Tsunami

An important warning sign of a tsunami is the vacuum effect.  When the trough, or the low point of the wave is reaching shore it sucks coastal water seaward exposing the sea floor.  Within about 5 minutes or so after this recession the wave's crest and its enormous volume of water crashes onto shore.  Tsunamis typically come in a series of waves, not just one big sweeping wave.
This week has been my emotional tsunami.  The past month I have "sucked it up" and seen the water line recede, exposing some of the sea floor.  Well, this week the waves have come crashing down.  
I came home from work sick on Tuesday.  Frustrating.  I need all the vacation time saved up for when treatments begin.  As of today I'm still not feeling well and can't do much around here.  I don't like this.  However, being weakened physically I believe allowed the wave of emotions to break so that I would/could actually get in touch with all that the past month has meant.
I sobbed in grief over the loss of health once again, the inability to care for my family the way I'd like, the thought of not being here with my family at all.  I've been through the "cancer diagnosis" grief process before but this is a different experience.  At age 17 when I was diagnosed with bone cancer I grieved the loss of independence, health and being able to remain an active part of my social community/school.  Now I have a husband and little people in my life to think about and it adds a whole new dimension to this process.  Not only that but the type of cancer I've been diagnosed with this time requires a different type of coping.  Aside from emotional coping, bone cancer called for quite a bit of physical coping.  Surgeries, physical therapy, weeks on crutches, pain; that was the work of bone cancer.  Breast cancer is a different thing altogether.  It impacts the very aspect of your image and identity as a female human person.  I'm sure there will be more I have to say about that as time goes by.
I've been reading some of the things I wrote when going through bone cancer treatment and am trying to draw strength and encouragement from my 17 year old self.    The following was written just a couple weeks after my eighteenth birthday, also a couple weeks after my limb salvage surgery to remove the tumor from my femur.  I didn't know then that it would one day serve to encourage me at the point of another cancer diagnosis.

"November 25, 1991
A whole month has gone by and all I have to say is, 'I missed it!'  That could be considered a blessing to me since I don't have anything FUN to occupy my time.  Nothing aside from fighting for my life and sanity, which at times seem so far out of my reach I wonder if I can call them my own!
To some my situation could seem sad: a nice, young girl having to suffer with such a disease as cancer, weeks on end away from home and stuck in a hospital.  As for me, I consider it a blessing...and sad too.  Sad for ANYONE to have to suffer in such a way.  Yet, as we are weak the Lord is strong and will so strengthen us.

The Lord reveals Himself in His precious time.
When the hours on a clock mean nothing, and
A millennium is the twinkling of an eye.
He may come slowly, He may come now.
The fact remains, whether a year or a day-
He will answer your call.

I sent this poem to my friend Steve to try and comfort him in a hard time.  I wrote it, now I have to believe it.  I do believe it in my heart, but to live that truth..."

And so, here I am in the midst of this emotional tsunami trying to live that truth.  I will continue to share it for encouragement and comfort.  I'm not the only one in this world that is going through something.  We all have "something".  So even as we hold on to our Rock in the midst of the waves, let's believe together that God will reveal Himself and will answer our call.