Inside story

July 27, 2012 by sherry

Not to be morbid or depressing, but I'm going to write about a few things that have actually taken part in our lives the past two weeks. It starts out depressing, moves into a hard read, but hopefully in the end your heart will be lifted by hope.

Cancer is a sickening thing to witness.  In just a matter of weeks (July 4th to today, July 27th) cancer has changed the landscape of my husbands body and face. He is weak and it shows. He is tired and you can clearly see it.  He is in pain and that too is written on his face.  The past week he has lived through 8-9 and 10 levels of pain (and that was with 1000 mgs of morphine a day).
For one entire day he went without even a smile much less a smirk  (he's a wise guy).

 Stupid cancer.

After about a week of this, I became so overwhelmed by his pain.  I prayed. I stayed by his side. I played my guitar. I made him banana splits, Sundaes, grilled steaks.  Nothing worked.  I cried in the bath tub.  I tired to make him smile, even my goofy dances stopped working.  After awhile my only response was to offer him more morphine. Anything to make the pain go away! How excruciating to watch and not be able to do anything!

Somewhere in there I started to become frustrated and angry. I was/am tired. His pain was/is relentless. The symptoms of cancer keep showing off and I can't turn away because the symptoms are in my husbands body.  I started to become short in temper with him, hurry up, speak up, sit up........Cancer in it's late stages has created a schism.  He's clearly the patient and I'm clearly not.  I found myself irritated even angry when I sprained my ankle and cut my fingers without so much of an acknowledgement from my husband.  He doesn't see when I'm exhausted and sweaty (his shower prep times with him is like being in a sauna), standing there in front of him waiting for him as he slowly contemplates swallowing all the pills that I put in front of him....wanting to re-cap what each one is and what it's for.......I get to a point I just want to tuck him in and go to bed myself.  I've been in a frustrated state.

So, with the help of prayer, worship, admonishment from my pastors as well as 'reminders' from my sister, I am getting over the frustrated/angry stage. Don't want a single regret. Don't want to waste time on the negative. *Inhale*/*Exhale*/*Praise*

Now; Terence is sooo sick, it makes me sick. Literally. It makes me throw up.  It must be anxiety.
I lay next to bed with him (I recently put our queen bed in storage, brought in a twin hospital bed then bought a twin for me and put the two together, so now we can finally sleep together). But between 10 Pm and 9 AM...I hear every moan for every ache that he has. I listen to his breathing patterns and when he stops breathing for more that 30 seconds I jostle him to wake him up.  Then he says "ow". So then I rub his back so he can fall back asleep.  I wake up feeling a little cold and realize that he's partially uncovered so I cover him. Then I feel movement in the bed- that'd be Terence, trying to get up to go to the bathroom, or to the garage to "work on a project"- it just depends. Either way, he's not really able to either on his own.  So we're up and at 'em taking care of business.....or fixing a flashlight in the garage at 3 am.

Lately though~ things ave changed- drastically.  He's very, very sick. The cancer as filled his abdomen.  He is not out in the garage trying to fix anything. No 'jaunts' out to check on his truck.  He needs help sitting up, standing up, walking, bathing, even eating.  This makes me very sad. I cry a lot when he's asleep.

THIS is Terence!

This is not Terence.  This is not Terence.  This is not Terence.  This is not Terence. This is not Terence. 

Our kids are upside down. Who know whats up any more? Our grand kids seem oblivious but they're not. Our baby (Annie, who is almost 4) sees Terence sleeping and asks, "is Papi dead?".  They are upside down too.

Terence's body is very slowly shutting down.  I had to visit the funeral home today.... go through the rigamarole.  My sister did the home work. I just sat there thinking "today would be a grrrrrrreat day for that miracle Lord. Please don't make me have to walk through this".

But....I prepare myself even as Paul prepared for shipwreck; the ship was lost, but there was no loss of life.  In the same way, our own desires and failed dreams may go down, but I hope and believe we will be positioned in another place of blessing where we will walk in the power of His Spirit and not in the power of our own strength.   (Acts ch. 27)

Old ceilings have become new floors for us as we rise to new levels of experience.  We are being challenged to exercise a higher degree of maturity and experience a greater calm in the midst of the storms of life....   Be strong says the Lord!