Season of Blessing Read online

  “Don’t think of it like that.” He took her hand and made her sit down. “Think of it as them cutting out the enemy.”

  She met his eyes. “But my body will be different. That will change us.”

  He leaned forward and looked hard into her eyes. “It’s not your breasts I’m in love with. It’s you. It’s going to be all right, Sylvia. Every time I look at that scar, I’ll remember how close I came to losing you. If that scar is what saves your life, it will be beautiful to me.”

  “Let’s just see what they say in the other opinions,” she said. “I’m not ready to make up my mind just yet.”

  “Okay.” He pulled her onto his lap and held her for a long moment. “We need to tell the kids, honey. Sarah and Jeff need to know.”

  “Not yet,” she whispered. “Not until we’ve made some decisions. They’ll take it so much better if they know what we’re going to do about it. Please, Harry. Let’s wait.”

  He nodded, his mouth straining to hold back his weary, raw emotions. “Whatever you think.”

  They went to bed soon after, Sylvia exhausted from the hours of study she’d put in that day, and Harry wiped out from a sleepless night and the trip home from Nicaragua. He reaffirmed her body and his love of it before falling off to sleep.

  Sylvia lay next to him, watching his face in repose. She touched her breast, the offending one, and let her hand cup over the shape of it. In just a few days it would be gone. But if she could exchange it for the peace of mind she lost the day she found out she had cancer, she supposed it would be worth it.

  Finally she drifted off into a sweet sleep, curled up warm next to her husband.

  CHAPTER

  Eighteen

  Some of the heaviness lifted from Sylvia’s heart as she sat in the plastic surgeon’s office looking at the before and after pictures of breast reconstruction.

  “We have several reconstruction methods,” he was saying. “We can reconstruct using your own tissue from other parts of your body. With the TRAM flap we pull up fat, muscle, and tissue from your abs.”

  “Ouch.” Sylvia turned a page in the photo album. “That sounds painful. Does it look real when it’s finished?”

  Dr. Simon took the album from her and flipped through its pictures. He found one and pointed to it. “You tell me.”

  She studied the picture. “So you get a tummy tuck as part of the package?”

  “That’s right. Or we can take the tissue from your gluts.”

  Harry wasn’t impressed. “What are the risks?”

  “Well, there are some. Sometimes the flap develops necrosis.”

  Sylvia looked up at him. “What is that?”

  “The tissue dies,” Harry said. “They’d have to remove the flap then, and that could cause you to be in worse shape than you were before the reconstruction.”

  “We could do a LAT flap, where we take muscle and tissue from the upper back and move it to the breast area.”

  “Still sounds painful. I’d have incisions in front and back.” She looked at the picture the doctor offered her.

  “We supplement this procedure with an implant.”

  Harry still wasn’t satisfied. “What about not doing any of the flaps and just doing a synthetic implant?”

  Dr. Simon nodded. “Yes, we can put an expander bag under her skin.” He picked one up and showed it to them. “It has a valve at the bottom, and every week or two you come in and let me inject saline into it. Slowly, it will stretch your skin into the shape of your other breast. When the skin is properly stretched, say in six months or so, we can put in the permanent implant.”

  Sylvia liked the “after” pictures of that one. She showed them to Harry. “What do you think?”

  He stiffened. “I think reconstruction isn’t that necessary. That maybe we need to cross one hurdle before we move on to that one.”

  Sylvia shook her head. “But I’ll have more hope if I think my breast is someday going to look normal again.”

  “It’s just a lot of extra pain to go through, when you’re already struggling.”

  “But, Harry, if I wait I may never do it. I’d rather get it all done at once.”

  Harry got quiet.

  The doctor leaned forward on his desk. “When we get the permanent implant in, then we can do some skin grafts to finish the cosmetic appearance. It actually looks very good.”

  Sylvia looked at the “before” picture of the woman with an incision that cut from her sternum around to her back, leaving a flap. She swallowed the lump in her throat. Then she saw the “after” picture. The reconstructed look was more than she could have hoped for, but she knew better than to expect the best-case scenario.

  She frowned. “I want to see a picture of one that didn’t turn out like you hoped.”

  “I understand what you’re saying.” He flipped through the pictures, then brought out one that was a little less symmetrical. Even that looked better than she thought it would.

  She glanced at Harry. “If this is the worst it will be, I think I can live with it. It’s a lot better than not having anything at all.”

  Harry leaned forward. “Bob, I want you to tell us something honestly. Don’t these surgeries and implants increase the risk of infection during the chemo?”

  “That is a risk,” the doctor said. “But it’s minimal.”

  “What about recurrence? Would an implant keep us from being able to see new tumors?”

  “Not at all.”

  Harry wasn’t finished. “So you’d have to be there at the time of the mastectomy. Would this delay the surgery date at all? Coordinating your schedule with the other surgeon, I mean?”

  “When are you planning to have it?”

  “Early next week,” Harry said.

  Sylvia shot him a look. They hadn’t talked about that. She hadn’t even told the children yet. She hadn’t prayed about it enough. She wasn’t ready.

  “Yes, I can work it into my schedule. If we choose an autologous tissue reconstruction, it’ll take an additional five or six hours of surgery. The expander implant takes less time. But I’ll need to know as soon as possible so we can schedule it.”

  Sylvia swallowed. “Can we schedule the surgery before I know for sure what I’m going to do?”

  “Yes. We could hold the time for you. I’ll check with Dr. Jefferson, and by the time we work out the time, maybe you’ll know what you want.”

  As they drove away from the office, she recognized the tension on Harry’s face. He was going to require some convincing, but she already had her mind made up. She reached across the seat and took his hand. “Honey, it’s going to be all right.”

  He smiled. “I’m supposed to say that to you.”

  “But you’re not sure it’s true, are you?”

  He focused on the car in front of him. “Of course I am.”

  “I’ll probably have the mastectomy, but I want the reconstruction, Harry.”

  “I know you do. And it’s your body.”

  She watched the way he worked his jaw, and knew that he still had serious reservations. “What’s your main concern?” she asked.

  “The unnecessary pain you’ll be in, wherever they take the grafts, when you’re already suffering from the mastectomy. Possible infection. Longer surgery. Harder recovery.”

  They were all valid concerns, she thought. She had always deferred to him in matters of medicine for their family. But there was something else here that she couldn’t quite explain. She was losing a part of her body, and she needed to know she could get it back. Even if it was a poor facsimile of the real thing, just the shape and the contour would do so much for the way she felt about herself.

  But she had to think of Harry’s needs, too, and she didn’t want to cause him unnecessary anxiety.

  But that anxiety was impossible to hold at bay as they went for her appointment with her oncologist. He explained the process of chemotherapy to her, how necessary it would be to kill any cancer cells left in her body after the su
rgery. The strength of the chemo and the number of treatments would depend on how many lymph nodes were involved.

  The only good news she could filter from his words were that she’d have a four-week period to recover from her surgery before starting the chemo treatments.

  Their visit didn’t make her decisions any simpler.

  There was still so much to think about. It ought to be easy to decide these things. You had cancer, so you had it cut out. Took medicine to prevent recurrence. Took measures to cope with the side effects. But none of what she’d read or heard in the last couple of days made the choices easier.

  She let her gaze drift out the window as they wound their way back up Bright Mountain. She didn’t know why she was so adamant about reconstructing her breast, when there were so many more important things to think of. What if she didn’t survive this? How would her children take it? They weren’t ready to be motherless, even though they were both grown and out of the house. Even in Nicaragua she e-mailed them every day and spoke to them often. Sarah still called her for recipes and baby-raising tips. Jeff still wanted her advice on the women he dated.

  And there was the grandbaby. She’d been so thrilled to have her, and now to know that she might not live to see her start school, star in her school play, accept Christ as her Lord.

  There was no more frightening feeling than that of leaving her children behind. Death would be fine—absent with the body was to be present with the Lord, according to Paul. This was not her home. But she couldn’t help the bonds that held her so tightly to her kids.

  And her husband.

  “You’re awfully quiet.” Harry’s voice was raspy, hoarse.

  “I was just thinking about the kids.”

  He nodded. “We have to tell them.”

  “Yes,” she said. “I’ll call them when we get home.”

  CHAPTER

  Nineteen

  Sylvia employed the three-way-calling feature she’d never used in her life, and got Sarah and Jeff on the phone together. When she told them the news, they both sat silent for a long moment.

  Finally, Sarah spoke. “Mom, I’m coming home tomorrow.”

  “Me too.” Jeff’s voice was heavy, thick.

  “No, you’re not,” she said. “Sarah, you’ve got the baby. And, Jeff, what about your job? I don’t even know yet when the surgery will be scheduled. It’s foolish to come here now. I’m going to be fine. I’m having surgery sometime next week, and then, according to the oncologist, I’ll have four weeks before my chemotherapy starts.”

  “Chemotherapy?” Sarah sounded as if the breath had been knocked out of her. “Oh, Mom.”

  “Oh, Mom, what?” she asked her. “Honey, don’t you realize that chemo is a blessing? What if they didn’t have it? I know it’s going to be hard, but I’m ready for it. I want to do everything possible to kill the cancer.” She sighed. “Guys, it’s going to be okay. Really.”

  “How’s Dad?” Jeff asked.

  “He’s fine. Preoccupied, as you can imagine. We have a lot of decisions to make about the surgery. But we’ll make them.”

  “But I want to do something!” Sarah cried.

  “You can do something. You can pray.”

  “Mom, as soon as you know when the surgery is, let me know. I’ll come so I can help Dad take care of you when you get home.”

  “How long before they’ll know if it’s spread?” Jeff’s question rippled over the line.

  “I won’t know right away. Probably a couple of days.”

  “I want to be there when the results come back,” he said.

  She closed her eyes and tried to think of those results coming. If the cancer hadn’t spread to the lymph nodes, they’d have a wonderful celebration. But if it had…

  She didn’t want her children there hurting that way. She didn’t want to see the fear on their faces…the dread of her demise.

  On the other hand, she didn’t want them hearing about it on the phone.

  “All right, you can come after the surgery,” she said. “But only if you bring the baby, Sarah. And, Jeff, I don’t want you missing more than a couple of days of work.”

  “Mom, are you sure you want me to bring her?” Sarah asked. “You won’t be feeling well. Her crying and fussing might make you feel worse. I could leave her with Gary.”

  “Absolutely not,” Sylvia said. “I have to have something to look forward to, don’t I? If you bring her, I won’t have time to feel sorry for myself. I’ll have a little treasure to keep my mind off those results.”

  “All right,” she said. “I’ll bring her.”

  “And Jeff, no long-term absences from work, okay? I can’t wait to see you, but your father and I didn’t put all that money into your education to have you run off and leave your job.”

  “I hear you, Mom.”

  “So you’ll call us when you schedule the surgery?” Sarah asked. “The very minute?”

  “You know I will.”

  When she finally hung up the phone, she felt as if the last vestiges of her strength had drained right out of her. She got up and went into the living room and found Harry sitting in his favorite chair, staring out into the air.

  “I told them,” she said. “They insisted on coming after the surgery. Sarah’s going to bring Breanna.”

  Harry only looked at her. “Something to look forward to,” he whispered. “How did they take it?”

  “Just like you’d expect.”

  He nodded and reached for her hand. She went to him, and he pulled her into his lap. There, she curled up in his arms, holding him and loving him, and praying silently that God wouldn’t bring too much pain into the heart of this beloved man who had been such an obedient servant of God, and such a precious husband to her.

  “There’s something we have to do,” he said, “before we go another day.”

  “What?”

  “We have to call for the elders of the church and get them to pray over you, just like the Bible says.”

  Sylvia looked down at his serious face. “Are you sure? Do they still do that? I never hear of it.” She got up and moved to the chair across from him.

  “No, it isn’t done that much in churches like ours, though if someone asks for it, they do comply.” He got up and got his Bible, opened it to James 5, and read verses 14 and 15. “The Bible tells us that if anyone is sick he must call the elders and let them pray over him…that they should anoint him with oil…and that the prayer offered in faith will restore him. But there’s a dispute as to whether the Greek word that’s translated ‘sick’ really means ‘sick.’”

  “I don’t understand. Isn’t it clear?”

  “Not really. The word translated ‘sick’ is kamno, which means ‘to tire…faint, sicken, be wearied.’ So it can be translated ‘sick.’ But it could also mean someone who is weak in conscience or weak in faith. And the problem is what we’ve seen. People who are prayed over by the elders don’t always get well. Some of them still die, no matter how strong their faith is. This would imply that everyone who has strong faith and prays will have perfect health. But that’s not so.”

  Sylvia was more confused than ever. “So why should we do it?”

  Harry looked down at his Bible again, then brought his eyes up to her. “Because what if they’re wrong? What if it really does mean ‘sick’? What if God really does assign some extra power to prayers prayed by the elders? What if God wanted to heal you that way?”

  Sylvia lifted her chin. She didn’t need any more convincing than that. “Then we’ll do it. But when? I’ve always wondered at what point it should be done. If you hurt your back, should you do it then? If you have the flu? If you break your leg? Or is it just for terminal illness? And even then, do you do it at the beginning of the illness, when there’s a chance that modern medicine could cure you, or do you wait until there’s no hope left?”

  Harry shook his head. “I don’t know the answer to any of those questions, honey. I really don’t. All I know is that now is th
e time for us. And I’m going to call the elders tonight, and ask them to meet us tomorrow.”

  Sylvia took the Bible from him and read over those verses again. “It says that ‘the prayer offered in faith will restore the one who is sick.’ Does that mean that we trust in the healing and don’t follow with the surgery or the treatments?”

  “No, of course not. That would be like demanding that God heal you, not taking no for an answer. In that case, if he chose not to, it would shake our faith and make God the bad guy somehow. No, God doesn’t want us testing him or demanding things of him. He simply wants us to pray. I have total faith in his ability to heal you this way if he chooses.”

  “Then how will we know if he healed me, or if the surgery or chemo did?”

  “If you’re healed, Sylvia, it will be God who did it, regardless of how he chooses to.”

  The hope in his eyes was intense, and she could see the pleas his mind and heart were already sending up on her behalf.

  “After the surgery,” Harry said, “if there’s no cancer in the lymph nodes, I think we can assume that the elders praying over you really worked.”

  “And if it is in the lymph nodes?” she asked.

  He cleared his throat and looked down at his hands. “If it is in the lymph nodes, then we assume that God heard the prayers of the elders, and has chosen to answer it according to his will. Whatever that will is.”

  Her eyes filled with tears again. He stood up and pulled her to her feet, framed her face with his hands, and gazed into her wet eyes. “Whatever happens, Sylvia, we know that God loves you more, even, than I do.”

  She nodded. “I know. And whatever he chooses, it’s for some great purpose that we can’t even imagine.”

  A tear rolled out of Harry’s eye and ran down his cheek. “We’ll pray that we can accept that, whatever it is.”

  “Yes,” she whispered. “And that we’ll be thankful, even if it means suffering.”

  It was more than she had the power to do…more even than Harry was capable of offering. But she was sure that they wouldn’t have to rely on their own power to do that. God would give them what they needed, as they needed it. Comfort when it was needed, and healing if it was part of his plan.