When you are 32 you generally don't have much reason to think about how long you are going to live. My grandfather died when he was three weeks shy of turning 89. My grandmother is still kicking at nearly 88. But when you hear the words "brain tumor" and they are talking about your head, you start to think about death. It's not that I thought about death all the time after my diagnosis. I thought about many aspects of my surgery and many outcomes. I also knew very little about my diagnosis, and sometimes reading about it online emphasized the worst possible outcomes. Most people who have low-grade brain tumors don't spend much time writing about them, so people searching for answers online tend to hear the more tragic stories. So, I had days when I thought about death.
But more than thinking about death, I pondered about my situation more generally. Having a brain tumor felt like a big deal. It consumed my time immediately. I had a complicated schedule of doctors' appointments and I had no choice when those appointments would be (the drawbacks of working with a busy med-school hospital). In between scheduling babysitters, I would try to process the emotions I was feeling. Was I nervous about brain surgery? How would my surgery affect my ability to care for my kids? How would it affect my work? Would I ever be "normal" again? Why do I feel so overwhelmed? Am I allowed to feel overwhelmed or would that mean I am worrying too much?
I thought of every talk or sermon I had heard in church about people who were really suffering--a woman who had a poor relationship with her parents and was single and contracted cancer but still served as the president of her congregation's women's organization, a man who accidentally ran over and killed his son with a truck, a woman who couldn't move but kept a "can-do" list that included gratitude for being able to breathe. Here I was driving myself to doctors' appointments, breathing, walking, and feeling the support of my husband and parents! Who was I to even think my suffering registered on the scale of suffering? No one would ever use my life as an example of real suffering in a sermon! And then I thought, "Well, if this isn't a death sentence, then is doesn't really count."
But I still prayed because I still needed help. And I studied scripture--the Bible, the Book of Mormon, and sermons from modern church leaders. Then the answers came. First, God loved me no matter what, and He was helping me through this substantial challenge. He did consider this to be a real challenge, and He wasn't going to leave me alone. Second, God was upset that I hadn't come to Him with other challenges over the past few years! I was wrong to think that I was supposed to handle loneliness and isolation from moving to a new state without His help. That challenge and others with it were real challenges too, and God could have helped me through them. Third, God needs people to live, do His work, and take care of the people who can't take care of themselves. We may hear stories about people who are so sick they are incapacitated (and there is a lot to learn from these stories!), but none of those people who are sick could survive without stronger, willing, able people to carry them along their way. Yes, I was going to be cared for and lifted up for what felt like quite awhile to me, but I also felt that Heavenly Father wanted me to live and that I still had a lot to give.
With those feelings marinating, I ran into a friend on the trail by our house. She was kind and thoughtful as she checked on how I was doing. This friend does so much good, but she does it in the background. To my knowledge she is relatively healthy and able-bodied. She raises her children, supports her husband in his demanding career and church responsibilities, and reaches out to care for people in many ways. After we talked, I wrote her a note thanking her for what she does and sharing with her what I had felt about the importance of living--that it is a gift, but it is also a responsibility, and I appreciated how she was helping me and others. I continued to feel comforted by the feeling I had that God wanted me to live and would pull me through this.
At the same time though, I had fears and concerns about dying. There was a morning back in July when I struggled to fold our family's clean clothes and my children were being rambunctious. I felt so limited (partially from the Keppra I had been taking), and I wondered if it would be better for my family if I died from the brain tumor. I wondered if my husband would be happier to remarry and have more children with someone else. Those feelings vanished after I was off the medicine, but after surgery the pain was sometimes so intense, and sometimes what doctors would recommend for treatment was so intense, that I started to fear death. I worried my children would forget me or that I would be replaced by a step-mother. I worried that if I died my husband would fall in love with someone else and I would not matter anymore to the people I love so much. I prayed passionately that I would be allowed to live.
If you haven't had a potentially life-threatening illness, this all may sound absurd. But I don't think these feelings are unusual under the circumstances. I have had to come to terms with the reality that I don't know when I will die or how much time I have left--not because I had a brain tumor but because anything could happen, anytime, anywhere, that would disrupt my plan for my life. Learning to trust God more has been a blessing throughout this process. I have learned to enjoy my life more on a day-to-day basis instead of taking it for granted. I'm working to prioritize the people and things that matter most to me, living in a way that will support who I am and what I want to be for decades, if necessary, but that will also allow me to build memories and be happy in the moment too. I think that is a hard mentality to fully grasp in today's American culture. We are big on deprivation and sacrifice (think Whole 30, extreme exercise regimens, staying at work all night to one day get a promotion, etc.). And I am trying to get beyond that, to enjoy the moment as well as I can while still being responsible about planning for the future.
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