From Julie: Hello Village People!
I am so grateful to you all for holding us in your hearts and prayers during the MRI testing last week. As Phil reported, I fared worse than Lydia. Two points were especially painful to me. The first occurred when the nurses were trying to insert a needle for her IV. Clearly in distress, she looks at me, as I am holding her, and what I read from her eyes was, “Make them stop… and PROTECT ME!!” And, even though I know the testing is in her best interest, I felt so utterly powerless to meet her needs in that moment, and felt as if I was clearly betraying her and her request. Just holding all of those mixed needs was really quite dreadful. And, equally excruciating, was the moment when the anesthetic took over, and to watch her go limp and lifeless… By that evening, my body was just leveled by stress. I have never been so impacted by tension. I was in bed by 7pm, and I couldn’t move. I knew the day had been stressful, but I was surprised by how clearly my body was responding to it all. By the next day, things were starting to balance out again, but I still feel the echoes of the experience within my body.
We saw Lydia’s neurosurgeon this past Monday and a few things came out of it. First, he was pleased with Lydia’s status and agreed that a 6 month follow-up MRI would be appropriate.
Next, some interesting things. He was reviewing the scans, and I mentioned that the radiologist reported that the cyst within the tumor seems to be getting bigger. And he looked at the films and he off-handedly said something like, well, that could be getting bigger, or maybe it was necrosis tissue. I was stunned, and I asked, necrosis…like dying? And he said without opening the skull again, it would be hard to know 100% what was happening in that area, so maybe it was a cyst, or maybe it was a dying patch of the tumor. Hello!!! Of course, I understand it still is all mystery, but the mama likes the possibility that tumor could have a part that has died. I don’t know how any of this works, but I do believe that you all are impacting our family. Certainly you carry us when we are stumbling within your heart/prayers, but I believe you are also bringing in healing at multiple levels. And so I thank you….for your care, your witness, and your prayers for healing. You are having bearing on us!!
The second fascinating thing came immediately next in the conversation. I spurted out, “Possibly dying tissue! It wouldn’t surprise me…there are hundreds of people praying for Lydia!” And then he said, “Well, you might understand it coming from prayer. I would say that it would be from her own immune system breaking it down.” And then a very brief following comment made me realize that our neurosurgeon is the absolutely right medical/scientific guy to do the technical surgery, but his role will probably be limited only to that part of the process. I have a much broader opinion of what is impacting health and wholeness, and out of that conversation it made me aware that I am really the one (along with Phil) who gets to engage in the care that we discern is best for Lydia. I keep wanting to find an expert for any part of my life so that I can turn over my responsibilities….and somehow I keep finding that it is my job—and no one else’s—who is going to live my life. So…life calling me deeper into my own life…funny how that all works.
We are scheduled with the neurologist next Thursday, the 20th, and we will see if he has anything else to add toward her care.
Finally, Lydia will be 3 on Saturday, 3/15. What a year it has been! Just in the past couple of days she is cluing into this birthday thing and talking about “cake and cream”, meaning, it is all about cake and ice cream. Yeah, yeah, yeah, 3 and everything, give me the ice cream. What a gift that she is such a normal 3 year old!!
Thank you for celebrating with us the gift of Lydia’s life, and the gifts that she shares with us. Peace be with you.
PS
If you have any interest: our local neighborhood paper did an article on Phil and I as co-pastors. Outside of misspelling our name, it’s pretty good. You can find it at:
monitorsaintpaul.com/Graphics%20Folder/mar08.pdf
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