Adversity

Winter can be beautiful with clear, crisp air and a pure white landscape.  Winter can also be gray, gloomy, bitter, Sometimes it seems like the winters of our lives linger far too long.  I feel like I've been stuck in winter for a while now.  Most of the things that matter to me (family, health, shelter, employment) have come under attack, some multiple times.  Winter can be tiring but it's imperative I keep a grateful heart during my winters so hope can flourish. 

As a woman, there are a few things that make me feel vulnerable.  Recently I found a lump in my breast (anyone who knows me realizes it took great effort for me to type that).  The next day I called my doctor and she got me in within 30 minutes of my phone call.  I was in a state of subdued panic.  No one at work had any idea what was swirling in my thoughts. I didn't want to tell my family.  There's been phone calls of this job loss and that job loss, of painful family moments, of this move and that move.  I just couldn't make another emotional call.  I figured my family would quit taking my calls if I was always the voice of doom and gloom.

After going to my doctor, she felt I should get a diagnostic mammogram and ultrasound.  It would be my first mammogram, not the circumstances I was hoping for.  After pretending to be made of rubber, I was taken in for the ultrasound.  The technician had to keep asking me where the lump was, which I took to be a good sign.  After a bit she said she thought she would just take a look around since she wasn't finding my lump area.  She didn't have to say a word when she passed a black hole that appeared to be the size of a silver dollar.  She took several pictures, then brought in a doctor to let him look at it. 

They let me get dressed and then both came back in the room.  The doctor explained my mammogram was clean and the lump I had found was nothing but an enlarged something or the other.  I wasn't really listening because I knew there was a "but".  Then he revealed there was a secondary finding and because they couldn't tell what it was, I would need to have a biopsy.

Biopsy.  One word with so much emotional power.  Kurt was in the waiting room.  When I walked up to him, he immediately started to question me, but I told him to wait until we got outside.  I was barely holding it together.  As soon as we left the building, I fell apart.  I couldn't believe it.  We went straight to my parents house so my father and Kurt could give me a priesthood blessing.  The same message was repeated over and over, trust the doctors.  After getting myself back together, I went to work.  I wrote the word "trust" on a 3x5 notecard and taped it to my desk.  When I felt my mind slipping to dark places, I looked at that card because trust wasn't just about my doctors, I needed to remind myself to trust in God and to let as much of the fear go as possible.

The days leading up to the biopsy were mostly normal with a dash of evening tears.  I just needed the emotional release each day.  Wednesday, the day before spring break, was biopsy day.  Kurt and I went back to the hospital and he had to sit in the waiting room again.  I can't say the biopsy was pleasant, but it wasn't horrible.  It was a little more involved than I thought and the recovery wasn't as simple as I figured it would be, but when it was done I did feel some relief.  Until Friday.  Friday afternoon was results day.  The big reveal if you will.  Friday was horrible. I can't explain the tricks my mind was playing. 

I thought about having to give a bad news diagnosis to my boys and my life would change forever and how treatment could affect my kidney.  I imagined how wonderful it would be to give good news and tried to cling to those thoughts.  Time ticked by.  No call.  I decided to give it to 3 pm and then I would call.  I did not want to wait the weekend.  3pm:  I called my doctor and....they were out of town.  I had to know so I called the doctor who performed the biopsy and luckily, he was there.  He looked up my results and give me the clean diagnosis.  Once again, I couldn't control the emotional release. Lots of women have biopsies, but for me, this moment was incredible.  I prayed in great gratitude and I thought about the many women who do not get good news and I cried for them.  I was reminded life is a gift and how significant that this was Easter weekend, the event that celebrates the life of the One who saved us all. 

Winter is easing.  Winter makes us stronger, shows us what we're made of.  I'm a better person because of winter, more empathetic, more at ease.  And I'm ready for spring.  Aren't we all.