E.R.

I went to my primary care for a litany of complaints the other day but chief among them was aches all over like I had just finished a 90 min soccer match (trust me, I know what that feels like lol).

The doctor didn't know what to do so I left with a handful of miscellaneous scripts that I never did fill.

I get home and the pains from worse; I could barely lift my head off the pillow. I was showing many signs of Lithium toxicity. I freaked when I saw that two of the more sever side effects were going into a coma and death.

So I went to the ER at Chesapeake General and the triage nurse gave me priority over others who had been there longer.

I was actually called back with a nurse, a man too weak to walk with a facemark on, and my dad, to keep me company. But what happened next was inexplicable to my arrogant mind: I saw the "rooms" were just curtain-partitions, just like pre-op for the Whipple. I started sobbing immediately and hid behind my dad so no one would noticed. The prim-and-proper Anna immediately composed herself. And, true to form, I asked my dad to snap a picture of me to remember this whole ordeal.

I remember wearing my friend's red clay earrings that day for "good luck" (plus they're super cute; I'll put a like to her Etsy shop at the bottom of the page). The red clay reminded me of Georgia where I spent all my summers.

I told my dad to go get something to eat and that I'd be fine there while they ran a battery of tests.

Besides the aforementioned crying, I typically do really well as a patient (minus all my blow-out veins). I didn't realize how much cancer had traumatized me until I saw the curtain-partitioned "rooms," in which (at a dif hospital) I had been horrendously anesthetized.

I am a good patient (well, a little rebellious, really) but I would let them take my blood at 4am, nonetheless.

If I ever got coronation name, I would want it to be Anna the Brave, perhaps calling into existence what is not so. I remember during the time of surgery and recovery I would wax eloquent about the benevolence of God. But when push came to shove, I was just as scared and in pain as anybody else would have been. I remember my worst fear and rebellion towards God came when they would make me breathe into a tube violently to determine if I was developing pneumonia. I refused, but surgeons aren't the type of people to let themselves be refused, especially by an angsty teenager. So I did it with full resentment in my heart towards God.

I'm writing this post because, seven years later, I was scared of the cancer, the pain, the inadequacy of a nerve-block to do it's job (ahem, Portsmouth Naval).

But this is also an update. I'm to see my psychiatrist on Friday so pray for wisdom on his part, he is a fiery christian, so I know Holy Spirit will work through him, I'm in a lot of pain both physically and mentally, so prayer for fortitude would be great.

Love y'all,
Anna Jo

Below are three books about what it's like to live (and die) from cancer:

When Breath Becomes Air -Paul Kalanithi

Worth the Suffering -Jenna Henderson

The Bright Hour -Nina Riggs

Sorry this post was scattered and a tad disorienting.. I guess it's just a reflection of my life (and messy room) right now.

P.S. most of my labs (and there were a lot of them) came back fine so praise the Lord for that.

I'll leave you with a quote from Shauna Niequist:

"There's nothing small or inconsequential about our stories. There is, in fact, nothing bigger. And when we tell the truth about our lives - the broken parts, the secret parts, the beautiful parts - then the gospel comes to life, an actual story about redemption, instead of abstraction and theory and things you learn in Sunday School."

Thanks for reading about my story

Arrival: Life In The Negative Space

I cried in the car today. 

If you read my last post you know some of the symptoms I was experiencing as a result of my new panacea medicine. 

This got worse this morning, my scar hurt like it did when I was in recovery. I had aches all over my body and the chills. I could barely lift my head from my pillow from within the prison of my bed-ridden existence.

The reason I cried is because of the negative space, the unknown.

My psychiatrist wrote off my side-effects as not being caused by this medicine. (he also wouldn't let me get a picc line and I have horrible veins but my mom was driving me so I didn't want to cry).

But today, after more blood draws at my primary care, the doctor said he thinks that it's all due to the new medicines I'm on and he's also sending out my lithium levels so we'll see there.

Negative space: in art, the part that isn't the actual picture but sort gives the positive space room to land on. Great artists are just as meticulous about the space they use and the space they don't use because negative space can tell the observer just as ,much as positive space.

Have you ever seen or read Arrival? if you haven't stop reading here and go watch it. Towards the end, when things are getting down to the wire, the differing creatures (I refuse to call them aliens because cultural relativism, people!). So the differing creatures sent one last encrypted, highly intelligent message. The linguist and the physicist couldn't figure out the cypher. Then, with gallantry, the physicist figures out that the message was hidden in the negative space of the 3-D message: time, it was about time. but that's beside the point. Here's the real point: you can communicate life-saving messages through negative space.

So when I feel I like death is winning the fight because, at least in this case, no one can tell me what's wrong and no survivor of a rare cancer wants to hear that, I remember the negative space.

God doesn't always respond right away or at all the way you want him to, but he always answers. Often times in the negative spaces of your life, your community.

As I turned-on the ignition my care in front of patient first and started crying. And soon I felt another person in the car. He was crying too. It was Jesus. 

In between the positive spaces of two highly trained doctors into whom I have vested all my hope, two doctors who couldn't tell me exactly what's wrong or if the cancer's back, in the negative space, I encountered the God Who Sees Me (shout out, Hagar!).

Knowing that you have a God the suffered for you 2 millennia before you were born and makes petitions for us in heaven, and, yes, suffers with us now, doesn't take the pain away or mitigate the reality of a fractured existence on this long sojourn home. But it makes us look back at the pristine Garden and forward to the Heavenly Jerusalem. And I think what he wants us to know is that he is just so very with us. In the positive, useful stages, and in the negative, useful spaces. Emmanuel, God with us, our very present help.

Don't miss him in the fallow seasons of your life. He may not visit us with the angel of the lord like Hagar in her negative spaces (literal deserts), but he will be there. 

I can hear the words of Lily Potter, saying to her bereaved son, "we never left."

God's not afraid of my (and your) circumstances or everybody's seeming ignorance as to what's wrong with me, be assured: he's never left.

Today was rough

I woke up at 4:45am and tried to walk down the stairs to go the restroom. But I couldn't keep my balance so I sat there in silence for fifteen minutes til my dad came out of his room to cook himself breakfast. I wanted to ask him to make so eggs and toast for me since I couldn't currently do it by myself. But the voice I heard come out of me sounded like Rocky when he beat Apollo: slurred, delayed, unintelligible.

Hunger is another side effect of this med so I came down because I thought I could make myself seconds... I couldn't stand up straight; it was like my inner-gyroscope was off. I left the egg half scrambled in the pan next to two pieces of toast not buttered. Then, sleep.

I woke up and tried to text people how the med had worked but my fingers seemingly lost all potent dexterity. I couldn't type a word, let alone a sentence.

The only other off thing that I noticed was that my ability to swallow was impeded and I felt like I was choking multiple times throughout the day.

Also, I was pretty sedate. My affect was pretty flat.

I haven't lost hope... Please keep your prayers coming; I cherish them... oh yeah, please pray that they would allow me to get semi-permanent port to draw blood from, my poor hands have taken a beating.

"The effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much" (James 5:16).

Love always, 

Anna Jo

Casimir Pulaski Day + Jenna

You know what's funny? I listened to Sufjan Stevens's "Casimir Pulaski Day", and it was by far my favorite song in high school before I internalized what it was saying about cancer. Two short years later, I would have people laying their hands on me for healing. Little did I know the quest that lay before me. When I watch the coronation scene of The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, I always imagine my new name would be Anna the Brave. I was not the nicest or the sweetest, but I had guts.

That moxy faded quickly after the Whipple surgery. I was angry at God, even though I didn't dare verbalize it because I tried so hard to fit the mold of a good YL girl who was the leaders's favorite. But why was I vomiting with a nine inch scar severing my abdominal nerves and blood seeping out of my feeding and drainage tubes at 18 years old? I still don't know, but I screamed at the pain, even though I had friends over who could hear everything from the downstairs bathroom I was in. My dad wisely suggested they abandon their Infuse-Anna-With-Optimism shifts early that day.

But what I'm really writing to say is that I just finished an incredible book called Worth the Suffering by Jenna Henderson. It's a collection of her blogposts, prayers, and her friends's memories of her before she passed away in 2016.

I noticed a HUGE difference in the way we both blogged about our experiences. I am convicted. Buy the book. Read it. I'm sure you'll be challenged. I want my complaining to turn into thanksgiving and I want a fierce love of Jesus like it appears Jenna had in her 30 short years of life.

Thank you, Jenna, for the legacy you left us for when we suffer. I hope to be as valiant as you one day.

With love,
Anna Jo

You can buy the book here: https://www.worththesuffering.com