This was the week of Rock Bottom, so there’s no place to go, except up.

After last week’s chemotherapy on Thursday, I developed debilitating weakness, dizziness, and shortness of breath. I am extremely weak and oxygen deprived because my red blood cell count is low, and therefore, the oxygen in my blood is also low. The previous Taxol, two weeks ago, nastily brought with it the same aftereffects, only not quite to this level. Completely bedridden on the third floor from Sunday through Wednesday, thankfully as of yesterday I’ve now advanced to the sofa on the second floor, with Christmas carols, the fireplace and my Christmas tree.

For the first four full days though, I don’t leave the third floor, because scarcely walking back and forth from my bed to the adjacent bathroom leaves me collapsing back into bed with exhaustion and desperately short of breath. My sweet, worried Patrick brings up breakfast and leaves fruit and water for me until he can come home as quickly as possible. He sleeps with his phone all week in case I need him. I am utterly and completely dependent on my son. What do people with cancer do if they live alone? How do they manage, survive? What would I do? What will I do when the time comes? I spiral rapidly through the tunnel of my thoughts, into the darkness of fear. And then I pray over and over, “For God has not given me a spirit of fear, but of power and love and sound mind.” “Please, God, give me your Peace that passes all understanding.” Fear only has power if I give it power.

Tuesday evening, the inability to easily or deeply pull in oxygen and the grueling loss of strength becomes unbearable after I pull myself out of the tub and my knees buckle and I hit the floor. Hard. Patrick and I debate a trip to the ER, but I decline as it would 1) require me to somehow get dressed into actual clothes, get down two long flights of stairs and into a car, drive to the ER, and then sit upright and wait in ER for who knows how long before I am even seen; and 2) be an exorbitant amount of money (as everything with this cancer has been). We compromise and I lay down to sleep as he insists he will be working from home on Wednesday. I don’t argue.

Last night I burst into tears for some minor reason. Patrick asks, sincerely, with both real confusion and compassion, “Why are you crying?” I can’t even rationally explain. I am just… overwhelmed. With everything. These last two chemotherapy sessions have been excruciating, and at times I feel like I literally might be dying; which makes me think a lot about the realities of stage 4 metastatic cancer. And my mortality. And if my plans and goals and dreams are lost forever at only 52. I look in the mirror and I don’t even recognize me. I look like death.

I have never been more vulnerable or dependent on other people in my entire life, as in these last four months; and surrendering to total reliance on the kindness of others is frightening. It’s actually terrifying. Because not only have I been (probably much too proudly) self-sufficient for the majority of my life, I actually adore when I am taking care of others, making a real difference for someone or some cause, or helping to make someone’s life a little better. And asking someone to do these things for me is scary, not to mention humbling. I don’t ever want to be thought of as a burden or an obligation. Along with my hair and my femininity, this is another distressing loss of identity.

Since my diagnosis, I have come to realize that a lot of people don’t really understand “stage 4;” that the goal is not to cure it, but to “manage” the cancer. I hear a lot of “You’re kicking cancer’s butt!” “You’re a warrior!” “You’ve got this!” “Just be strong!” “Just fight it!” “Soon this will all be over.”

I am a researcher though, and I know the grim statistics. I also know that there are some women who have lived 20 years or more with metastatic breast cancer because I have joined a metastatic breast cancer support group online, and they tell us; and we listen to what they did, what worked for them, what keeps them alive even now. They are our inspirational gurus in this new-to-me MBC world. But nearly daily in this online gathering of 3500 women, the passing of another beautiful soul in the group is posted and we collectively grieve the brutality of this disease. I don’t know why some of us with MBC will live while others will not; but, while in my sadness, I refuse to believe these women died because they didn’t fight hard enough, have enough positive thoughts, maintain a positive attitude, want it enough, or that God didn’t love them enough to cure them.

Still, daily, my family and my friends, and even strangers pray for me to be cured. I pray for me to be cured, too. I also pray to remain faithful, hopeful and peaceful and to not desperately fail in demonstrating Christ’s love in my daily encounters. And I pray to not wallow in self-pity, but to be filled with joy.

And then I list every person and everything I can think of to be grateful for this very week. Today it’s Patrick, Momma, Felicia, Rebecca, Christie, Allie, Dana, Misty, Bevin, Amanda and Jenny, Jodi, Catherine, Landau and his jokes, Bob’s photo texts, Jacque reaching out, my miraculously (I don’t say this lightly) restored relationship with my sister Jennifer, and her love and support, my beautiful Christmas tree, this warm fuzzy blanket enveloping me, that I am blessed to be a pediatric Speech-Language Pathologist working with children I love so dearly, Patrick’s job, Christmas carols on the radio, hot chocolate made with coconut milk and marshmallows,  this upcoming Third Sunday of Advent, big hugs, and finally Patrick’s and my needs being met for TODAY. And once again I am filled with Joy, Faith, Hope Love and Peace and I am grateful.

Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name.
Give us this day our Daily Bread.
Be grateful for our daily bread.
Gratitude. Maybe that’s the lesson?

Thank you God, for restored joy, faith, hope, love and peace.