Several Degrees of Connections

I love titles.  I love how they can be so tantalizingly intriguing that they pull you in to a story like some sort of strong sucky thing!  I'm not sure my title tonight is like that....so I apologize.

Perhaps I should title this:
In Which Brigette Rants On and On and Finally Gets to the Point 

Either way, the title is over and now we begin.  At the beginning.

Connections and connectivity.  So interesting to consider, contemplate and cogitate (that is a real word.  I thesaurused it.  Thesaurusing is also a word.  Because I said so; why should Dr. Seuss and Shakespeare have dibs on all the word-making fun in this world? )

Back to connections.
When I was younger, I loved connecting the dots, putting together numbers in their numerical order or letters in alphabetic order until....VOILA and TA-DAH...the connections formed a bigger picture.  Order out of chaos.  Sense out of no sense.  A picture out of blobs.  Connectivity gives us that bigger picture in life.

There are so many crazy connections in life.  If only we look up and around to see them and to join them together.  God puts all those crazy connections there like a giant dot to dot in our lives to see if we will notice, put the connections together and then rejoice in that giant picture that has become our life!

There's this cool theory called the "Six degrees of separation"....I think a movie was even made about it if my chemo-saturated brain can recall correctly...and this theory postulates that everyone is connected by six or less-than-six steps from others.  Connections can be made to one another through a chain of "a friend of a friend" statements (Wikipedia).

So, when God yanked me, Paul, our children, my parents and my siblings down this new path of cancer, we began to see all sorts of connections.

Well, not right away.

First we were shocked.

"I have WHAT?  I need WHAT?  I have to go WHERE?"

Then we were worried.

"What will this mean for us?  Our family?  Our kids? Our parents?  Our future?"

Then we railed.

"Why me?  Why us....life wasn't easy already?  Why now?  Why, God?  What is your plan in this?"

( I remember praying once while I was driving somewhere.  It was a dark night and I gripped the steering wheel in a tight-fisted grip.  Hot hot tears water-falled down my face, I clenched my teeth and began an out-loud prayer into the darkness:  "I am not strong enough for this.  This is TOO much, God!  I can't do this.  Our family can't handle this.  Why, God?  I need to be strong for my family.  They look to me for so much.  How can I be strong when I am weak......"  Hey wait a second.....in the middle of all that railing and wailing, God's answer came to me.  I just love that I can talk to God anytime, anywhere about anything.  The awesome wonderful thing about God is that He already knows anyways.  He isn't like, "What?  How dare you think like that?  I can't believe you?"  Instead, I have a picture of Him whispering, "Yeah.  I know you are feeling that way.  I understand.  I am here for you....always....and I am ready to wipe away those tears.  And don't forget.....you can be strong when you are weak.  I told you that already."  Because as I angrily wept into the night, my sobs loud and messy, I remembered 2 Corinthians 12:10 "For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities.  For when I am weak, then I am strong."   I am strong in Him.  He makes me strong and builds my spiritual muscles so that I can deal with this life.

I had a friend over and she commented on the cards that I have hanging in our kitchen.  They go ALL THE WAY around the perimeter of our kitchen, hanging high up by the ceiling where we can look at them and feel the love, prayers, thoughts of all of you emanating from them.  She said to me when she saw all those cards, "Those are the arms of Jesus right there."  Your love, cards, words, prayers.....your connections to me and my family are connections put there by God years ago.  Maybe I know you from grade school, maybe I know your husband or wife from grade school, maybe we've just met recently and don't know each other much at all, maybe I worked for you or went to high school with you, maybe you are my neighbour and we talk over the front hedge, maybe I taught you years ago or babysat you.....all those connections pulled together over the past weeks for my family as your cards/ texts/ emails poured in and served to show Jesus' love as they lifted me and my family up and up and up and made us strong.

I met someone recently and she said to me, "You are so strong.  I could never go through what you are going through."

It wasn't until later that I thought of a retort.  (I often think of the BEST and wittiest retorts hours later.  And, man, are they good!  Too bad the person is long gone and the conversation long over.  Sigh!  Mine is a sort of delayed-intelligence.)

Back to the lady who said she could not go through what I was going through.

My hours-later retort (retorted to the air at this time since she was long gone) was that, "Yes you could.  Because you just have to deal with things like cancer and death and horrifying news.   That's this broken, sinful, crazy world we are in.  I got my first freaky-about-cancer phone call in the middle of Costco surrounded by my kids.  I could go on because I had to; four sets of eyes were upon me and depending on me.  And suddenly I had dealt with cancer for one day.  God gives us strength, and so often it is through the amazing people around us.  They are there to lift, encourage, strengthen, cheer and so often they come from past and unlikely places.

So when I began to go on this cancer journey and began to meet new people, people I would not have wanted to or thought to have met, I tried to open my eyes to them, to see them, and my ears to hear their stories.  They are here.....to give me a needle, to occupy the chair beside me, to advise me....and are put here and there by God.  New connections.  I just don't really believe in coincidences anymore. I have learned to not believe in coincidences from all my life experiences ....and......all my hours of reading or watching murder mysteries.

"There's no such thing as coincidences," the unshaven, crotchety hero growls out as he flips open his grubby notepad at the crime scene, licks his pencil and begins to scrawl out clues and connections.

Some connections of this past week:

Connection # 1:  I received a card from a couple that I have not seen for about 15 years.  Our degrees of separaton.....2.....the husband is a cousin of my cousin.  BAM!
They sent me a card with a lovely, lovely text:
"When you pass through the waters, I will be with you, and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you.  When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze.  For I am the Lord, your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior."  Isaiah 43: 2,3

Connection #2:  The Juravinski Centre was packed when Paul and I went to my appointments on Tuesday morning, thereby there were not many places to park our bottoms.  But a man moved over and we sat beside him and his wife.  As I sat down, I thought maybe he was her son as she looked so much older.  He looked to be in his 50s, she in her late-70s.  We chatted about some light topics at first....the weather (what would we do with out weather chatter??), the long wait time at the Centre, my attempts at knitting.  Then I asked,
"SO, what are you in for?"  (I love asking this....it lends a sense of danger to it all, don't you think?)
"Oh," the lady responded, "I initially had breast cancer when I was 38 but I got over that and now I have terminal bone cancer."
GULP.
"What about you?" her soft voice questioned, "What do you have?"
"I," I croaked, "I have breast cancer and I am 38."
The lady (Ann) and her husband quickly faced me and began wildly reassuring me that just because Ann had breast cancer at 38, that did not at all mean I would have bone cancer 20 years later.  Her story is not mine!
The thing about Ann is that she was a lot like me.  She told me she would have her chemo, go home and lay sod or remove wall paper from her walls.  She didn't like being told to lay down all the time.

"I want to live my life.  My husband and I bought a time-share to Disney and we have been there 48 times!  We are going to enjoy life as long as we can."  She grinned at me, her face stretching into a smile so radiant,  She had these lines around her eyes that were beautiful......made me think of the Beautiful South song "Prettiest Eyes" which croons, "take a look at these crow's feet sitting on the prettiest eyes...."  YouTube it!

"Amen, sister!"  I said.  I think we high-fived but that may be my imagination inserting cool details into the truth.  Aw.....let's all just imagine a high-five at that moment together!

This connection with Ann upset me and Paul yesterday.  We have been considering this cancer-journey as one with lots of positives and a "Happily Ever After" ending:

Once upon a time, a brown-haired girl got cancer.  She had chemo, a breast removed and radiation.  Then she lived happily ever after and her gorgeous prince and her, their four kids, dog, guinea pig and 3 birds rode off into the sunset where they hiked for ever after.  The End.

Talking with Ann made me contemplate a different ending, a life with a ticking time limit (I think I just mixed metaphors but go with it because I am sad).

But despite Ann's limited time, crumbling bones and continued chemo treatments for the rest of her life, she was smiling.
Connections, not coincides.  Ann talking to me, sitting by me and giving me a courageous story of life and living it the way God made you to love to live it!

Connection # 3:  My oncologist, Dr. Levine, and surgeon, Dr. Hodgson, met with Paul and I.   These two have become significant people in our lives.  We rely heavily on their expertise and wisdom.  Looks like my tumors are responding well to the chemo; they are soft and shrinking!  Thank God!!  So, a tentative surgery date is now set for January 21, 2016.   The surgery is a lot more intense than my mind had made it out to be.  Apparently the doctors don't just "cut it off" and all is done.  The breast will be removed, lymph nodes scraped out from under my arm and a nerve that crosses where the lymph nodes exist will also be removed.  I will be left with a smiley scar instead of a breast.   We can talk reconstruction surgery in a few years once the doctors are assured the cancer has not come back.  Paul and I are thankful for these two people connections; they are empathetic, helpful and doing their job in a way that has been very supportive of this part of our life journey.


Connection # 4:  This is not a people connection but a thing connection.

Paul and I had to wait for my meds yesterday at the pharmacy.  Rather than wait inside the pharmacy, we made our way to a nearby waiting area in the Juravinski Centre.  We sat.  I looked around and spotted a HUGE painting.  I am talking the size-of-your-garage-door-huge.  It was bright, vibrant and beautiful.  Remember all the whining I did back in the blog entry "Of Hikes and Hallways"; I was upset about my chemo days replacing my hike days.  Well, this giant painting colouring up the colourless walls of the Centre was a picture of one of my favourite hiking locations!!

"Paul, look!" I hissed jabbing him sharply in the side and pointing frantically at the giant painting.
"It's Princess Point in Cootes Paradise!!!"

I was so pumped.  The hike just got brought to me.  "Thank-you, God!" I breathed and then just sat and smiled at that painting.  It was summer in the picture and the willow trees were bending low and the water was reflecting back all the trees at the water-edge.  We have hiked that area so many times.  There are several loops you can hike, one less stroller friendly then the other.  In the winter, the shallow water freezes solid and my homeschool group skates and plays hockey on the ice there.  We toboggan there.  It is a place that I love.
Connection, not coincidence.  My heart had been heavy but when that hike memory got brought to me, my smile reached all the way to my heart and squished up all those sad feelings.  Awesome!

Connection #5:  Today I had chemo again.  Chemo round #6.  During every single chemo round, I have been blessed to have someone I know and love accompany me.  Paul has gone several times, my mom, my mother in law, my friend-Amanda, my sister-Crystal will come soon, and today, my friend-Mary-Ann.  I have had so many people offer to accompany me to chemo.  So many offers of love and support.
"Apparently I should throw more chemo parties!" I commented to Paul one day!  "they are making me feel all popular and stuff!"

Anyways, today Mary-Ann accompanied me.  We go way back.  I knew her when I was in Grade 2 and she was in Grade 1.  We became friends when we were 16 and 17 and enjoyed many silly, care-free memories together.  We married men from Burlington and moved to Hamilton.  We both have 4 children who are born in the same years.  We are still friends who share a wonky (yes, wonky) sense of humor!  She is another connection in the life of Brigette.  Today, Mary-Ann got to watch me sleep.  I'm sure she was very entertained and rushed home to write in her diary...."Dear Diary.  Brigette slept so much today.  I feel that I know her better as a friend.  Ps.  Her nostrils really do flare when she sleeps!  Eeek.  I hope mine don't do that.  Will have to ask hubby to watch me sleep.  "
When I wasn't sleeping during this chemo round, it went very well.  I am so tired because I take an anti-anxiety med and I have to take some Benadryl to halt any allergic reactions that this chemo medicine could cause.  So I slept, then went home and slept.  I will sleep again soon.  No nausea.  Woot! Let's high five!

And Chemo Round #6 is over!  I feel good.  Only two more rounds to go!  There is a bell hanging just outside the room where the cancer patients go to receive their chemo.  This bell was donated some years ago and people are encouraged to ring it if they have some "ringable" or cheerful news.  Mostly though, this bell is rung when someone has finished all their rounds of chemo.
I just can't wait to make that bell chime, baby!


Some final thoughts:

Sometimes God takes us kicking and screaming down a painful path, doesn't He?  We just want to scream out "WHAT ARE YOU THINKING???  THIS IS WAAAAAY MORE THAN I CAN HANDLE!!!!"
Look out for the connections to be made on this new path; they are there in the form of old acquaintances or new relationships.  They are the arms of Jesus wrapped around you so tightly and lifting you up and strengthening you.  Because when you are weak, you ARE strong.  Strong in Him.
Tonight, I am strong because of Him and the connections that He gave me and gives me.  Look for your connections.  They are there, building you up, making up who you are and where you are in this crazy life.

Till we meet again,
Brigette

 The painting of Princess Point.  Wow, isn't it?