Pain

What is more excruciating to walk through, physical or emotional pain? Before this past week, I would have immediately answered emotional pain is more excruciating than physical pain, WITHOUT HESITATION!

1992
"I know I can fight you, but until I can take down the Kool-Aid Kid, I won't believe that I will be able to defend myself." The Kool-Aid Kid was a nick-name I gave to the biggest student in Karate World. I had only been learning Karate for 3 months, but I was good, really good at it. Every single time I learned something new, I had to try it out on him. Poor guy was such a good sport! He let me flip him, kick him and beat on him all the time. They all knew why. They knew I NEEDED to do this in order to get my life back. I had all the classic post-traumatic stress signs. In order for me to take my life back, I needed to physically defend myself. I welcomed the bruises I earned at that school. The physical pain somehow helped me heal emotionally.

2000
"Please let me read the label on that bottle. It HAS to be hydrochloric acid!" I begged the nurse who was debreeding my right hand. Her voice was steady as she sympathized, "Mrs. Joyce, it is sterile water, but here it is so you can read it. You have sustained second degree, partial thickness burns. Your nerves are completely exposed. I know you've taken your pain meds. We can't stop the pain, we can only alter your perception of it." I felt as if my hand was still in the fire for two weeks straight. They taught me how to hold a pencil, spoon, everything all over again. Physical therapy is tough. Physical pain hurts. Thank God for creating us with bodies that can heal.

2001
"Monte, everything hurts...everything, even my hair," I sobbed as she held my hopeless body. Tim had just taken Zachary from me. I knew Tim would do everything possible to make sure I would never see Zachary again. I couldn't even take comfort in the words he spoke before leaving, "I'm sorry, I knew what I was before I married you." That was his way of apologizing for the abuse. I knew he didn't want to hurt me, although in my heart of hearts I knew he would eventually kill me. I gave everything to that man. I was NOT the cause of the abuse, nor the adultery. He chose to do these things. I was ashamed that I couldn't keep Zachary because I knew that meant I had to keep a relationship with Tim. Although he was not my biological child, he was the one who gave me the strength to retaliate when his father attacked me. There is nothing, absolutely NOTHING more painful than losing a child.

What pain did to Mom...
"Lisa, today, today, today..." stammered Mother. Her voice was so full of joy. She was not in pain for the first time, she truly was happy. You know that joy that comes from the deepest part of your heart? This was that! She continued to explain that Jill had found her. Jill is my sister, well half-sister, but halfsies don't count. She is my SISTER! She described every part of her conversation with Jill. I don't remember any of it now. I just remember listening to her and realizing that it was the first time we had a conversation in which I did not hear the familiar ice clinking in the glass. She called in the morning from the bar. Yet, she was sober and full of life. Mom was whole. God brought her child back to her. Jill was so kind to her. Emotional pain caused Mom to turn to alcohol, which gripped and choked her life while she was living and in the end killed her physically.

Mom abandoned me when I was a child. It hurt her to have a relationship with me. She did not feel 'fit' to be a mother. Forgiving her is so easy. I know she was filling her loss of Jill with alcohol. There were several times that she was supposed to pick me up and she would forget. I would wait all day in the living room looking out the window. I don't remember doing that, but I do remember as I got older thinking, out of sight=out of mind. When I was 21, we started our relationship. I would call her as I grocery shopped at night. She would entertain me with her CRAZY~MAD sense of humor.

16 September 2004
"I'm sorry to tell you this, but your mother could die at any time. There is nothing more we can do." Wow, these words were not what I wanted to hear. Hannah Beth was less than three months old. She has never met her, nor my husband, Ray.

2-3 October 2004
Karri had accrued air miles and used them to give me a ticket to see her. Hannah Beth and I flew to California on October 2nd. I drove and hour and a half straight to Mom's hospital. We arrived around ten that night. They would not let me in. I explained that she could die any moment and I just came in from Texas. "Visiting hours begin at 8 A.M., you may return tomorrow." On October 3, 2004 at 7:00 AM, my cell phone rang. "I'm sorry, but your mother died just a moment ago." I screamed, "Are you crazy!?! You are the same ugly nurse that wouldn't let me see her last night! You do realize that right?"

I was in utter shock as I walked through her trailer that same day. It was a museum of my life. Every single photo she had of me from the time I was a baby, even until that same year was framed on the walls of every room. She carried Hannah Beth's birth announcement in her purse. I never knew she thought about me that much. I really thought she forgot about me when we didn't talk for long periods of time. Emotional pain is much worse than physical pain.

March 28, 2009
"Why do you have to go through this? You have done so much for others." Ray was interrogating me. He did not understand why I would have to walk through this journey. "Babe, it's not what I have done. It's what He will have me learn. Jesus will draw me closer to Him. I just know there is a reason for this. His kingdom will come. Somehow, He will use this so I may be able to help some person in the future. I'm okay with this, really. I don't know why, but I am really at peace."

December 2009
When the emotional strain of illness and all it entails and never ending pain collide, there is no distinguishing between which one is more excruciating. They become interconnected. All pain is relative. There is a point in which a person has endured such great physical pain for so long, that deep emotional pain is birthed. When the battles before this year came and went, the Lord was with me. He fought for me. I am truly an overcomer! I may not feel like one now, but I know in my heart of hearts God created me to go over the hurdles in life and not under. God will go before me and destroy the enemy. This I know. I do have to draw my sword and use it like never before.

Because now...
I see the faces of all these people that love and care for me. All of these faces, all these words of encouragement and empathy on cards, e-mails and letters are revealing the hearts of those around me. They see what I have blocked out this year. PAIN...the agony of fighting for so long. I believe I have already beaten cancer. I truly believe it is completely eradicated from my body. I don't have complete medical proof. I don't need it. I just know. I'm completing the treatments because I trust my doctors and my very pro-active parents implicitly.

Because now...
I have to fight for my man. I have to do whatever it takes to figure out how to show him the respect and complete unconditional and passionate love that he so deserves.

Because now...
The pain management team has assured me that yes, I am hypersensitive to the touch on my entire chest and right side of my upper torso. The pain is real. It is nerve pain. It's effecting my right arm, right side of my rib cage, right back shoulder all the way down to the bottom of my rib cage. Thank you, Jesus that the tumor was on my right side and NOT my left. Otherwise we'd have to watch my heart even more closely! I'm mortified of narcotics because I don't want to develop an addiction. The alternatives are physical therapy, seeking psychiatric help to deal with stress and medication to treat the problem at the root. NO more Ativan! Hooray! Just the steroids, new anti-seizure medication (stops the nerve impulses), and pain meds ONLY if I just can't handle it anymore. I've gone from 18 medications to just 3. Wow! P.S. If I get committed, I'm requesting a pink straight jacket...SERIOUSLY!

Because now...
The floodgates that have been holding back the tempest are getting weak. My coping skills are completely gone. I'm fussing at Hannah Beth for jumping too close to me because I'm terrified she'll accidentally bump my chest. Really? I give Aiden to the first person I can or on the floor when he barely bumps my chest the wrong way. Really? Do they get to have their childhoods ripped away from them because I'm living in fear and succumbing to the pain? NO!

So now...
I have put my fatigues back on. My armor (Eph 6) is in place. I will fight for my mind to come back. I will be able to trust my decision-making. I will be patient and kind and loving. I will BE STILL.

Psalm 46:10 "Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth."