Careful For Nothing

So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. (2 Corinthians 4:18) 

The darkest day, by far, for me since I learned I have cancer occurred the day after our initial visit with my surgeon in Chapel Hill. My husband, Gil, and I had gone to that

Peter Brueghel. Gloomy Day (detail), 1565.

appointment, on the Monday before Thanksgiving, thinking that the surgery to remove the tumor in my parotid gland would be relatively simple – and that once I had received radiation treatment I would be cured and could put this whole episode behind me.  But the report we heard that morning was very sobering and disquieting.  From a medical standpoint, surviving this cancer would be a challenge.

For the next two days I barely ate anything and the intermittent pain I had been experiencing, in and around my right ear and across the back of my head, increased dramatically and became constant.  During my appointment, my surgeon expressed surprise that I did not have any paralysis on the right side of my face, which normally happens in patients with a tumor as large as mine.  But the next day the paralysis began to set in, and by the night before Thanksgiving, I could no longer close my right eye completely or smile with the right side of my mouth.  In just a short period of time after receiving my surgeon’s report on my condition, I had become an invalid.

It was at this point Continue reading →