● Home ● Janice's Story ● Updates ● Speaking ● Books ● Albums ● Responses ●
 |
 March 23, 2004
Spring has arrived in Nashville. One morning last week, I stood at the kitchen sink and looked through the window at the bare trees surrounding our house. That afternoon, I returned to the kitchen and saw one tree had erupted in white blossoms and tiny translucent green leaves. What a change in just a few hours. My own life drastically changed in just a few hours last December. And now I am waiting for the appearance of my own “spring.”
In the last update, I mentioned some of the icky side affects from the meds I have been taking. The Thalidomide caused a horrible reaction on my arms and legs (red, welted rash) and crackled my skin into dry, river bed patterns of drought. The steroids gave me the shakes and the bonus of inflated feet – poufy little saddle bags draping off each ankle. Give me a pair of sensible pumps, a matching handbag, and feathered hat, and I look matronly enough to have tea with the Queen of England.
Red veins in my cheeks careen like tiny roads on a map through estrogen-depleted yellowy splotches, under the most hideous side affect of all: black facial hair. My previously soft and sweet fuzz has toughened to whiskery, coal-miner’s black. I bought a pink-boxed tube of Nair to remove an adolescent boy’s dream mustache. So, while the meds attacked the cancer, they gave me a face-of-many-colors and wreaked havoc on my self-esteem.
I’m still surprised when I see myself in a mirror: an oval-shaped bald head sprouting cartoonish stubble. Even after three months of cancer, I expect to see the “old” me and my reflection catches me off guard. Who is that bloated, aging person staring back at me? I admit, this shocks and saddens me. This is what I now look like.
I wonder if God is surprised by our reflections…not that they are changed, but that they are the same. Would God rather see the stubble of change in our lives than the smooth veneer of sameness?
I wish I could admit that my weakened, changed body doesn’t bother me. It does. My skin hurts, my feet throb, my tummy bulges, and I don’t feel like me. And I wish I could admit that I don’t mind being down for a few months. Truthfully, I hate not being able to keep my plans for 2004 - speaking at conferences, writing books, furthering my career. Like Job, in the Old Testament, I have not been afraid to ask God, “What are you doing?” This unexpected cancer has messed up my determined pursuit of success and has challenged me to seriously consider the divine requirement “to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.”
I still think about purpose and how I am to live during this season. I am distracted by things I ought to do, good intentions (write thank you notes), and find it hard to admit that I cannot do them. It is as if I have been slammed into a chair and told, “Pay attention.” Multiple myeloma has forced me to pay attention to my “self.”
Most of you know my type-A personality. (You can get up off the floor and stop laughing now.) I love work, busy-ness, deadlines; mostly being in control. But I am no longer in control. I’ve been reading about Job in Richard Rohr’s book, Job and The Mystery of Suffering. Job’s wife told her husband to give up and die. Thank God, Jim wants me to live. One of Job’s friends wants him to admit he’s wrong, endure the suffering, and then receive God’s reward of new prosperity, based on the theory that when a persons sins he is punished and when he is good he is rewarded. That’s really tempting for me to claim, especially considering how popular it seems right now in American theology. I’d love to come out of this with a big reward – as in financial affluence, full speaking schedule, bestselling books. But that’s not what Jesus taught nor what the Apostle Paul desired in Philippians 3: “I want to know Christ and the fellowship of sharing in his suffering, becoming like him in his death.”
Job was willing to wait in the silence of God, “in that space of nonanswer…the space in which God creates faith. Faith does not mean having answers; it means being willing to live without answers.” Job drew his satisfaction from truth and justice, not from hope of future reward or fear of future punishment. “Even more than release from his pain, what Job desires is to be with God.”
What a dichotomy. I want to know Christ, but does it have to necessarily have to come through suffering? My pastor wore a t-shirt last Sunday printed with the sentence; “It’s not about me.” I am to find my identity, the real me, in Christ. In my suffering, in my paying attention to Jesus and studying the example of his life, I can begin the process of remaking my body, my self, into God’s own image. My life should no longer be based on what I want, on my goals and aspirations, but on how God wants me to be formed by the Holy Spirit and how to become the person God sees lurking beneath my veneer.
Do I really want to survive cancer, endure all this pain, incur all these expenses, put my family through this trauma, so, like Job, I can know truth? So I can know God? So I can say, “God is present in my life, the good and the bad, and that is enough?” God wants me to know his presence in my life, now in my suffering and in all the days of my future.
Job endured his woundedness and suffering knowing that God both liked him and loved him. He did nothing wrong to deserve such horrible physical, emotional and psychological pain. Even when his children, his health, his possessions were taken from him, he had the resolve to say, “Shall we receive the good at the hand of God, and not receive the bad?” I do not believe God gives us cancer or causes calamity in our lives as retributive punishment. But when disasters occur, because we are human and there is an enemy seeking to destroy us, God can use them for good, to change us, to reshape our character, to motivate us to mature into the image of God, and in turn, to influence others by our example. I pray that I will be as faithful as Job during this season and resist the temptation to rage at God in my disappointment and frustration and helplessness.
I see myself as both Job (suffering physical affliction) and his friends (babbling theologically sound answers). “The difference between Job and his advisers is that [the friends] want and demand clarity and order from the universe. They want to foresee what God will do. Job wants to see God.”
I realize that I have been as adept as Job’s friends at constantly talking about God and demanding control. Just get me going on the topic of the parables and I can pontificate for days (ask Nan, my last conference host in New York). But now that suffering is in my life, I want to be different – like Job - the one in the group who actually talks to God.
Unlike Job’s friends, many of you have been talking to God on my behalf – and God has heard and answered your prayers. Let me go back in the calendar and bring you up to date:
Jim left on March 8th with Out Of Eden for a 10-day trip to South Africa. The trio sang at a three-day Franklin Graham Crusade in Johannesburg, visited a wild game reserve, and helped to open a new World Vision project in Lesotho. Jim and “The Girls” had a wonderful, productive, exhausting and worthwhile week, and then endured a 26-hour flight home. My husband was greatly missed and we decided to never be apart from each other that long again. While he was gone, I once again had to deal with my sense of entitlement and exemption from everyday, household problems. One morning the car wouldn’t start and I had to have it towed to the garage; the next day, the pipes to the septic tank clogged and a plumber had to come and rotor-rooter the line. Can’t we get a stinkin’ break here? Obviously, not.
But the worst was yet to come. Andrew Jacobs, my son Taylor’s best friend since the eighth grade, was mugged on St. Patrick’s Day night. He was hit in the head with a flashlight, knocked to the pavement, kicked in the ribs, and robbed of his wallet, which contained $14. The attacker fled and Andrew’s two friends drove him to the hospital where he was admitted at a victim of violence under a pseudonym. It took nine staples to close his head wound, tubes were inserted to reinflate his lung, and he was kept in ICU for a full week. The undeserved violence has shaken us, yet we are grateful Andrew is alive and recovering. Even though he and Taylor are 18-years-old and think themselves “grown,” I see this horrible event as the end of their age of innocence.
While Jim was gone, my temperature spiked - not a good thing – an indication something was wrong. Dr. Murphy (oncologist) sent me to the hospital on Monday and Tuesday for x-rays to rule out infection or pneumonia. Nothing showed up. Since Dr. Greer (stem cell specialist) required another bone marrow aspiration within the next few weeks, Dr. Murphy decided to do it sooner rather than later. On March 11th, the day of the train bombing in Spain, I had a second bone marrow aspiration. The first one was done on Dec. 31st to confirm the multiple myeloma diagnosis. Let me summarize this procedure by saying, IT HURTS. I opted out of subjecting myself to pain and asked to be sedated for the second aspiration. It was nice to wake up after it was all over and not remember or feel anything.
I was scheduled to see Dr. Murphy the next day to compare the bone marrow test with the one taken on New Year’s Eve. I was surprised when the phone rang on Friday morning and I heard the doctor’s voice saying, “I thought I’d save you a trip and give you the results over the phone.”
That sentence can instantaneously be interpreted two ways – good news/bad news. Dr. Murphy quickly continued. “There is hardly any residual cancer in your bone marrow.” (You may now begin to laugh, cry, dance, clap, shout, and/or thank God.) I stopped breathing. It was almost too much to comprehend.
Dr. Murphy had more to say. “As a matter of fact, in your first test, 80% of your bone marrow had cancer; it even showed up in your blood stream, which is not normal.” My heart stopped beating.
I was able to choke out, “I didn’t know that.” In retrospect, I am so glad I didn’t know. Hearing 80% of my bone marrow was cancerous probably would have made me assume a fetal curl and wave goodbye. In Dr. Murphy’s wisdom or experience, he did not initially reveal how badly cancer had invaded my body.
“You are markedly better,” he concluded. Doctors really need to use stronger, spiffier words. “You are markedly better” is not as rip-snorting or dramatic as “We kicked the cancer’s ass.” [Parody lyric by Bonnie Keen King; see Update #8.] I would have loved to have heard a victory whoop or a shouted, “Way to go, Jan Babe!” But I heard Dr. Murphy’s smile over the phone and that was close enough to an emotional outburst for me.
However, this does not mean that my battle with cancer is remotely over. There are still billions of cancer cells conspiring in my bone marrow. To keep up the attack against them, I have resumed daily doses of Thalidomide (lesser milligrams will hopefully result in less severe side effects) and the 4-days on/4-days off regime of steroids, which probably means more swelling, a flushed face, and roiling emotions. But those are small prices to pay for “markedly better” bone marrow cancer counts and eventual remission.
Please be as encouraged as I am by the proof of our answered prayers. And please keep praying. God has a future for me, and for you, that is beyond what we can hope or imagine.
Job’s friends failed him miserably. I, on the other hand, am fortunate to have friends who try to understand my grief; friends who do not offer answers, but walk beside me through this journey; friends who cry beside me in hopeful silence; friends who mirror God by their being here, in the present, sharing the realistic sorrow and joy of my life. Whether you live in Nashville or some other place in the world, you are still close to me and I am grateful for your gifts, notes, e-mails, and prayers. These good things have come from my cancer: you have surrounded me with your affection and have without reserve poured out your love. I am truly blessed.
Janice "All material, unless otherwise noted, are owned and copyrighted by Janice Chaffee and James Chaffee, © 2004, 2005, 2006. Permission is granted to forward e-mails, or print for personal use only. No portion of these updates may be quoted in part or whole in any published material or on any internet site without authorization from authors.” |
