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“Dr. Decker said the cancer grew twice the size since February.”
I froze.
“Myles? Are you still there?”
“I’m here.”

To say I was at a loss for words was an understatement. During the night shift, I called home to find out how my Mom was doing. The last week she had learned from her doctor that a CAT scan done in February had shown a cancerous growth on one of her kidneys. The empty PACU unit all the sudden felt huge. I was a kid again; nervous about news I did not want to hear.

I heard her use words like PET scan, Echo, Stress test, Bone scan, and surgery. All of them were familiar to me, but not in the context of the patient I was hearing about. This was my mother.

Having no history of cancer before, a nephrectomy (the removal of a kidney) would be possible, as long as no cancer had spread to the rest of her body. Still, I’m a nurse. I’ve seen patients come in for stomach problems, only to leave with weeks to live and the news that cancer had metastasized to many areas of their body. I’ve seen patients in their thirties die. I’ve seen how quickly death can take those around us. I’ve been the one to call a daughter and tell her that her mother had passed away only minutes from her leaving the hospital.

But I’ve never been on their side.

As she continued, she began to cry. That was too much. Feelings of guilt, anger, and bitterness for being here welled up inside. All she could tell was a difference in my voice.

“Myles, are you sick?”
“Yeah, I went to the clinic yesterday, they said it was allergies.”
I lied. I’d been to the clinic, but it was a while ago. Considering I was having a hard time speaking, I mainly listened for the rest of the conversation.

C.S. Lewis described grief as feeling like fear. In his reflections following the loss of his wife to cancer (only three years after they were married) he said:

“I am not afraid, but the sensation is like being afraid. The same fluttering in the stomach, the same restlessness, the yawning. I keep on swallowing. At other times it feels like being mildly drunk, or concussed. There is a sort of invisible blanket between the world and me. I find it hard to take in what anyone says. Or perhaps, hard to want to take it in. It is so uninteresting. Yet I want the others to be about me. I dread the moments when the house is empty. If only they would talk to one another and not me.” -(A Grief Observed)

I think the same holds true in reverse. Fear can feel like grief. The unsteady voice, the subtle lethargy, the pain in my eyes, not from tears, but from the urge to shed them, but knowing I would not. I’ve noticed it at funerals. I’ll hold in my emotions, feeling them burn on the inside, as I stand there composed on the outside. I remember feeling alone in the midst of 400 people on the ship.

After my call, I went back to the ward. Having a slow night, I was thankful my books were with me. I could pour into them with a new found urge to ignore the world around me. Once six o’clock came, I was busy enough at the end of the shift to keep my mind occupied.

Over the next week, I remember feeling bitter. I would see all these life changing surgeries, yet silently burn on the inside. The Lord was doing amazing things here, but what about at home? As I would walk on the dock, all I could think of was how much I wanted to leave. The ship felt suffocating and small. I had no interest in being here. I had a month left before my departure. I still did my work happily though. I’m a nurse, hiding my thoughts and judgments are a large part of my career.

I was angry with God. Instead of the thanks I had for the chance to serve here, my thoughts were more, “Seriously? I ask for the chance to serve you for three months and you cannot keep my family safe for that long?” Thank goodness I had sermons, books, hymns, and Bach to calm my thoughts. I was reluctant to see the cross given to my family. Christ told us to pick up our crosses and follow Him. Luther reminds us that we do not choose those crosses. They choose us. That is much easier to say when one is a third party though.

As the days continued, I remembered the conversation between Job and the Lord. When the Lord finally speaks to Job, he does so in the violent torrent of a storm. In the rain and wind, fully lamenting the depth of his loss, Job’s exclamations are answered by the Lord.

Who is this that darkens my counsel
with words without knowledge?
Brace yourself like a man;
I will question you,
and you shall answer me. (Job 38:2-3)

And then God shows Job how expansive, deep, glorious, and almighty His dominion is.

- Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
Tell me, if you have understanding (38:4)
-Have you commanded the morning since your days began,
and caused the dawn to know its place (38:12)
-Have you entered into the springs of the sea,
or walked in the recesses of the deep? (38:16)
-Have the gates of death been revealed to you,
or have you seen the gates of deep darkness? (38:17)

The Lord continues to list just how much he does. He tells how he cares for his creatures, rules nature, and he shows the might of the creation he directs in His Gracious Mercy and Power. His questions read differently to me. His words more resembled this:

-Was it not Gracious that I found the cancer in the first place?
-Considering it was a random test, is it not my hand that pointed the cancer out to the doctors?
-Did I not train the surgeons and nurses to care for her?
-You and your family have always been in my hands, do you not still realize this? All it takes is this small cross to anger you?

And I ended up pondering the words of Job. His response seems the only one suitable to the questions the Lord asked him.

“I know that you can do all things,
and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.
‘Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?’
Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand,
things too wonderful for me, which I did not know”- (42:2-3).

Over the next couple of weeks, Mom gathered as much information as she could. Blessed with her wonderful doctors, she was much calmer as I talked with her the week of the surgery. Meanwhile, life on the Africa Mercy continued for me. Working on the ward gave me a chance to keep my mind occupied.

Wednesday I worked on A-Ward. As I got on the ward, I called reception to let them know my sister would call when Mom was out of surgery. After shift prayer, I got report on all my patients. Two patients were multiple days post-op, one was a new admit, and another was in surgery. I got a suction canister on the wall, as well as an oxygen set-up as I waited for my patient to come back from Surgery. I put a blood pressure monitor in place by her bed. I was ready for her. My patient would arrive in a couple of hours.

As my patient returned from surgery, I got her comfortable in her bed as I checked her vitals. I got report on her from the PACU nurse. She had a total thyroidectomy for removal of a goiter (a swollen thyroid) half the size of a basketball. The PACU nurse left as I took the JP drain bulb off to attach the tubing to low wall suction.

When I finished, I went to write down my patient’s meds. Sarah, the charge nurse, told me my sister was on the phone. Mom had just made it to recovery. She was doing excellent with an uneventful surgery. After getting off the phone with my sister, I emptied the drains from my patient. All the sudden one of our children began to have a seizure. The nurses and doctors came together in a great display of teamwork as we monitored him, got IV access, and gave the kid medication to stop the seizure. His seizures stopped and the rest of the shift went calmly for him. The last couple hours of the evening shift went comfortably busy.

After work I walked on the dock. I remember thinking how the Lord uses us as his instruments. While I thought of my mom during her surgery, some family member was thinking of my patient. As I wanted the best care for my loved one, so did they. Just as I took care of my patient as she came back from surgery, so did some nurse back in Texas. The assessments I did were done at home, as well as the orders, report, precautions, and pain management. My mother was in the hands of strangers, just as my patient did not know me. The whole time she was in the hands of our Lord. If anything would go wrong, he would prompt the nurses to act on it, as he had with our child on A-Ward. He guided the surgeons, as well, using their craft to heal my mother. And just as my patient saw the chaplain before surgery, so my pastor sang and prayed with my mother before hers.

I had no reason to be critical of the Lord for how he acts. Before all, He says He is Gracious and Merciful. Even though I try to interpret what that would mean, I can never know how he will act. He is not a tame God. Though He is always there for us, he reminds us that life presents itself to us in crosses he allows us to bear, giving us the chance to take part in his sufferings. In his Chronicles of Narnia, Lewis repeatedly has characters exclaim how they are ready to see what adventure Aslan has in store for them. It is a light-hearted look at the serious world we live in. The Cross is why His Son came. He faced all our sufferings, here, abroad, and ever, and took them on Himself, nailing them to a tree two thousand years ago.

After my walk, I called Mom in her hospital room. Other than the obvious voice of a person on pain medication, she sounded great. She told me how the doctor had found no other evidence of cancer. Her bone scan had also shown no areas of metastasis. It had all gone smoothly. The God of all Creation had been Gracious enough to remove the cancer from my mother, using the surgeons and nurses as masks of His loving care for her.

May the Lord bless all of you.

To Christ be all Glory!

-Myles

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