A Prayer for Hope

The natural rhythm of life with children just won't allow for the focus to remain on my mother and the cancer that I hope she is overcoming. I had no idea that living an hour and a half away would create such a disconnect between my availability to help and my actual ability to be helpful, but that's exactly what's happened. There is a great divide spreading across the miles that I just don't see how I can overcome. I feel helplessly stuck on the sidelines instead of like the cheering section of support that my mom needs throughout this fight. I feel guilty for even thinking about what I'm feeling right now since it pales in comparison to what she must be going through.

When I last updated, my mother has been handed the decision between mastectomy and lumpectomy. She ultimately chose the lumpectomy because she wasn't sure of what Medicaid would cover as far as reconstruction goes. I won't get into how sad it is that women have to make a decision that can lead to more cancer in the future simply because our government won't provide better coverage. Prior approval that can't be given until the surgery is scheduled just doesn't leave much room for thorough decision making. Obama will fix this, I hope.

I have sat with my mom while she awaited her lumpectomy, I've paced the hospital grounds waiting for news of her surgery, I've paced some more as I called my sisters with updates, and I've taken her back home to a place that I know she isn't getting the support she needs. I'd say that was the hardest part, leaving her afterward, but it runs neck and neck with the waiting. Waiting for the surgery to be over, waiting for news of the next step, waiting for word of whether the cancer had spread to her lymph nodes, I'm so useless at these times. I long to quit merely waiting and actively endure during these difficult times.

What felt like weeks later, but in reality was only a week after her sugery, I can now Praise the Lord that the results of tests ran on the lymph nodes showed that the cancer hasn't spread! So, now my mom is recovering well, and will be meeting with her oncologist on Thursday to discuss radiation and possibly chemo as well.

I wish this was all that was on her plate. Instead, she has a two year old little boy with Down's Syndrome that she agreed to watch after for a few months right after he was born. A few months turned into a jail term and eventual return to using crack for his mother, so my mom has been taking care of the little guy all the while. As if being a mother to a two year old with special needs isn't too much on her already, my little sister, who is 25 years old, decided that she couldn't keep herself clean and out of trouble long enough to be with my mother during her cancer treatments. Instead, she had my mom take her to a rehab 2 hours from home. The one person who could have been a daily support and caregiver to both my mom and the baby, has jumped ship, once again. If it weren't her fifty bagillionth time in rehab, I might not see it for the escape from effort that it is, but it's hard to ignore the past. I suppose there's always hope, though, right?

There's that word again-- hope.
My mom has stage 2a breast cancer and hope is the best word I can come up with to describe the immense and aching need in my heart. I need for her to make it through this with a new found love of the Lord. I need for her to have support. I need to know that I am doing all I can to help her. I need my little sister to be a whole and functioning person who lives for Christ and not herself. I suppose I want for these things. All I truly need is God and besides that's where hope comes from, anyway.

So, if you're reading this, please take a moment to pray this bit of scripture for my family and myself.

I pray that God, the source of hope, will fill you completely with joy and peace because you trust in him. Then you will overflow with confident hope through the power of the Holy Spirit. ~Romans 15:13