The Pain

When all this journey started for us, and I got the initial cancer diagnosis back in April, then the biopsy indicating malignancy in May, and the metastasis to the bones indicated in June, all the time I was feeling fine. And even, as things progressed, and I would go up for my immunotherapy treatment in Belfast and subsequent consultations to discuss the outcomes, I’d say to the doctor ‘But, I’m feeling fine’.  Her matter of fact reply was always ‘and it’s our job to keep it that way as long as we can’. 

However I often found myself thinking in my mind.  So, if cancer is associated with pain, and bone cancer particularly so, then how come I seem to be feeling okay, even if my energy levels are low. And if there is to be pain, then when is it going to hit, and what’s it going to be like, and will I be able to cope, and all sorts of other thoughts, that pop up when your mind begins to wander off on its own like that. Of course, I knew that God was with me, and that a lot of the delay in feeling any specific effects from the cancer had to do with his continued healing and sustaining power within me.

But then about mid February, the Pain did eventually hit. It was not a sudden car crash of pain, but just a growing gradual ache here, and a spasm there. And never just in one place. Sometimes, lower back, sometimes upper chest, now to the left side, now on the right,  sometimes even feeling it in my upper arms or thighs. And it was also hard to identify. Is this bone pain? Or could it be muscular. Did I stretch a muscle yesterday.  I’d ask questions, but the answers I was given were sometimes no more specific than my own vague self diagnosis. 

If you asked me how it felt, I might say, well I feel as though I’ve just gone a couple of rounds in the ring with Amir Khan (though, to be honest, in that context, I’d probably be unconscious after about ten seconds). But it’s that sense of the body being pummelled and punched, and trying to ease the bruises and wounds and find some way to lie down and rest without groaning in agony. Now I’m on regular medications to dull the pain and at least, keep it manageable. So far it seems to be working reasonably well. Though, for a while, it has been very tough. Days and nights when it was hard to focus on anything else but the Pain. (Hence the big gap in writing anything in this blog, for instance)

And the mind continues to trip over all those questions that crop up.  Lord, how long? And, what’s at the end of it all for us? It being Palm Sunday today, the Sunday before Easter, I’m thinking of Jesus entry into Jerusalem, and all the accolades and the crowds of people waving palm branches and shouting “Hosanna, Save now!”. I am wondering just how did Jesus himself approach his coming future Pain, knowing that a time was coming when he was going to have to endure the most unimaginable suffering, and every step along the way, whether in popularity or facing accusations, was one step closer to that moment. 

The account in John’s Gospel, gives an insight into his thinking at that moment. He says in Ch 12:27 

“Now is my heart, troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’?” 

His own answer to this rhetorical question gives me massive encouragement, for it shows Jesus, in his own very humanness, entrusting himself to God the father, whom He knows as a God of compassion and love who does all things well. 

“No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name!”

Lord, may it be so with us also, for all that’s ahead, whatever that may be.

** John 12:27-28