The Adventures of Cancer Girl and God: A Journey of Faith, Health, and Healing

Prologue

I am a nerd. I love epic stories. I love fantasy, science fiction, action, and adventure. Upon reflection, it is not necessarily the genre itself that calls to me—it is the plot formation where the good guy (or gal) wins the battle. I like heroes and heroines. I like good versus evil, and I love happy endings.

When I sat down to write The Adventures of Cancer Girl and God, I wanted more than anything to be the hero of my own story. I want desperately to win out over cancer and beat the snot out of this evil disease. That wasn’t in the cards I was dealt. I have a type of cancer that is chronic. I don’t get to get rid of it. It’s a part of me. My wellness depends completely on how well I take care of myself and manage my disease on a day-to-day basis. Sometimes I rock my cancer world, and other days, it gets the better part of me. Through my journey, I’ve learned tricks for dealing with living with disease; one of those tricks is visioning how I want to see myself.

I picture myself in a cape, powerful and fierce. It brings a smile to my face to think of smashing cancer cells under my feet. It is a positive vision of where I wanted to go on my journey and it keeps me fighting the good fight. I want you to find a heroic vision of yourself as well.

Most heroes have superpowers. My superpower is my faith in God. I would not be here to tell you this story, and attempt to provide you with a vision of hope for your own journey, without God. In ways I cannot begin to articulate, or even fully comprehend, God has blessed my life and given me the strength to see illness in a different light. My hope is to help others see their illness or disease differently too. It is incredibly difficult to be hopeful in the middle of crisis. It is uniquely challenging to find grace in the midst of death, illness, and disease. I feel fiercely that grace is there. Grace is an amazing superpower. I believe you have that superpower too.

My story originally unfolded on my blog: www.christwalk40day.blogspot.com. Many of the feelings I expressed there were written in real time, as my cancer story unfolded. I have since gone back to those writings to both remember how I felt in that moment and provide clarity as to how I feel now, in the hopes that I might turn it into a lesson for others. If I help one cancer patient (or another person struggling with illness and disease) feel that they are understood, and hold true to the fear, the anger, the anxiety, and the personal growth that can occur because of illness, then every word in this book was worth writing.

There are parts of the story that are incredibly raw. Breathe through them.

There are parts of the story that are my own only. You may not feel the same way. Be with me in them.

There are parts of the story that have yet to be completed. Pray with me through them.

I will do the same for you. We do not take journeys in a vacuum. You are not alone. I am not alone. So please, join me on my quest of health, faith, fitness, humor, and healing, as Cancer Girl and God go on a journey together.

With love, —Anna     

DAY

  1

    I Am So Very Angry with God

My God, My God, why have you forsaken me? (Ps. 22:1)

How I Felt …

I just found out I have cancer. My body, as usual, has betrayed me. An angry fire lives under my skin and I fight the tears that try to leak out. I am hot. I am cold. I am sweating. I shiver. I feel like I may throw up.

I am so pissed right now. I will ask your forgiveness for my crudity later, but this is a raw wound. I am angry, furious with God, furious with my body, and furious with life.

What did I ever do to deserve this? I do not understand how living a clean life, following the Good Book, and trying my damnedest leads me to this. I try so hard. I have more questions than answers. I am in a stage. I hate being in a stage. I am a statistic. I hate being a statistic.

I do not want cancer. Moreover, with all apologies to my friends with cancer, I do not want to be labeled a cancer patient. I can say with 100 percent confidence that I am sure they don’t or did not want to be seen as patients either. This cancer business is seriously inconvenient.

I do not want a litany of doctors or visits. I have been there, done that. I lost my hearing when I was twelve to an auto immune disease; I have had multiple surgeries and been through many autoimmune disease therapies. I’ve lost my hair, been in the hospital on holidays, had my body scarred, and gone through the rehabilitation phase. Been there, done that. I hate being sick. I hate the experience of being subjected to the medical arena. I do not want this journey that is set before me. I do not want this season.

I want a normal life. I want to raise my children. Grow old with my husband. I want to travel and eat good food. I want to see my grandchildren and watch my kids graduate from college, get married, become successful. I want a normal body. I have had an abnormal body my entire life. I hate my abnormal body.

I do not want to hear that I am a warrior, or a conqueror, or how tough I am. I am more comfortable with a drama-free life. I am ok with the status quo. I am ok with the boring.

I feel utterly betrayed by God. In part of my brain I realize how silly this is but this is how I feel. I feel like I have done something wrong and I’m being punished for some unknown deed.

I am pissed. My cheeks feel like frying pans are sitting on the hard shelf of my cheekbones and my head throbs. I am not ready for this. I have follicular lymphoma. As far as cancers go, it is probably the right one to have. It is treatable, but noncurable—what does that mean? It is malignant, but nonaggressive. What does that mean? It sure feels like an aggressive intrusion on my life. That does not make me want it more. I wish I could turn back the clock and not pick up the phone when my surgeon called. I am not ready for this.

But I will be. Let me grieve. Let me get angry and let me find my fighting spirit. I will win this war against cancer. I will find my spiritual equilibrium. I will see the glass half-full.

But until then, I will grieve and I will be angry.

God? Why have you done this to me?

What I Learned …

Finding out you have cancer sucks. It does not matter what form it is, how aggressive it is, where it is located, or how far it has spread, or not spread. The word cancer in and of itself is a horrible, hate-filled, fear-filled word. The word cancer can literally steal the breath from your body. Cancer is probably one of the number one words that people never want to hear from their doctor.

Cancer happens to so many people, and yet each experience is unique. The approaches to cancer treatment are manifold and very specific to the type of cancer you have, what stage it is at, how symptomatic you are (or are not), and a myriad of other factors that need to be understood with thorough conversations with your doctor. The word cancer is used as an umbrella word to describe a disease that is very different depending on the type of cancer you have. No two cancers are the same.

The problem is that when you hear the word cancer, it is hard to hear anything else or absorb any information. Life stops in your head. The shock of the word cancer takes a long time to heal. Give yourself permission to be angry (it is normal), grieve (it is normal), break something (it is normal), hurt (it is normal), or whatever it is that you feel or need during this time. Make sure you take someone with you to your next doctor’s appointment; you may not hear things well right now and you’ll need a second set of ears moving forward. You have a lot of thoughts, feelings, concerns, fears, and anxieties that are swirling around in your head. Get yourself a wingman. Even superheroes have sidekicks. Find one, and make sure they take their role seriously.

Your Story …

What is your disease? Give it a name:

How do you feel? Let it out:

DAY

  2

    The Anxiety Is Overwhelming

Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning? (Ps. 22:1)

How I Felt …

The anxiety continues to leave me breathless. It is several days before I can see my doctor. They are booked it seems. I don’t know why. I just know I have to wait. I am nauseous. I can barely eat. I do not know what to say to my children. I do not know how to look at my husband. I do not know how to show up at work.

I am weak. I need medication. I have called for a prescription of Xanax to cope. I cannot seem to find the words to pray for this. My faith has been hijacked and I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do. I know I should pray, but I don’t know the words to use. I am so very, very scared.

Failure does not even begin to cover how I feel. I feel like I should know what to do. I feel like I should know what to pray. I feel that my body has failed me, and that I have done something wrong. I hate myself. I hate my body. I honestly hate God. I am paralyzed.

What I Learned …

The diagnosis is not going to go away the next day when you get up. It will still be there looming over your head. I felt this way, and I am pretty sure that most people with illnesses feel this way as well. You hope when you wake up the day after finding out this kind of news that it was all a bad dream.

I thought I could pray through my fear and anxiety, except I was truly still angry at God, and so had nothing to say. I had no words to share; nothing was breaking through the anger of being thirty-eight and having my life come to a screeching halt. There were so many feelings jockeying for space in my mind. I was angry to be in this position. I felt I took good care of myself and should not be afflicted with this disease. I believed I lived a godly, righteous, and sober life and should be spared of this indignity. I did everything right. I played life by the book. The shame I felt was as though I did something wrong. My fear shook at what the unknown future held. All these emotions create a brick wall between you and prayer at first.

This is normal. The anxiety is normal. The anger is normal. The fear that is overwhelming is also normal. Your diagnosis has presented you with a world of the unknown that looms ahead on the horizon and you cannot see the sun. You will be breathing normally one moment, and the next second anxiety will inexplicably seize your breath and freeze your lungs. You will think that the oxygen in the air you breathe has suddenly dropped. You will look around wildly, wondering how you got here. It will wake you in the middle of the night for no apparent reason. Your fight-or-flight response has been triggered and your body is attempting to deal with it. You will be angry at God for a while.

Guess what? God gets it. God is there, even if you do not feel like you can talk to God, pray to God, or even think of God in this moment. God is not going anywhere. God will be there when you are ready to talk to God. God is very patient.

Taking medication is not a failure. You may feel much like me. While I felt like I was a derelict for needing a prescription for my anxiety, it was a lifesaver. It took the edge off so I could think clearly again. Do not punish yourself for needing help. It also is normal. There is a gift in allowing medication to mitigate your anxiety so you can think more clearly. It helps your body deal with that fight-or-flight response that has been triggered. It will help you sleep, which helps your body to heal. You are not a disappointment for needing medicine or a professional ear to discuss your overwhelming emotions. I do know that if you do not deal with those emotions, they can come back to haunt you for a long time. Do not be afraid to get help. I promise it is okay. Taking medications is part of a holistic approach to managing your health so that you can be successful on this illness journey. Medication, prayer, meditation, yoga, acupuncture, massage, physical therapy, and so on are all a part of the plan to get you well again. It is absolutely okay to need help when you have a disease.

Remember that how you feel each day is not the end of the story. One day, or two days, is not the whole scope of what your life will be like. It is a season. It will pass. Give yourself permission to do what you need to do to get through to the fighting stage.

Your Story …

On a scale of 1–10 (or 100), how would you rate your anxiety?

How does that make you feel?

DAY

  3

    Coming Out of the Cancer Closet

But as for me, my prayer is to you, O Lord. At an acceptable time, O God, in the abundance of your steadfast love, answer me. (Ps. 69:13)

How I Felt …

Day three: yesterday I came out of the closet; the cancer closet with my friends and family. I was not sure how it would be received. I know sometimes that my writing can get to be too much for people. It is okay. I get that. However, I find writing therapeutic and this is my time to chronicle the good, the bad, the ugly, and the beautiful.

My aunt used to tell me I cried so prettily. If only she saw me yesterday as I scrolled through the overwhelming love and support sent to me via text, calls, e-mails, messages, and posts. I could not catch my breath at times. I sobbed. I cried. I snuffled. I slobbered. I felt unworthy of the love that was being sent. I was overwhelmed. Those hot spots under my cheeks seem to have taken up permanent residence. I do not feel deserving of such love. I am humbled that somehow, I have touched so many people that they felt called to reach out to my family and me. You all have done for me what I asked that I could not do myself. You have prayed for me with words I cannot articulate. I do not know how to say thank you in any possible way but thanks. I mean, with all the crap in the world, there are so many awesome, loving people that make it an amazing place. There is hope for the world with all the amazing children of God who have touched my family and me. The news shows can take their negative crap and shove it. Amazing, beautiful, and miraculous people live around us far