personal update

I'm pleased to say that last Saturday night, through the mercies of God and Ambien, I slept like a rock for about 10 hours. Through the first part of the week, I pulled off a couple more very good nights' sleep (med-free, thank you very much, but taking advantage of an over-the-counter melatonin supplement). There have a few bad nights since then, and a general sense of fatigue throughout, but today I'm enjoying a pretty high level of energy for the first time in nearly a month--the kind of energy that, for a change, doesn't dissipate after 20 minutes of washing the dishes or folding laundry. In fact, Karla & I have put in quite a full day today, and not until late into the evening did I begin to feel noticeably drained.


But I've discovered something troubling in all this: recently I don't have the same kind of peace or courage that I had a few months ago in the face of my situation. I still maintain a fair amount of cheerfulness throughout the day, when my coping mechanisms are strong enough to keep unpleasant thoughts at a distance, but in the night I know that I am afraid, that I resent every reminder of my prognosis, that my efforts to plan the shape of any future day without regard for its unpredicted setbacks and limitations are built on an illusion. Six months ago, I found strength in looking realistically at the fact that I had an incurable disease, that I would face a difficult struggle for the rest of my life, and that I could take nothing for granted. This was the truth, and those who believe in a loving and trustworthy Being at the core of all reality need not fear the truth. Now I find strength in not thinking about it. A false strength.


There are two interpretations of this, both valid and perhaps complementary. On one level, the pressures of completing my dissertation in time to graduate next year, coupled with disturbances in my sleep patterns, have pulled me away from the kinds of mental, spiritual, physical and relational activities that renew my faith and my openness toward the world on a daily basis. If I am to carry through what I have set out to accomplish, I can't float passively from one day to the next, working when I feel good and not working when I don't. I have to exercise control over my schedule, and as the combined effects of chemotherapy and heart damage wrest that control out from my hands, I become obsessed with getting it back. This obsession, in turn, infringes upon every other dimension of my life--and certainly contributes to my insomnia.


On another level, my ability to face my situation has not really changed that much since six months ago. I'm just a few steps further down the path, and I know things experientially now that I could only envision abstractly then. I'm no longer imagining but traveling the often exhausting journey of living with cancer. The peace that sustained me over Thanksgiving and Christmas is maturing, a difficult process that calls for confrontations with new challenges, new fears, and a deeper kind of trust than I've had before.

Either way, this is a wake up call. I can't put off serious reflection on my inner disposition. This isn't about some abstract moral responsibility to maintain a positive attitude or keep a stiff upper lip (God save us from such pretensions). It is about staying physically, spiritually and relationally alive. The faux peace preserved by diverting my attention from things that don't go away will destroy me in the end. There is real, life-giving peace to be found in honest acknowlegdement, wrestling with God, and learning again to trust.

Not surprisingly, talking it through in this post has taken me a huge step in the right direction. As I've been discovering all along, keeping an online journal has played a role in my own well-being, beyond whatever benefit it may bring to others. (So yes, Greg, I will continue blogging as much as time and energy allow, dissertation be damned.)