Last week I saw my Oncologist. On top of some insurance drama and medical bill freak-outs, it was kind of a bummer appointment. He was more frank that I had hoped, and it became quite
clear to me that I am still very much in harm’s way and that this will be a much longer
bout of radiation than I anticipated—6 ½ to 7 weeks worth of going to the
hospital for radiation treatment, 5 days a week.
Although he muttered about it a bit, he is letting me wait
until right after our honeymoon for me to come back to Philly to start
treatment.
I’m not doing chemotherapy or traditional radiation, I get
to receive Proton Therapy at none other than the largest Proton Therapy treatment center in the world! http://www.pennmedicine.org/radiation-oncology/patient-care/treatments/proton-therapy/roberts-proton-therapy-center.html
…And I can literally walk there from my apartment! If I lived literally anywhere else in
the world, or even at any other time period before now, I would have nowhere
near this kind of access to such advanced medical treatment.
Here is a map of all of the Proton Therapy Centers in the
US—not a lot. And many of them are
not even fully operational yet!
Click this LINK for a video on the news filmed while the facilities at Penn
were being built. (Proving I am more tough than Katie Couric because when I toured the facilities, I did NOT need to wear a hard hat, hehe.)
Even the name sounds advanced—Proton Therapy—it sounds like I’m turning into a robot, or like I’m
on an episode of Doctor Who, or perhaps it is what they did to Luke Skywalker after
his hand got cut off by Darth Vader.
My data is being used as part of a study, so that’s interesting. A nurse joked with me about having a
tumor in a medical textbook named after me…not exactly how I want to be
remembered in history, but at least its something!
So literally the day after we get home from our honeymoon,
I’ll be back down in Philly during the weekdays for a couple months, walking to
Proton Therapy everyday.
And it looks like I will be finishing up treatment just days
before my lease on my apartment in Philadelphia runs out—hallelujah for more
miracles of timing!
Although Proton Therapy is much more gentle than all other
forms of radiation, there will still be side effects, especially because they
will be messing with my brain. It
is kind of a mystery how I will respond until I actually start, but one things
is for sure-- I will be tired. (Frankly, I’m just tired of thinking about it already!) So although all systems are still
GO for the wedding Open Houses in October, be on the lookout for updates on our
wedding site: price-jackson.blogspot.com just in case I am too sick to party :(
So with all of this getting settled and mapped out, it is
probably no surprise that I have been feeling a little down lately.
After all, what little girl pictures her wedding in her head
and plans for the part right after her honeymoon when she has to leave her
brand new white picket fence, go back to her apartment from singlehood, and
undergo radiation everyday for 2 months?
No little girls. Or big
girls. It is far from the ideal early marriage.
So as one sits around feeling sorry for one’s self, one
cannot help but wonder: WHY?
After all, I haven’t led a particularly carcinogenic
life. I don’t eat tons of red meat
or fried foods or McDonalds. I
have never even smoked or drank. I
eat 3 servings of vegetables literally every single day! I shop at Whole Foods and buy
organic. I exercise 6 days a
week. I filter my water from the
tap and use a glass water bottle so I don’t get too much BPA exposure. I didn’t grow up in Chernobyl...
So I got a little paranoid for a while. And kept thinking crazy stuff like:
Did
I stand too close to the microwave oven as a child?
Have
I eaten too much artificial sweetener?
Did
my parents live too close to power lines when I was a baby?
Was
it all that soymilk I use to drink?
Some
crazy trauma as a result of getting hit in the head playing rugby too much?
Too
much accidentally ingested chlorine from swimming all of the time?
Well, my law school was pretty close to Three Mile Island...
Maybe
that one time I swam in the Schuylkill River? Or the Dead Sea?
And on and on and on…
But it still made NO sense. I haven’t done anything that millions of others haven’t
done. In fact, I would honestly
say that I have lived a significantly MORE healthy lifestyle than the average
person, and you don’t see the average person with a giant malignant brain tumor
at age 27!
So my next thought was, naturally, THIS IS NOT FAIR!
I spent several days stewing over the utter unfairness of it all, and I concluded that I was wrong.
After all, who ever said that all things are fair? Well…wait a minute...didn’t God?!
2) "A faithful man shall abound with blessings..." Proverbs 28:20.
3) "...the Lord in his great infinite goodness doth bless and prosper those who put their trust in him." Helaman 12:1.
So, HELLO?! What's the deal, here? Why am I so ill and going through all of this? Isn't God's justice the idea that bad things shouldn't happen to good people and the loved ones of good people??
4) Mosiah 2:24 "...He doth require that ye should do as He hath commanded you; for which if ye do, He doth immediately bless you..." (emphasis added)
What the heck? Immediate blessings are something I could really go for right about now!
So I kept reading and researching, wondering why I wasn't getting the immediate blessings I was sure I deserved. Turns out, it doesn't always work that way...
Matthew 5:45 "That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust."
In other words, to make US better and more worthy of being His children, sometimes there is rain and sometimes there is sun-- whether we are good, bad, neutral, or indifferent.
(Or in even other words-- buy a raincoat, even if you're a good guy or gal! Hehe...)
Let's consider the experiences of our first parents. Adam and Eve enjoyed blissful life in the glorious Garden of Eden without death and
sorrow. But I hate to be the one to break it to you,
this is not Eden, this is mortality-- and there is plenty of death, pain, and sorrow here to go around, no matter who you are.
After leaving the Garden of Eden, that first family did not take long
to experience tragedy-- remember Cain and Abel?
I can think of few things more gut-wrenching for a parent to experience. Not only is their good, happy,
righteous child dead, but he was intentionally murdered by another of their
children. That would take a
lifetime to get over, or more! Was it fair for Adam and Eve to have to
experience sorrow like that? Was
it fair for Abel, who was a good man by all accounts, to have died like that?
But this is mortality and,
fair or not, all people will die.
(I like and appreciate tasteful nude art...if that offends you, well, I'm not too sorry...)
"Because Adam and Eve did fall, we have temptation, trials, and death as our universal inheritance. " President Henry B. Eyring, April 2014.
There is pain and ugliness and evil in this fallen, mortal world. So no matter how good or bad we are, mortality catches up with us now and again. Bad things must happen, because that is just what mortal life is about-- struggle, sin, and death. But, don't give up! Like Eden, there is also good,
light, hope, and happiness in this world. In my experience, seeking
and finding those positive things brings me the greatest
peace and comfort I can find, even when I am surrounded by the terrifying realities of
mortal life and death.
I also find this passage illuminating regarding the fairness and unfairness of life--
2 For
verily I say unto you, blessed is he that keepeth my commandments,
whether in life or in death; and he that is faithful in tribulation, the
reward of the same is greater in the kingdom of heaven.
3 Ye
cannot behold with your natural eyes, for the present time, the design
of your God concerning those things which shall come hereafter, and the
glory which shall follow after much tribulation.
4 For
after much tribulation come the blessings. Wherefore the day cometh
that ye shall be crowned with much glory; the hour is not yet, but is
nigh at hand.
These verses suggest viewing our lives from a broader perspective. Rather than thinking, 'today I was nice to people so nice things should happen to me today,' these verses acknowledge that good people have bad times, and that sometimes even righteous people DIE- perhaps even because of their righteousness! But rather than prompting revolt for the injustice of it all, these verses suggest a continuum-- that mortal death does not necessarily stop us from receiving blessings and from getting the good things we feel we may have deserved by being good. In my faith tradition, we call this view an Eternal Perspective-- looking beyond mortal birth and mortal death and seeing LIFE as eternal and, ultimately, just.
Its usually a real slap in the face when you're going through hard times to hear, "Oh don't worry, you'll be rewarded in heaven!" Personally, I just want to reply, "Screw heaven! This sucks NOW!" But as I look back over my life, "now" is such a small sliver of time. My feelings-- good or bad-- rapidly change, my circumstances rapidly change, and even the darkest of nights pass and fade away as sunlight comes again.
Doctrine and Covenants 121:
7 My (child), peace be unto thy soul; thine adversity and thine afflictions shall be but a small moment;
8 And then, if thou endure it well, God shall exalt thee on high; thou shalt triumph over all thy foes.
Similarly, in the Old Testament, Isaiah quotes the Lord as saying the following. This passage is also quoted verbatim in the Book of Mormon:
"For a small moment have I forsaken thee; but with great mercies will I gather thee."
That doesn't mean everything will look fair and perfect at the end of every day, or even at the end of your life on Earth. But I do think that when this world is coming to a close, the checks and balances will equal each other out, and we will realize that we are and were more blessed that we ever deserved in life.
God Is Just.
Life seems unfair because there is still accounting left to do. Even after physical death, I believe
life continues. Life is fair, it just isn’t over yet. And when all is said and done, I think
we will look back and proclaim, "Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are thy ways!" (Revelation 15:3)
(This mural is inside of the Washington DC Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.)
