seriously, surgery? again.

there's nothing in me tonight which wants to write this.  nothing at all.  in fact, it has taken me one full week to put anything to words at all.  but tomorrow i will be back in surgery.  same place.  same surgeon.  same spot. literally, the very same spot.


remember that mass which they quickly biopsied in january? by the way,  who gets a mass 8 months after a mastectomy?!?  that mass which was unsettling, but determined to be nothing more than scar tissue.  well that mass reared its ugly head once again last tuesday.  i was in for another routine appointment.  my surgeon took another look at it and deemed it "larger and uglier" than january.  "it shouldn't be doing this," he said.  no, it shouldn't, i thought to myself.  dr. barber went on to tell me it has gotten bigger and angrier and what really bugs him is it in exactly the same spot as the original tumor.  "it needs to come out.  we need to remove it surgically and biopsy the dickens out of it...just to be sure..."  keep in mind, my surgeon is one of the best in the country.  i'm kind of thinking this all sounds a bit quackish at this point, but he isn't the least bit a quack.  he is cautious and concerned, but he is 100% not crazy.  but this is.  this strange mass/scar tissue is crazy. this second surgery is crazy. and tonight, i feel a little bit crazy.  okay, i'm lying...honestly, i feel a lot crazy. who has a lumpectomy after a mastectomy?   


so tomorrow morning i am checking back into piedmont hospital.  because i like nice and neat little packages, i half wanted him to wait until monday, the 21st.  that was the day a year ago i started down this surgical path.  may 21st, 2011 my double mastectomy day.  but i know that's kind of weird to try to match up the dates -- i am certain this odd thought comes only from me not wanting to truly think about the what if's...the what then's...what if the biopsy comes back with some malignancy to it?  what will we do then? i can hear you all collectively screaming, "STOP jody, don't go there...you are getting ahead of yourself...you cannot camp there just yet!"  you say that, and i agree. oh, i desperately want to agree. except that deep in my soul i am starting to shake again. the bottom line:  i am not ready for this.  i am not ready to go back under anesthesia wondering what i will hear when i wake up.  i was only ready to move on.  but that is not the case.  and in this busy, nutty month of may when we are working on school finals and graduation and a move to minnesota, we are forced to pause.  forced to stop in our tracks and do this thing, at a lesser degree, again.


Lord, i don't know what you're doing.  really i don't.  but i know you are in it.  i know you have it all in your hands.  every bit of it...and that's what will get me through.  not medicine or doctors or logic.  not the assurance that this just cannot be the case...i am trusting in Him alone...Him.


so tonight i post asking if you'll pray for me again? it feels like i've asked that a lot this year.  tomorrow i'll be back in surgery at 8:30 am.  it won't be anything like a year ago...at least not physically.  a quick recovery and if all goes well, home by the end of the day.  but will you pray?  i don't know how all that prayer stuff really works, but somehow it does.  God hears the prayers of many.  rick's mom, marilyn, sent me a verse this morning which i think nails it. 

    for I know that through your prayers 

and God’s provision 

of the Spirit of Jesus Christ,

 what has happened to me 

will turn out for my deliverance.

~ philippians 1:19

so, here's where i am for the moment.  whether i am delivered again from cancer or delivered right back into it...i will claim deliverance.  my God, my Lord, my Rock is, indeed, a God who delivers. last may...this may...always.

"blessed be the LORD, my rock,

                                      and my fingers for battle;

who trains my hands for war,

He is my steadfast love and my fortress,

my stronghold and my deliverer,

my shield and he in whom I take refuge..."

~ psalm 144:1-2