I actually have little faith in cookies.
But lately I've had a few challenges to that notion.
Before we knew I had cancer but after we knew I had something, a cookie said I would 'soon be the center of attention.'
Lord, I hope not! was my immediate reaction.
Not long after that, I found myself in a gymnasium filled with people assembled just for me.
Totally the center of attention.
Many of those people are reading this update. And to those who were there in person as well as those there in spirit, I will be forever grateful. Way more grateful than I was for the Celica.
You came to give me hope. And you succeeded.
hope
It is itself a healing balm.
I cling to it even when my faith fails me.
Yet, I didn't really want to open the next set of cookies set on our ticket at the local asian restaurant.
Needless to say, I was pleased to see that these three little gems were vastly more welcomed. Especially that vacation part.
I wish I could say I live in a consistent state of both hope and faith.
Yet, my most consistent trait tends to be my inconsistency.
I just don't seem to have the kind of rote memory needed for that gift. It's a slight handicap in the world of teaching (and raising) children. Thankfully, I have some other qualities to compensate.
And I always could find a few little people that operated on schedules and possessed impeccable internal clocks.
Those people with an innate sense of order as if they could sense the movement of planets and stars and galaxies as they drift apart, recording the minutes of creation's existence like gears in the grand clock of space.
Kids like Rocky. I think I can use his name, though teachers generally have to be very careful about that. Mostly because it isn't really his name. He gave it to himself on registration day for second grade, and it suited him nicely. His mom and I both obliged him. So, for that year at least, he was known as Rocky. I hope he still uses it.
Rocky had a very thick and quick Vietnamese accent. I loved the urgency with which he spoke.
So every day when it was time for lunch, or specials, or the next subject in the lineup he would sound an intense verbal alarm. "Ms. Fick! Ms. Fick! It's Time! Time fo LUNCH!!"
I sometimes wish Rocky could follow me through life. My phone alarm just doesn't make me smile like he did when it summons the next transition.
I envy these clock people. And I rely on them to keep me moving in the right direction.
I tend to meander through faith and hope like I meander through life. Drifting from moment to moment and day to day amidst my tornado of thoughts.
The term tornado may invoke mental images of stormy, uncontrolled power.
I assure you, my inner being is typically pretty calm. Residing somewhere in the center of the vortex. An observer of the spiral rather than active participant.
And I have always needed others to keep that tornado headed in an actual direction.
On my own, I'd likely go where the wind took me and be an observer of God's creation rather than an active participant.
It's easy to call the drifting "faith." Let God do things without me. Roll with it.
When I get involved there is always the fear of mucking it up.
And I guess the possibility of having to own the mess as my own.
Real faith is not easy.
But it is simple.
We just have to roll with the circumstances we are given, but as a participant.
We must make choices and own consequences.
Making a choice requires trust.
It requires trust in ourselves.
It requires trust in others.
It requires trust in God.
Thankfully, God works out His plans even when our decisions and the decisions of others are imperfect.
I imagine that's why our money says we trust Him.
That handful of men who started this nation. Men who didn't agree on a lot of things. They had to trust each other. They had to trust themselves. But ultimately it was trust in a Creator who had their backs that gave them courage.
Defying a King has consequences. And they had to own them.
Deciding a cancer treatment plan has consequences.
I could shorten my life. I could lengthen it. I could bankrupt my family in the process.
What if I bankrupt them and die anyway?
What if I don't bankrupt them but I leave an 8 year old without a mom?
Studies say character is set by age ten. I'd feel better leaving a ten year old.
But to be honest- I'd rather the ten year old I was leaving be a grandchild.
Ultimately I have to make a choice. I have to own the choice. And I have to choose to trust myself and perhaps to trust some doctors. Which I've mentioned isn't my nature.
But the bulk of my trust must be in God.
My faith can be only in Him.
faith
When I got a phone call while driving down the road to inform me there was a science position about to be opened at my school and I needed to get my resume in order and apply if I was interested, I hesitated to make a decision. I needed to call James and run my thoughts through him and hear them bounce back at me.
James is decidedly decisive. Self moving in forward direction at all times.
We are quite different.
Yin and Yang.
Or maybe Frick and Frack.
Whatever it is, he's a good sounding board for people like me.
"You mean that job you said was your dream job? The one you said people die or retire before they open up? So...why are you asking me?"
"Because I just registered my kids. I have all my stuff and materials ready for the year. I'm pregnant with a crazy high risk pregnancy right now. And I will have to be on leave this year. This just might be a bad year."
"Go for the job. You'll sort all that out."
In hindsight, I'm amazed that I almost passed up the opportunity for the most wonderful job I ever had. I'm so glad James was there to speak sense (directional sense) into me.
surprise endings are the best
Even though I have used teaching strategies with 'essential questions' and I let children know the point of their lessons up front when it was required of me, I much preferred teaching without them. I love teaching with the point not quite visible in the beginning, and letting the kids discover it nearer the end. I especially love when the point is so well hidden that it completely shocks them when they discover it. I find they will never, ever forget it that way. EQs are boring, frankly. So are 'I Can' statements. But they are indeed consistent. And some people like that.
I have probably lost some of you here. Just trust me: teachers are often made to teach according to the latest trendy style of some other teacher out there. Usually one who quit teaching and sold books about their style because it was more profitable than actually teaching.
While there is often value in learning another style. There is rarely value in requiring everyone employ that same style.
It destroys innovation and stamps out creativity.
liberty unites left and right
God gave us all the plants of the fields. Fruit He called food. Leaves He called medicine. Interesting. Swirling around in that thought tornado are notions of jurisdiction. The government did not give us nor did they create for us: plants. It honestly has no jurisdiction over them. They were made for us and given to us by an authority greater than government. In a sense, they are a right inalienable from mankind. My conservative friends comprehend rights and the need to protect them.
marijuana
It's in the news a lot these days. And I think it will be nationally available in some form quite soon.
My recent pondering on plants and such have challenged me to rethink my views on the practices of all my pothead friends. Yeah. You guys. You know who you are.
You've been slightly too 60s for me.
My liberal friends comprehend rights and the need to protect them.
God gave you those plants. He gave you the leaves. He gave them for healing.
My current inclination is: Go for it.
My right leaning friends sense the innate dangers in this thought. It's not always safe for people to willy nilly self medicate. Indeed God would not approve of the way some people might do so. And, yeah. They are right. Some people will be foolish. Some people will misuse things meant for good.
Don't be some people.
I don't actually mean to get very political. But might I suggest that when we need to compromise, err on the side of liberty.
Conspiracies
The Bible also tells me not to be conspiracy minded. I'm quite certain conspiracy exists. It can be a punishable crime in certain circumstances. I must assume God doesn't want our minds focused that way not because they aren't real, but rather, it simply isn't a helpful or healthy way to exist. It tends to confuse matters.
Fosters a lack of trust.
Lack of trust inhibits faith.
But- I am my father's daughter. And I will never escape the entrance of those thoughts. I have to work hard to keep them in check. And not be conspiracy minded.
But, I'm pretty certain with the way legislation is rolling along in the area of medical marijuana, pharmaceutical companies are prepared. And they will likely render the "safe and effective" versions neither safe nor effective. Just sayin.'
Safety
9-11 was a monstrous day. I remember it, as do all of you around my age and up.
In a fearful response we eagerly signed over a lot of freedom for Homeland Security.
And it struck me then how humanity tends to do this. We run to trade in our freedom.
Freedom that was purchased with blood, by the giving of life. And we hand it over for a scribbled I.O.U. of security.
Man.
Safety is expensive.
In similar manner, I follow 'rules' quite blindly in a belief they offer safety. Rules are good and they have purpose, but rules are never meant to be followed blindly. It's kind of lazy.
I can be a little lazy.
be careful what you ask for
So. I may have thoughtlessly asked God for all this cancer business.
One day I was thinking about that book, The Prayer of Jabez. Not seriously. Just mulling it around.
I am not someone who has ever desired enlarged boundaries. That prayer is just not for me. In fact, I'm quite content with small boundaries. I don't want all that responsibility attached.
But I do like purpose. And as I thought about the book and the assertion that we don't really have to search out our purpose. It's all around us. God is at always work somewhere and we can jump in anytime. I think I paused and actually asked God to use me doing whatever work He is currently busy with.
Maybe I should have asked what He was working on first?
Learn from my mistakes.
broken bureaucracies
When I left the broken bureaucracy that is education, I had no intention of leaping straight into the broken bureaucracy that is medicine.
And here I am.
I was largely unaware of the extent of this current brokenness. But my experiences in one have helped me recognize it in the other.
And I'm becoming less unaware.
I'm also becoming more convinced that freedom requires a very unsafe type of faith.
Our systems are safe. Safe from personal accountability. Safe from owning the dangers and their consequences.
But, be certain.
They are not safe from the actual dangers or their consequences.
I think our systems are due for an upgrade. Or maybe a downgrade.
If I blindly trust the Doctors I will take their medicines. They have side effects and are by nature, toxins. Sometimes it is worth the toxin- if the toxin is also toxic to the thing bothering your health. In my case, the toxins have very little effect on the cancer. And this cancer has always developed resistance to the accepted treatments.
If I pursue unaccepted treatments I must own the failure if they don't work. It's a risk.
And if all goes south,
well, I'm the one to blame.
It's a very foreign feeling for this particular non-risk taker. And it's quite uncomfortable.
Houston, TX
I've been there once before. And actually because someone accused me of not being a risk taker. And to prove him wrong because I knew he was right, I went.
It was fine. I went sailing. I threw up all over the place. And was completely uneasy the whole time not because of rough seas in the bay, but rather because-
I'm not a risk taker.
Dr. Burzynski is known by some as a genius and genuinely caring physician. He cured cancer in the 60s. He's been proving it ever since, and would likely have discovered why he can cure it in some people rather than all people had he not been distracted.
His distractor is the broken system. There are others who know him as a quack and a fraud, taking money from cancer patients as he peddles false hopes.
In honesty, he may or may not be able to help me. I have no real way of knowing.
His medicine could almost be called a supplement. It's a replacement of natural proteins that occur in healthy bodies that he found are missing in unhealthy bodies. These proteins are our gene regulators. They would regulate say... a gene called MYD88. My MYD88 is currently on the fritz.
In my reading, I ran across studies of gene expression and regulation. And that's when I read about Dr. B- who figured this out back in 1967.
Yes.
67.
I know.
Anyway, I've been talking to a real patient he treated for an incurable non Hodgkin lymphoma different yet similar to my own. She was told almost identically the same things I have been told. She was my age when she heard those things. She's talking to me about those experiences 25 years later, people. 25 years. My docs would be happy to get me 5 and hopeful for 10.
This lady has grandkids.
This lady is cancer free.
This lady didn't have side effects.
And I suspect she is also a clock person. She generated a 'to do list' of sorts for me. Keeping me moving in a direction. And as if she's known me a long time- checks up to see if I did the to do list!
I really like her.
So. Knowing that approximately two months ago Emory said I have two months to a year without the current treatments of the day, I'm owning the great possibility of failure. I'm also owning the possibility of wasted (probably borrowed) time and money. Forgive me people if I fail.
I don't take it lightly.
And I'm headed back to Houston.
As a risk taker.
This is just the beginning. And if the cookie is right, it's the hardest part of my journey. If the other cookie is right, wonderful things are on the way! I will let you know how it goes. The first steps are tests to see if and how they can help me. They know they can't help everyone and this leg of the journey could end there.
If they can't, they do offer some of the current protocols of the day as well.
But, I still don't think I'll take those.
If I'm being honest.
And as much as I want to know- right now- how this all ends,
God has embedded the point of this lesson very well.
He's waiting to surprise me with the point of it all.
And I have faith I'll see it when I get there.
And I probably won't forget it, either.
P.S.
For the questions I've been asked...
prayer specifics: I still need a local Dr. willing to work with Dr. Burzynski. I went to one last week that I thought would be a surefire Yes!
I was wrong. It made me sad. Took a couple extra days to grab hold of my faith and write this blog!
I don't know when I'm going to TX. They will let me know when they have all my lab work. The paperwork is in process, though.
No, I haven't used pot yet. Haha. I know you were wondering. I've got lots of friends who've offered to assist me there. And a whole film crew of James'.
And guys- I really stink at thanking people lately- there are simply so many people to thank. I'm humbled to the point of tears by you people. Thank you guys. You know who you are.
What a simply beautiful problem to have.