Why

I wrote the below post on March 23rd. Lately has been hard for a myriad of reasons, but last night was just a particularly rough night for me with cancer emotions. We are approaching the first set of scans. All of our anxiety is super high. I've been encouraged to post what I've held back. I haven't felt like I could be my authentic self this Battle. I know it's because of other things going on in my life. But today someone told me to not stop doing what helps my heart - writing - which has spurred me to share this post. Going to keep being my authentic me. And to Heck with whoever can't handle it!

- Melanie

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From March 23, 2022

My heart is hurting. I watch my family all grapple with this. My girls are both scared and hurting. They don't understand why. I don't understand it. I'm sitting here, finally alone to process. Over a month later, I'm finally crying, screaming, ranting at God. For the last month, I have been in management mode. Taking care of everyone else's needs. Taking care of all their emotions, unable to even begin to process or understand my own. 

Fear, doubt, hurt, distrust - all of that is present in my daughters and in me when I stop long enough to feel. 

My role in this journey is not that of the patient. Alan has his role to fight with everything to get well, to trust in the doctor's advice, to have faith that God isn't done with him here. The patient has the hard job and yet, I've discovered sometimes the "easier" one. They are the one able to do things, to take active steps in the fight. Meaning they are the ones that go on some form of treatment and actually fight the damn cancer.  The rest of us are bystanders. 

As a child of a cancer patient, there is a lot of hopelessness, fear, doubt, hurt and now on the third battle distrust. The girls struggle with feeling hopeless because they are bystanders unable to do anything that causes the cancer to go away. They fear the death of their dad - wondering what will he miss, when will he not be able to attend things because of treatment (been there) or ultimately when will they not have him here at all. Rebekah does too much research on her own and understands the realities of cancer too much. Audrey has such fear that she just wants to ignore it and act like it isn't our reality. Both of them do these things because of their hurt from this journey and their doubting it will ever get better. We've entered a stage where they struggle to trust that anything will work or that God will heal Alan. Three battles, two recurrences when "it shouldn't recur," "where it is unlikely," and "the odds of that happening are very low," is taking a very significant toll on trusting and faith that it will "all be okay," as everyone tries to tell us. 

As a wife and mother on this journey, I am the caretaker of everyone. I am the cheerleader for Alan, reassuring him that it will all work, keeping him in the best frame of mind possible. A positive attitude and lack of stress help treatment to work! So I try to foster that. Focusing on us eating right, keeping up with the appointments, questions with new results, all of it. He and I both have the MDA App so that every time they communicate, we both see it because you need two sets of eyes, ears, and brains to look at things, hear the doctor's comments fully and to process all the possible questions. 

Unlike Alan, I never feel I am taking active steps. I have felt for five years now that I am sitting back watching this all unfold with no way to fix it. And I am a fixer... I much more relate to our girls' emotions in this journey, except I'm the wife and mom. I don't like letting them see I am just as scared as they are. And I hate letting him see it. I am constantly trying to help all three of them deal with the effects of cancer, that I push aside my own emotions. And then every so often I break down.

Today is the first of those break downs in Battle 3. It's been needed for 3 weeks but due to other circumstances, I was unable to do so. Then last week, the goal was to get some time alone, looking out over God's creation to process and breakdown but that didn't happen either. So this morning, here I am staying home from church, alone in my house, my safe place, crying out to my Lord, asking the question I may never have answered. WHY? Why Alan in the first place? Why won't it just go away? Why does it keep recurring? Why? Why? Why?

My God is big enough for me to yell at. He's big enough for me to tell Him I think it's unfair. He's strong enough, mighty enough, and trustworthy enough. I can walk this journey NEVER knowing why but know that I can trust the author and creator of the world! I can trust that some good will come from this. Some good will come from all the crappy circumstances in my life because He is working them all together for good. I trust Jesus Christ when men and women around fail. I trust Him more than anything or anyone else. 

So I will break down and cry out to my Lord, knowing He is the God of comfort, healing and true love. Lord, heal my husband, heal our girls' hearts, and heal my heart. Give us all the strength for this Battle.