner with my four closest friends at PTS. Being near them, but being so distant. I would sit and just watch them talk; unable to listen. The words rushed over me once again. But the words that echo in my head are the words of a leper in Mark 1: "If you are willing, make me clean..."

I beg of you Lord, make me clean.
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It has been a year to the day that I wrote these words. I have had two surgeries and multiple biospies. I still have not gone to an exam where they have not removed another mole to check for skin cancer. Thank God, we believe we have removed it from me. And I know that I am extremely lucky to have discovered the melanoma at such an early stage that I only needed surgery and not chemotherapy.