I'm not gonna lie, I've kind of been avoiding this entry. A lot has changed and gone on in our lives the last few months and I'm just starting to feel like I'm gaining a grip on all we're dealing with.
We got to go home for a week in October, it's always so good to be with my family and always so hard to leave, but this was an exceptionally hard trip. A few days, before we went down, my Mom mentioned to me she had felt a lump in her left breast, she said she had gone to Dr Tormey to have it checked and the Dr had been unable to feel anything, beside the cyst, that had been there for over a year. Luckily my mother was in tune with the Spirit and she asked the Dr to go ahead and just drain the cyst, upon doing so the Dr found another lesion just behind this one and was unable to aspirate any fluid from it... when my mom told me this, my heart sank, immediately fearing that this was a cancerous mass, I pushed her to schedule with the Dr to obtain a biopsy of this area, while I was in town. I went with my Mom to the Dr's appt and as the Dr visualized the growth, I knew what we were looking at and I felt numb and overwhelmed. After the biopsy was taken I began asking the Dr her impression of what she was seeing and she confirmed my greatest fear... this looked like cancer. A flood of emotions overtook me, I felt angry, scared and just sad for what I knew my mom was about to endure. My mom has always had very dense breast tissue, she developed a large cyst in her left breast just prior to my moving to Texas and I had taken her to see Dr Tormey, to get reassurance this mass was a cyst and that we didn't need to drain it or remove it, and to make sure this mass wasn't going to conceal any other growths... well here we were, 18 months later facing the very thing, I thought we were preventing. I felt helpless and sad, I couldn't sleep that first night, I looked up every clinic in the area that was registered with the health service corps, and the next day, I called every single one of them, almost pleading to find a job that would allow me to move closer to home, I have prayed and prayed to find a way that would enable us to move home sooner and I would be lying if I said I haven't felt confused or frustrated that nothing has worked out, but I pray and pray about this and I continue to feel like my family is still supposed to be in Kermit, TX. The chemo has been hard on my Mom, it's heartbreaking to hear her pain and frustration through the phone line and be so far away, so limited in my ability to comfort her. I have this need/desire to try and fix or alleviate pain and suffering, and one of the most important people in my life is suffering and I feel limited in my ability to help, it's been very trying, but I pray and pray that I can be in tune to the Spirit and aware of her needs from a distance. I can't even imagine the pain and emotional strain that she is feeling at this time, but I know that our Heavenly Father has a specific plan for my Mom right now and that our family as a whole can be strengthened and refined through her experiences. My mom is one of the strongest women I know, she never complains and never thinks about her self, and through all the pain and heartache she has already endured, she has handled it with grace and humility and my love and admiration for her continues to grow. She lost her hair this week, I can tell over the phone that this has been hard on her, my mom has always been gorgeous, physically, and to think that she may be doubting her appearance now, makes me sad, because honestly, she looks just absolutely beautiful, without her hair. One of my favorite quotes is from Marjorie Hinckley:
I don’t want to drive up to the pearly gates in a shiny sports car, wearing beautifully, tailored clothes, my hair expertly coiffed, and with long, perfectly manicured fingernails. I want to drive up in a station wagon that has mud on the wheels from taking kids to scout camp. I want to be there with grass stains on my shoes from mowing Sister Schenk’s lawn. I want to be there with a smudge of peanut butter on my shirt from making sandwiches for a sick neighbor’s children. I want to be there with a little dirt under my fingernails from helping to weed someone’s garden. I want to be there with children’s sticky kisses on my cheeks and the tears of a friend on my shoulder. I want the Lord to know I was really here and that I really lived.
D&C 58:27
Verily I say, men should be anxiously engaged in a good cause, and do many things of their own free will, and bring to pass much righteousness;
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I know she's not talking about enduring cancer in this quote, but I feel like it's applicable, I feel like we need to roll up our sleeves, anxiously engage ourselves and lose ourselves in the pursuit of salvation. When I look at my Mom in this picture, that's exactly how I see her, and what I see her doing... enduring to the end and really living. Somehow I think this gives me an even deeper glimpse into her soul, you can see the pure beauty and love in her eyes and I somehow feel like she has an added love of the Savior. I admire the wife, mother, grandmother and friend that my Mom is and I hope and pray that we can beat this cancer and spend another 20yrs learning and growing together, but I have a huge sense of peace in knowing that my Heavenly Father has a plan for each and everyone of us and that regardless of when our time on this Earth may end, we will have the joy and blessing of being together forever, no greater gift could we have been given!
