How God Speaks to Us Through Our Sin

Giotto di Bondone, The Crucifixion, The Capella degli Scrovegni, 1305 AD

I'm a Roman Catholic.  I haven't always practiced my faith. There were twenty years during which I walked away from the Church.  I still believed in God, but I didn't believe that I needed the Church.  For some reason, it did not occur to me that Jesus had a good reason for giving the Church to us.  At that time, I believed in my own goodness and abilities.  This is when God speaks to us through the consequences of our sins.  I had some whoppers.  I lived with a man without being married who suffered from chronic depression and who eventually killed himself (after I left).  Obviously, my parents were not happy about me, and our relationship suffered because of what I was doing.  I believe that both of my parents prayed continually for me.  And after that relationship ended, I was briefly engaged to a man who I discovered was a convicted child molester.  Fortunately, I found out and broke off the engagement.  But this hit me like a ton of bricks.  Why was I making such poor choices in men?  When I thought about my parents, they had been happily married for over 40 years at that time.  Perhaps, they deserved a second look, because they were modeling a healthy marriage.  For some reason, I had this stupid idea that I wasn't going to be like my parents.  Well, why not?

At the same time, I was practicing family law.  I had never seen dysfunctional relationships in a marriage before.  While no marriage is perfect, our parents and our home was pretty happy.  I got an eyeful during my years practicing family law.  I quickly understood from my law practice all the different ways that marriages fail. 

1. Being lazy in a marriage,  and not communicating with your spouse.  Marriage requires work, and two people can grow apart if they don't work at staying together.
2. Infidelity, to which I would add the epidemic of pornography.  61% of all divorces in California are impacted by pornography.  That's a huge number.  At the time I was practicing, the internet and pornography were not as common as they are now.
3. Alcohol/Drug/Gambling Addictions.
4. One spouse is a saver and the other is a spender.  Many people just don't know how to manage the family finances, make a household budget, and don't know how to resolve financial problems.
5. Domestic Violence.

My years practicing family law were some of the best life lessons that I ever learned, and prepared me for what NOT to do in a marriage, in the same way that my parents positively modeled a good marriage to all of us children.  So, I made some changes in my life.  I got healthy and dropped about 40 lbs.  I also made a list of the kind of values that I wanted to see in a potential husband. 

1. Emotionally stable.
2. Financially stable.
3. Someone who had a good relationship with his mother, and who could remain a friend with a previous girlfriend.  I believe that how a man treats his mother is often how we will treat his wife.
4. Someone who had lived in the same place for many years.

I still wasn't practicing my faith, so I left that dimension off of my list.  If I had to do over again, I would have added it at the top of my list as something essential.

It was at this moment, that my future husband walked in my life.  I found him online, we corresponded for a bit, had a couple of telephone conversation (a bit one sided because my husband is Norwegian and not naturally talkative), and then we went on our first date to the Saddlerack, a fun country western bar with live music and dance lessons.  He was a trooper, and still is an awesome dancer!

After four months we were engaged, and were married about a year after we met in September 5th.  Importantly, I didn't make the same mistakes that I had made previously.   During our engagement, he wanted me to take one of theses human potential movement courses called The Landmark Forum.  Three really great things came out of that:

1. The emphasis on living your life with integrity.  (A concept related to virtue!)
2. I began to repair the damage I had done to the relationship with my parents, first by apologizing to both of them.  It took time, but it became much improved.
3. I was introduced to idea of putting structures in place which forward your goals.  This is when the idea of the Church that Jesus gave to us actually began to make sense, as a structure intend to support our faith.  I had done quite poorly without the structure of the Church in my life.  I realized I was quite fallible and had made many mistakes.  Pride does go before a fall!

Getting Ready for Radiation

Radiation Mask

This morning I had my right knee check up.  All is going well and restarting the PT is helping enormously, especially with my leg extension.  Another check up in ten months.

Today's big appointment, however, was my CT scan and the making of a mask for my radiation appointments.  The paperwork took about 45 minutes.  The mask keeps my head immobilized so that the radiation can be aimed appropriately.  They start with a flat nylon mesh, which they then put in hot water to soften it up, and then mold to your face.  This takes about ten minutes.  It's not uncomfortable, although it's too difficult to keep my eyes open so I just keep them shut.  I'm told I get to keep the mask at the end of the six weeks. It looks like a fencing mask.

Thankfully, I didn't have to have contrast for the CT scan, which in this case would be radioopaque iodine, to which I'm highly allergic.  I would have had to take three days of pills to suppress my immune response just for the contrast.  Fortunately I got to skip this.  The CT scan itself only took about ten minutes.

A Life Changed Overnight

Glioblastoma, Stage 4, in left parietal lobe

If you want to God laugh, tell Him your plans.

On 8/19, I had a right total knee replacement at Stanford. (Because I couldn't walk last year, my weight went up about 45 lbs.)  My knee is now fine, and I have no pain, although I have not had all the PT that I was supposed to have because of what happened next.

Three days before my surgery, I started tripping on my words.  It was just a few words, but I didn't put two and two together before my surgery.  I'm an attorney and teacher.  I make my livelihood teaching and talking. I don't trip on my words normally.  When I woke from the anesthesia, my speech was much worse, but I thought that first week that it was because of all the pain medications I was on, like oxycontin.

By the middle of next week, I was off all pain medicine but my speech was not improving.  I had also spelling problems too!  I also noticed problems with my right hand in sensing temperature and fine sensation.  I couldn't tell without looking and by only touch whether my husband had a shirt on.  I became very alarmed and I thought that I had a stroke during the surgery.  My mother who stayed with me for three days confirmed my feelings. 

I have had epilepsy my whole life so I called my neurologist in a panic.  He never hears from me much anymore.  I usually send him an email to let him know that I'm ok every two years.  So after he heard me on the phone, he knew something was up.  He sent me the number to schedule an MRI.  I got the first available on 9/20, and two hours after the MRI we were in his office looking at the tumor.  By the end of that weekend, my neurologist had made a referral with my neurosurgeon, Dr. Mitchel Berger.  He happened to be in New York that week, but we met with his fellow, who explained about the tumor, which was in the left parietal lobe which controls speech and motor functions. So at least we had information and not just scary pictures.

By a few more days, I had emergency surgery scheduled for 10/2.  I had to have a battery of blood work and testing prior to the surgery. MRIs, brain mapping, MRI spectroscopy, and neurospeech to set a baseline.  They used a marker that makes the tumor glow flourescent pink so just not the mass would be removed, but all of the bad cells that can look like healthy cells.  They got as much of it as they could.  It was also good news that the tumor was caught so early. In this place, it often wraps around an important sensory bundle. It did not have time to do that, which means that they did haven't destroy that part of my brain!  It was an awake (mostly) surgery and I remember all of it.  I'm  told that I got an A+ in brain surgery because I was the calmest patient they have ever had. LOL!  The surgery was on the feast of the Guardian Angels!  How cool is that!?  I've had a mammoth Guardian Angel, and it was like a presence of wings folded around all of us.  Surgery took 5.5 hours.

I was out of the hospital by the following Saturday.  My speech is already coming back.  It will take about 1-2 months to improve. My working memory took a hit, but this is also supposed to improve. However, I'm now a really poor speller.  LOL!  Hooray for spell check!

I'm now healing, and very weak because of two surgeries in two months.  But I'm getting more energy back every day. Yesterday I got back on track with PT for my knee, which is now pain free, although the muscles are a bit weak because I’ve been in bed so much lately.  I do feel so much better now than I did.

Later today, I will get my biopsy results and oncologist appointment.  This tumor is a glioblastoma, high grade, aggressive, and it is the worst kind to have.  I will need chemo, radiation and an MRI every 2 months.  I will have 6 weeks to heal before this starts.  I am under no illusion about what the news will be today.  The worst case prognosis is 1 to 2 years.  No one survives this.  However, I already know that I won’t have that worst case.  My tumor was caught early and completely removed.  I’m young, and the type of surgery I had reduces recurrences quite dramatically.  If you are interested about my pioneering neurosurgeon, Dr. Mitchel Berger, watch this link:

http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news%2Fhealth&id=7708538

So… I’m asking for your prayers today for my husband and my mother, as we learn more about this disease.  I believe that it will  be harder on them, than on me. I am also asking for your prayers for my father, who will be told later.

After all, we are not intended to live forever.  We were always intended to go back to God. And after all, God IS in the driver seat.  I have so many questions to ask!

Update:  As expected, we met with the oncologist and I was told, along with my husband and mother, that my prognosis would likely be about two to three years, at the most five years.  The tumor was definitely a stage 4 glioblastoma.