Life's Not Fair

I always hated it when people said that to me when I was young. And I am sure my children must have hated it just as much when they came to me with a problem like “Her piece of cake is bigger!” or “How come Nick gets to be in a music video and we don't?"

So often in life we don’t get what we want, and sometimes it makes us raise our voices in anger, or cry and whine. Sometimes it makes us rise above.

I’ve tried through life to rise above the unfairness of things I’ve had to face. Of the injustices or slights I have felt that came my way. 

Often I’ve been successful, and other times I’ve failed miserably. Thank goodness there have been second chances for some of the failures and I’ve been able to learn and grow and accept.

If you read The Time Will Come, you will know that after over a decade of separation from my youngest daughter (and I’ve failed miserably on accepting that particular ‘it’s not fair’ in my life) I got a message from her saying she would like to have lunch with me sometime in the near future. It was probably the happiest day of my life.

Well, it wasn’t but three days later that I went to the doctor for this nagging pain in my back. I’ve had back pain most of my life; no doubt from being bucked off too many horses or getting kicked in the back in mid air after one bucked me off at age twelve. Or from my one and only motorcycle accident, as minor as it was.

But this pain was in a totally different place – right at the middle of my back. And there was a huge lump on my spine. I chalked it up to the arthritis in my back (no doubt brought on from the above mishaps in life.) Well, that and the fact that age and hard physical labor have dried up the disks in my back as well.

I thought it was a very bad misalignment of my spine after six months of walking around on a damaged knee last year (see my U-haul story.)

The doctor ordered x-rays. And when she slid those x-rays up on the light box, even I could see that all was not right (after helping the doctor I used to work for read so many x-rays.) Visible proof that life is not fair.
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The first thing that jumped out at me was the large, ghostly white shadow emanating from the vertebrae (backbones) at the place where the upper back and lower back meet. Right at the point of the pain.

I was busy focusing on that when the doctor pointed out that the upper vertebra itself was slightly crushed down on the front part of it, apparently with multiple tiny fractures on the bone.

She said it would not be unusual in someone

twenty years older than me. But was very unexpected in someone my age.

She told me that there appeared to be a large tumor on the spine (indicating the ghostly white shadow I’d seen right off the bat.)

Then she said she was referring me for an MRI, a colonoscopy, a consult with an orthopedic oncologist (bone doctor specializing in cancer.) Then she ordered almost a dozen blood lab tests.

I know enough about medicine to know that several of the tests she ordered were for cancer screening.

She said (which I already knew) that a tumor at this location was highly unlikely to have originated in the spine, but most likely metastasized from somewhere else in the body – quite possibly the liver or the ovaries. 

Life is not fair.

In that case, it would be considered stage four and would most likely be spread throughout the body and be terminal. 

Life is so unfair.

I’ve lost enough friends and loved ones who were diagnosed with late stage cancer that I knew what that meant. Some had ten months to live, others less than one.

Surprisingly, I did not panic at the thought; the fact of my mortality. I realized that I actually did not fear dying. After all, the “after all” is such a great promise.

  I’ve had enough hurdles and roadblocks thrown in my path to just sort of expect the least expected. And this was certainly the most unexpected of them all. But then again... 
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Life is not fair.

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I said I didn’t fear the thought of dying. But I was indeed filled with fear. I feared not for myself, but for my children. The thought of having to tell my son just rent my very soul. How could I ever lay this at the feet of the man I love most in this world?

The thought threw me into an actual, hysterical panic attack. And that is not an easy thing to do. I am generally known as one who can face most anything. I finally found a task for which I just did not have the courage.

And there I was, face to face with another one of my life’s greatest fears:

After my daughters were ripped out of my life (at the ages of 10 and 12), I used to always tell my son, Nick, that I was so afraid that I wouldn’t ever see them again. That I was afraid I’d die before that day. 

And I made him promise, time and again, that if I did, he would let them know how much I loved them.

So last Saturday when Erin gave me the hope of a reunion, it was the most wonderful day of my life. Who would have known it would be followed three days later by one of the worst days of my life?

I didn’t fear death for me, but for what it might mean to the lives of my children.

I wanted to wait until after the test results came back so I would know exactly what we were up against. But after I had my anxiety attack/melt down in front of a very large gathering of dear friends four days later, I was put into the position to have to tell Nick. And it nearly tore me apart. I didn’t want him to find out I’d told others before him.

So with my dear friend Lili, I immediately tracked down Nick and broke the news to him, silently reminding him that “Life is not fair.”

And so I changed my plans for the near future. Instead of going to the gym religiously, I became obsessed with finishing projects and tying up loose ends.

 

I found a friend who said she would help me finish up the nearly completed quilt tops I am making – each one an heirloom for each of my children to someday pass down to their children.  I have almost finished the tops, but still have to have them professionally stitched.

I started working on a list of Friday Night Stories I could set to automatically post over the next few months, so that I would have something to share with my readers.

Instead of working in the garden, I began deciding which of my possessions I should get rid of now before I got worse – in order to make the “clean up” easier after I was gone.

My thoughts of scanning all the old family photos to be sure they would all be shared with all of my siblings and my children suddenly became more urgent.

After days of blood-letting, tests and exams, I went to the scariest appointment: the MRI. 

 

Not scary so much because I am claustrophobic and passion-
ately dread the tight confines of the MRI tube, but because this would give us a precise picture of the tumor(s) location(s).

This would erase any ability to pretend it wasn’t so. It would guarantee beyond all doubt that “Life is not fair.”

Nick came down to go with me to the appointment, giving me strength. 

Crammed inside that tunnel, with my arms touching the sides, and the top just inches from my face, I tried desperately not to panic. But an hour is a long, long time to lie still and pretend the confines weren’t pressing in on me.

So finally, the next day, with the CD containing the MRI images of the tumors, I arrived at the orthopedic oncologist’s office. I waited interminably in the waiting room with others who just had fractured wrist bones or arms in casts. A gentle reminder that “Life is not fair.”

Finally they showed me into an exam room. After what seemed like an eternity, the doctor came in, having already studied the MRI images and said he didn’t see the tumor on the MRI. It showed severe degenerative disc disease and considerably more arthritis than one should ever have at my age, but he saw no tumors.

He asked to see the x-rays that I had brought with me. And as soon as he slipped them up on the light box and saw the large white shadow. He actually said, “Wow!"  Then he excused himself saying he had to go back and take a second look at the MRI.

As it turned out there was no tumor. The huge, ghostly white shadow was actually the manifestation of the other two problems.

The disc had virtually disappeared between the two vertebrae (back bones) at the site where the pain way. So I basically had bone on bone. 

So my body had just instinct-
ively done its best to fix things. With the disc gone, and the arthritis having worn down the bones, the body had kicked into overdrive, laying layer after layer of calcium down on the damaged area in an attempt to fuse the two bones together.  And the back muscle surrounding the area had filled with calcium (tiny grains of bone, basically) in an effort to strengthen and heal the area.

The calcium showed up as a huge, white tumor-like shadow surrounding the entire area of the two vertebrae that we saw in the
x-rays.  

False alarm.

I cannot begin to tell you the relief I felt after more than a week of anguish. And how foolish I’d felt.  There are still a bucket load of problems with the spine, but it's not cancer!

All of that worry and panic and changing of plans was totally unnecessary. Life was to go on as usual.

And I was left to think about all the changes I’d made in my plans.

But I realized that the trivial things I thought important in my daily life were actually insignificant in the big picture.

Why is it that we let the mundane-ness of daily life get in the way of what God has really put us on this earth to do? Why are so we so easily diverted from the things that really are important?

And I am reminded once again of the thought I ended with in The Time Will Come. Satan often waits until the moments when we are most lulled into a place of comfort and contentment before he hits us with the big whammies. He likes to catch us the most off guard we can be.

So I guess this week’s thoughts are two-fold again. First of all, that we shouldn’t let daily life distract us from the important things in life - our true path.

And secondly that we should always be vigilant, for Satan can spring things on us at any time. And he will often choose the moments when we are most content to catch us off guard.