STEADY

If you are waiting for the long paragraphs of misery’s musings, I can assure you they will never come.

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It’s not that I’m holding something back. Never some weighted restraint that ties my tongue to some solemnly-kept secret.

There is nothing meaningful for me there, in the land of holding back, nothing but a profound loneliness that pulls me away from others and myself…

This has been the most difficult in a series of two-hundred-and-forty-one astonishing weeks, days that have confounded the spirit with news that was not quite what we had hoped. And yet, amid numbers going in the wrong direction there is an inexplicable “thriving” that eclipses all the rest.

Healing, it turns out, is not found in the mine field of decaying thoughts. Still, the useless musings I mistake for vigilance do their best to have their way with me, but only successfully to the degree that I allow myself to examine them up close.

Have you ever noticed how depleting defeating thoughts really are?
They redirect precious energy needed for restoration, telling the body, instead, that something is terribly wrong.

If I am to heal, that healing must manifest in what I can control…my thoughts at the tippy top of that list.

This has nothing whatsoever to do with “wishful thinking.”
This is a bold confidence in a strategy, a plan, knowing that I am doing everything necessary to change the course of this disease.

These last three days have been surprisingly painful. In fact, until these recent moments of a five-year journey I’ve had virtually no pain to speak of. It’s natural, maybe even intelligent, to be fearful when the body experiences something it can’t control.

But lying still in silence, I hear these words, “Your body is doing battle. Dispelling fear is the only way to win.”

There is so much right with what I’m experiencing in my body even though, in many ways, this invisible sloughing off of toxic cells feels foreign, even wrong.

But today I look into the mirror and I steady myself. Then, I notice the lines soften in my face. Beauty, it turns out, is no mysterious remedy at all. It is the disposition of a soul at rest. And I have had a glimpse of that kind of beauty today.

 NOTES:

Steady. One of my favorite words.

When is the last time you felt steady, unshaken, balanced, unmoved?

I have found my footing in two extraordinary things:

1.         A faith in a God who not only wants but creates the best for me.

2.         Extraordinary medical advances that provide answers that are explicit to me.

Armed with the results of my DATAR testing we intensified my protocol, adding multiple repurposed medications that proved [in the lab] to have a profound impact of the death of the cancer cells in me.

These are not medications that are typically circulated in discussions surrounding cancer…they are highly experimental, even creative in how they are applied.

I am fascinated. Really. And this fascination may be precisely what ultimately keeps me alive.

You want to know the really extraordinary thing?

In order to run the DATAR test there must be at least one cancer cell in the volume of blood extracted/tested.

 During our discussion, the DATAR medical director shared that she has seen hundreds of patients with significant numbers of cancer cells in their testing blood. This is not a good sign relative to the total number of cancer cells circulating throughout the entire body.

My test revealed…one cell. Enough to run the test. Yet, the best possible potential outcome for circulating cells in my body.

What a powerful reason to praise.

This is where I intend to focus my energy—on every blessing revealed.

Where the mind goes, the body follows.

Let this be the most important take-away.