Part Ten: The Time Between

            As I take a break from sorting through more of my mother’s files—and she kept everything—I have to laugh.  The file I just browsed through was labeled “Home Decoration,” and it was vintage Mom:  a collection of old greeting card fronts and cardboard calendar backs.  Yesterday I read through her Christmas letters from 1953 to 2006, keeping a copy of each one but tossing innumerable cards and letters from people I know and people I don’t.  I’ve looked through scraps of paper with grocery lists, phone numbers, home budgeting notes, and to-do lists; Medicare claims, doctor’s office visits, and hospital discharge instructions; bank statements, property information, trip expense ledgers, and receipts; yellowed newspaper clippings, old business cards, and 1970s articles on building dome and earth contact homes. And all that is from the first two of four drawers.

            Thus, the past few days I have been living in a type of time between past and present as I consider what the future may hold for me.  It has been a week since my bone scan and CT scan.  I have rested, reflected, and read, counting it a good sign that I was able to get lost in an absorbing historical novel instead of googling “triple negative breast cancer.”  I’ve spent time with friends, time with my grandchildren, time with my daughter and son-in-law, and time with my son.  (In fact, last night I actually won a Scrabble game played with my son.  The turning point was the word “snooze” placed on a triple word score.)  And thanks to the generous efforts of friends, I sit tonight in a clean house surrounded by a freshly mowed yard.

            In this in-between time, I’ve also had the plumber out to fix the stopped-up kitchen sink and slow flowing bathroom sinks.  That was Friday, just hours before my car decided it was not going to move in reverse any more.  That day’s happy surprise was a prayer quilt made by a dear friend.  Over the weekend, the cancellation of my Whidbey Island vacation plans for July was finalized.  On Monday, the Ford place fixed the transmission, covered by both recall and warranty, at no cost to me.

            Tomorrow morning my daughter takes me to my second MRI of the month—this time to check the T11 vertebra that lit up on last week’s bone scan.  Next week Dana will take me to my appointment with my medical oncologist on Monday afternoon and to my Tuesday morning port placement. 

            I am still in the easy, early days of this breast cancer journey, though the time since I discovered the lump—two months ago yesterday—seems like an eternity.  Sometimes I wish so much that I could call my mother and my sister to tell them all about what is happening, but neither one left me a phone line to heaven.  Mostly, I am amazed by the love showering down on me from family and friends.  And always, I am grateful for Jesus. Without him, I would be lost in more ways than one.