Dona's Blog

A surprising diagnosis of metastatic breast cancer in December left my nerves frayed and my capacity to see the positive challenged. That is not quite accurate. Anybody who knows me well knows that my capacity to see the negatives in a situation is formidable. I like to refer to myself as a troubleshooter who can sniff out DANGER with remarkable neurotic accuracy, a source of endless frustration to a husband, who is a natural optimist.

My first consult after a series of scans taken 3 months into treatment was tense (you think!). Theresa, my oncologist’s right-hand nurse practitioner, read me the radiologist’s report which sounded alarmingly ambivalent to my ears and apparently my facial expression exposed my alarm.

“Dona, what is going on? I’m not encouraging you. I can tell by looking at you. “

All I was hearing was something like this little tune, “Cancer here, cancer there, a little cancer sprinkled everywhere.”

She tried again to give me the report’s findings with more color commentary and positive caveats. No dice, I just couldn’t hear what was good in the report.
Finally, Theresa looked at David, “David, help me out, why am I not able to encourage Dona?”

They started talking about the way I process new information as if I wasn’t in the room. I finally said, “OK, Theresa, bottom line – should I be happy from what I’m hearing? It sounds confusing and unconvincing.”

Theresa’s response helped, “Dona, you should be ecstatic!”

I breathed my first deep breath. But as David explained, I still needed to process (David, gets me and most of the time he is supernaturally patient. Bless him). I hounded him the next few days with a ton of questions. I wanted to understand and emotionally experience the good news of this first 3 months of treatment on a new drug.  Since that day I’ve wondered about my reactions and wondered whether there were spiritual parallels.

Life and death information takes serious processing
I, like most people, want straight forward explanations. If people are like me, they want a simple dopamine rush of good news; end of story, no caveats and no qualifiers.
I was confronted with a report about life or death. If ever there was a time to seek clarification and interpretation wasn’t that the moment? I can be forgiven for not being easily placated considering the gravity of my health situation. There was another problem. I was mentally and emotionally dense to the language, descriptions and vocabulary of this serious diagnostic report. I needed help to figure this out. Where was the good news? I kept asking until it finally seeped in, but it was a struggle.

There was another time long ago when good news didn’t sound immediately like good news. When I was an undergraduate, I was walking a dorm hall and was roped in to a bible study in a dorm room. By the time I left I was handed my first New Testament. I read and read and read. The good news that these dorm Christians were talking about was escaping me. The more I read the worst I felt about my spiritual condition and how little my life reflected the teachings of Jesus. I wasn’t getting this good news thing. In retrospect, I was feeling the bad news of being a sinner. The good news – relief from disappointment and guilt – was only a whisper at that point. I entertained chucking it for something spiritually benign, mellow and nonjudgmental. I tried transcendental meditation but continued private reading of the New Testament. Jesus was compelling, but he said some things that I didn’t understand or even like. Some of what was written provoked an angst that was akin to despair. I wanted to read something that made me feel good and accepting of where I was with no changes required. Where was this good news? This New Testament document was serious. There was an alarming truth that intuitively felt like I was being confronted with life and death. I got that far but I was stuck.

Clarification and interpretation are needed
I needed help with the vocabulary and concepts of the New Testament. I had questions, tons of questions, with no one to go to but books that I read while sitting on floors of book stores and libraries. Eventually I found smarter, wiser and older people than me to throw all my questions. I was a dog on a bone; stubbornly holding on but growling along the way, refusing to be distracted or relaxed. Accepting this Good News about Jesus without fully understanding would not stand the test of time. Giving up on the whole thing was a viable option – too much cognitive dissonance. But in hindsight that ‘dog on a bone’ compulsion was a gift of the Holy Spirit. I had to face and humbly accept the bad news about myself to get to the good news: that through believing in Christ, his sacrifice and resurrection, I could be forgiven and receive the peace I had been longing for. Ultimately, I received the good news, ended the growling and began to enjoy and relax within the joy of my “bone”.

Final parallel: Discipleship can feel like medical treatment
Long term Christian discipleship, all those moments of your life after you receive the Good News, many times is like reviewing the reports of full body scans and looking for malignancies. The news can be bad. We may realize there is more work to be done. Questions and doubts will come up. A treatment plan may need to be developed and rigorously implemented in ways that are not comfortable. However, we will have the Great Physician treating and encouraging us to “fight the good fight” for knowledge of the truth and then persevering (2 Timothy 4:7) until that one day when we rest in the presence of God forever.