A Bump in the Road

Last week, the PC acronym took on a different meaning for me. Bob came home with the results of a recent biopsy: Prostate Cancer.

            In the month since the procedure, the initial follow up appointment was rescheduled due to an emergency in the doctor’s office. We learned that the results of these procedures are not given to the patient over the phone. But, should there be reason for concern, an appointment would be scheduled right away.

            I wondered what amount of cancer cells constitutes reason for concern. Perhaps to medical specialists, this was not cause for concern. But for us, who had been living under the assumption that no news was good news, it was disconcerting. Apparently, even the doctor wasn’t expecting this result. His comments during the procedure led us to believe that Bob might well receive a clean bill of health. But such is not the case.

            In the days between the diagnosis and our meeting with the radiologist to determine the best course of treatment, I did what any sane, caring wife would do. I did an Internet search for prostate cancer.  I avoided the “miracle cure” sites and opted for legitimate medical sites. As it turns out, my husband joins the majority of the male population. According to some statistics, more than 80 percent of men will eventually be diagnosed with prostate cancer. When diagnosis occurs later in life, when men are in their 70s or 80s, it is seldom treated because it is a slow-growing cancer that is rarely life threatening.

            Still, the thought of cancer cells multiplying anywhere in my husband’s body and threatening his health brings home those random concerns about our mortality. That occasional stray thought, “what would I do, where would I go if, God forbid, something were to happen to him,” is now more than a distant possibility. It may be a reality that we need to face sooner rather than later. At the very least, perhaps we need to be having more than flippant conversations about end-of-life decisions. Maybe we really do need to update our decades-old wills.

            I also shared our news with a limited number of friends—women I know I can trust to keep a confidence and uphold us in prayer. Just being able to say the words and explain what we know about the options helps me acknowledge the reality.

            My usually stoic husband contacted a colleague who had the same diagnosis in recent years.

            “What’s your Gleason score?” he asked.
            It’s a new language we’re learning. Prostate-Specific Antigen (PSA) levels, cancer stages, Gleason scores, and treatment options. Somehow, learning to speak it is therapeutic in an odd sort of way. Knowing someone who has faced the decisions that he’s facing, as well weighing their possible side effects is the real therapy. We’re not the first couple to face this. And the odds that we may come through this only slightly worse for the worry and concern are looking better.

            The meeting with the radiologist is surprisingly relaxed and very informative. Time seems of no concern to him as he reviews the various treatments, their historical results and anticipated side effects. Surgery, proton treatment, radiation, radioactive seeds—all have their advantages and disadvantages. But what is best in this particular situation? We come away satisfied that we have the information we need to make the best decision for him—for us. He will undergo 6-7 weeks of 5 day/week radiation treatments.

            Preparation for radiation involves placing a number of gold markers in the prostate to insure that the radiation beams hit their marks. I suggest that we tell folks, “we invested in gold this week and have hidden it someplace it will never be found.” I'm not sure that comment should be repeated in polite company, but Bob appreciated the humor. And that, along with prayers for complete eradication of those cancerous cells, is my most fervent prayer—that the man who has been my life companion for nearly 40 years, retains not only his health, but his healthy sense of humor and generous, selfless spirit.
            Now, nearly two weeks after diagnosis, we’re approaching the next few months of treatment as a bump in the road—grateful for an early diagnosis and a highly treatable form of cancer. Despite the report from the U.S. Preventative Task Force this week questioning the reliability and possible overuse of the PSA test, every woman should encourage the men she cares about to get their PSA levels checked.

A Lighter Shade of Pale

Who would have thought there good be so many shades of one color? Anyone who has spent anytime in the paint section of home improvement story lately.

I/we are slowly moving toward a major painting project that we've talked, but done little about for 2+ years--for several reasons. The area in question is about 2/3 of our house and the primary living area, including the kitchen/family room. It's not that I spend an inordinate amount of time in the kitchen, but just thinking about the disarray that painting induces, gives me a headache. So there's that. And the fact that these areas are part of a large open floor plan that has no clear beginning and ending spots. So once we begin, it's all or nothing. Reason #1 to put it off.

The other reason has been not knowing what color to paint it. Currently, it's the safe beige that contractors spray on everything they build. I'm ready to put my own color/personality on it, but what? I thought I had finally hit on the perfect shade of yellow to perk things up a bit, but not overpower. But alas, the sample is just not what I thought it was going to be. So three samples and swatch-marked walls later, I think I've decided on two complementary shades - Bonnie Cream and Whisper Yellow...or was it Gold Buttercup? And how much do they pay someone to come up with these color names? I think the painting may actually be the easy part!

Withdrawal, Addiction & Lent

I'm going through withdrawal. Oh, not the physical/substance abuse/addiction kind of withdrawal. A more mental/emotional withdrawal. I've recently wrapped up two major projects that have had me running at about 110 percent since the beginning of the year. (Hence the lack of posts in recent months.) They say at a certain point in a run, runners reach a high, when they are operating at their optimum. I don't ever expect to experience a runners high, but I have to admit, there's a certain adrenaline rush I get from being productively busy. 

 

This week I'm re-adjusting to a slower pace and asking myself, "What idol makes me crave such busyness?" I might argue it's my servant-hearted attitude - that when something needs doing, and I feel I have the ability to do it, it doesn't feel right to say no. But I wonder if there's something else. If success, being needed and acknowledged for my gifts aren't the gods that drive me to action?  

Today is the first day of Lent. I've never practiced Lent in the traditional Catholic practice of giving something up in preparation for Easter. But I do expect to use this time to reflect and take stock. In doing so I hope to gain a clear sense of God's direction for the coming months.

A New Christmas Tradition

One of Bob's family's Christmas traditions is making Tukare - or meat pies. It's a French-Canadian recipe handed down from his dad's family. Their recipe uses ground pork and boiled and mashed potatoes, seasoned with spices not typically associated (in my mind) with meat: cinnamon, allspice, and cloves. Given the unusual combination of ingredients, meat pie is definitely an acquired taste. Even after 30 some years, none of our children have acquired it.
In years past, my mother-in-law and her sister set aside an evening and a day a few weeks before Christmas for assembling 12-18 pies. They froze them, then thawed and reheated them for Christmas morning. Any family and friends that were around were welcome to stop by for a piece. I found it interesting that my mother-in-law remained so committed to a tradition that had come from her husband's family - especially interesting that when she remarried the step family adopted it, too.
I attempted to make my first pies 10-15 years ago and have made them sporadically since then, more consistently since we moved away from family. I've never been quite as enamored of them as Bob and his family are, but I tried to play the good wife and acquiesce to the tradition. This  year, as I'm juggling three part-time jobs, it seemed only right that the one who is so committed to carrying on the tradition have a hand - if not his entire body - in seeing to it that there were meat pies in the Hagey home this year. To my surprise, he consented with little resistance. And so it was - that last weekend found Bob cooking, peeling, mashing, simmering, assembling, and baking the infamous tukare. I have a hunch he might just find these the best he's ever tasted! What a great tradition!

The Face of Homelessness

Yesterday I saw the faces of homelessness in east Orlando. They did not look the way I expected them to.
Every Saturday, our church, University Presbyterian, provides breakfast in the park for homeless people, through its Manna Ministry. Our small group volunteered to help this week. I expected the group would be primarily men--it was; older--it wasn't; unkempt--some were, but by no means all. I'm not entirely sure how I expected them to look. I guess I assumed it would be obvious by their attire and demeanor that these folks were down and out. But it wasn't. Yes, some had obviously not had access to a shower for several days, perhaps weeks. But the majority actually appeared pretty put together.
I did not expect to see a young couple with a baby, a young bare-chested man, barely 20, a young attractive woman who could have been a coed sporting the latest grunge wear. She told us she works part-time at a local university, only recently got a telephone and has no means of transportation. I'm not sure all these folks are homeless in the sense they have no permanent address or a place to sleep at night, but obviously, they are marginalized. If not homeless, living on the edge. Each must have their own unique story of misfortune, poor choices, or the impact of the recession on their life.
I have not really stopped to analyze my motivation for helping yesterday. Our pastor has been preaching a series of sermons on living missionally - actually living out the gospel. A few weeks ago, in a message on social justice, he made the point that guilt is really not an effective, long-term motivator for getting involved in issues of social justice. Most of us will soon weary of doing good only out of guilt. Gratitude, he said, is a much more effective motivator. Gratitude for God's grace and mercy in our own lives ought to prompt us to share the blessings of life in Christ with those around us. If I'd done much thinking at all about my motivation before yesterday I think I saw my involvement as a feeble effort to be Jesus to people who needed a tangible demonstration of a loving God.  I hope they saw and heard that in my service.

What the people we served yesterday likely don't know is the impact they had on me. I saw Jesus in them. Jesus told a would-be follower, "Foxes have holes and birds have nests, but I have nowhere to lay my head." Forget creature comforts if you're going to be my disciple. Ouch... because it's my creature comforts that keep me from totally relying on and trusting God  - not just for my next meal, but for the very air I breathe. But the folks I served yesterday - at the end of their resources - are utterly dependent on the grace of God, rendered through the kindness of others. Maybe learning - and relearning that lesson -  is sufficient motivation to continue serving the least of these.

4 Sale!

Since I started working from home more than a  year ago, I had used the kitchen island as my work space while we mulled other options for a dedicated work space for me. A couple of months, ago I ran across an office layout that we decided we could make work for us, with a minimum layout of cash. It meant having an L-shaped desk top custom made and getting rid of the computer roll top desk we'd bought four years ago. While I'm still tweaking the new office layout and mostly loving it, we have not yet been successful in selling the desk. A craigslist posting generated only one inquiry, and that, apparently, a scam - a gentleman inquiring while on his honeymoon in Hawaii. Yea, right. May I suggest your marriage may be happier if you focus on your new bride on your honeymoon, rather than prowling craigslist. Sheesh.
Saturday was community rummage/garage sale day in our neighborhood, so we decided to see if we could make a sale. It was barely daylight when potential buyers began perusing the goods in the neighbors' driveways, so we quickly set up shop with the desk and a defunct sewing machine. Yea, I know, not much of an inventory.
Interesting experience, though. Amazing the number of people that do drive-by rummaging. Obviously, they are on a mission for one, presumably large, item that can be spotted from the road. I will admit, that when I took a morning walk to check out the other garage sales, I could determine from a glance, whether it was worth my time to cross the street and check out the goods. Mostly I attribute that to the fact that since we shifted into downsizing mode a few years, we rarely rummage. There's just not much we need or have room for anymore.
One woman took the opportunity to proselytize - after all -- she certainly had a captive audience. She opened our encounter with an admiring comment about the desk. Warm and friendly, she quickly turned to her mission - giving me a copy of her church's magazine. I was able to politely decline. Must admit I'm shamed by her passion and commitment to testify to her faith at every opportunity - even a garage sale.
The defunct sewing machine - free for parts - generated little interest and no takers. We decided to take a chance on leaving it at the end of the driveway and hope that someone might take it off our hands. It worked. When we returned after being gone for a few hours, it was gone. I guess people feel better about taking something for free when no one is around to see them take it?
Of the three items on our driveway (besides a vehicle) - the desk, sewing machine, and the bench we were sitting on - guess which one got the most inquiries? The bench, naturally. If we'd have had half as much interest in the desk as we had in the bench, I think we might have made a sale. I guess rummagers figure anything is fair game. If bargaining is the name of the game, perhaps you can even convince people to sell something that isn't nailed down.
Anyway - strike 2 on the desk.  Next stop for the desk - a consignment shop. Here's hoping for a quick sale.

Seeds of Turmoil

In Seeds of Turmoil, Bryant Wright, the recently elected head of the Southern Baptist Convention, traces the roots of the Middle East conflict beyond Israel's 1948 establishment as a nation, to its Biblical roots. He asserts that Abraham's decision, suggested and encouraged by his wife, Sarah, to sleep with her maid, Hagar, in an effort to produce an heir, demonstrated not only a serious lack of faith, but is the source of the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. Abraham and Hagar’s union produced Abraham’s first-born, Ishmael. Yet God’s promise to Abraham that he would be the father of many, was to be fulfilled with Sarah. When Abraham and Sarah were long past their child-bearing years, God blessed them with Isaac, the child of the promise, setting up the sibling rivalry that continues today.
Wright provides an important service in surveying the biblical and historical events that produced Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, and tracing the history of the area from biblical times to present day. Yet, Wright reads Scripture through different lenses than I do, and it colors his understanding and interpretation of both ancient and modern history.
I mention only two of several points at which I take issue with Wright: the nature of God’s covenant promises to Abraham, and political reality.
Wright argues that God’s covenant promises to Abraham  - to make him a great nation and to give his descendants the land he inhabited - continue to this day. Thus, he maintains, Israel, as Abraham’s divinely appointed heirs, have a right to the geographic boundaries laid out in the Old Testament. This is a significant point at which Wright and I differ in our understanding of Scripture. I believe that the New Covenant, promised throughout the Old Testament, is fulfilled in Jesus Christ and supersedes the Old Covenant. God did, indeed, choose to reveal his purposes for humanity through Israel. He placed them in a strategic crossroads between two major continents to be salt and light to the nations around them. At the same time, throughout the Old Testament, God continues to point to a new and better covenant - a covenant to be written on the hearts of all believers; a covenant not bound to a geographic location, but lived out in the lives of those who recognize Jesus Christ  - in his death, resurrection, and eternal reign, as the fulfillment of the covenant. The covenant or God’s Kingdom is no longer confined to a geographic area in the Middle East, but is carried on in the redeemed people of God. Thus, to argue, as Wright does for Israel’s God-given stake to the land is, in my opinion, a misunderstanding of God’s intent and purposes.
Wright’s view of Scriptures leads him to view history through blinders. He sees what he wants to see. He points repeatedly to Israel’s miraculous survival since 1948 – surrounded by and overcoming enemies twice their size and capacity. He sees Israel's success in the Arab-Israeli War which established their independence and the 1967 Six-Day War as evidence of God’s purposes and desires for Israel. He completely ignores the political reality that without U.S. military aid, Israel would hardly be able to withstand the assaults on their nation. One-fifth of the United State's entire foreign aid budget goes to Israel. That hardly makes Israel David to their neighbors Goliath.
The Middle East is a complex situation for historical, geo-political and economic reasons. Wright touches only the surface of the problem, and hence, in my opinion, offers a rather simplistic solution. There will be no peace in the Middle East until the Lord returns. In the meantime, we should pray for peace (agreed),and love Jew and Arab alike (agreed.) But to assert that Israel is God's highly favored nation with a divine right to exist, is misreading Scripture.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from Thomas Nelson Publishers as part of their BookSneeze.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”