Balloon

We got into the lymphoma balloon without much warning.  A perfunctory visit to the hematologist, during which he admitted he was unimpressed with any of my blood numbers.  "Since you're here, though," he said, "I might as well examine you."  I winced as his tar-stained fingers prodded for a second on my left side.  "Hmm. Your spleen's a little bit big.  That might be at least worth checking out."    

A week later, with scans in hand, the news: lymphoma.

It would be weeks of surgery, bone marrow biopsies, and scans before we knew which basket of which balloon we were in.  

By that time, we were in the Medical University of South Carolina, and we were feeling as good about the journey as was possible under the circumstances.  I'd be getting an experimental drug that had shown terrific promise in the first trials at MUSC and elsewhere.  My job was to get in the basket of the lymphoma balloon and make any adjustments I was instructed to make along the way.  

So I--and my family with me--piled in.  We were both piloting the balloon and trapped inside it.  It was not the vessel we had chosen or even would have chosen (if given a choice); but once in it, we held on and acted like we knew how to steer.  Our journey took a turn two months into treatment, as I was reappointed to a church in Spartanburg, closer to extended family.  There were some unpredictable dips and even frightening moments, but everything indicated the balloon was going in the right general direction.   

The plan called for treatments to conclude in October.  We'd then land this lymphoma balloon in Mid-November, when a two-day battery of tests would confirm that the magic medicine had done its job.  Then I'd just be a notch in MUSC's research belt, and show up for scans every three months for three years.

Three weeks before my final scans: chaos.  Drenching night sweats. Pain in my hips and shoulders. Scans showing massive involvement of the vertebrae.  A drug-bleary midnight trip by ambulance to the Medical University.  

Suddenly we're no longer bringing this thing in for a landing.  We're adrift again, but this time it feels like our supplies are already low.  We've abandoned the illusion of piloting anything and are holding on for dear life.  I am, for the first time, terrified.  I am, for the first time, unsure.  I am, for perhaps the first time ever, suddenly and excruciatingly aware of my inability to do a damn thing to help myself.  

I have long relied on the words of lament in Psalms and prophets to be my words in time of grief.  I have long clung to Paul’s description of the Spirit interceding for us with "sighs too deep for words."  But right now  I am in a place of delirium and want only to beat my head against the chest of God, to claim something or to be claimed by something or somebody.  

I believe I am made for hope but in these moments I feel ill-fitted for it.  Will hope find me? Will I miss it as I hurtle along between earth and heaven, adrift in this darkness?