Spring renewal…

I used to believe that fall was my favorite time of year, and in many ways it still is. Sweater weather is great after a grueling summer of heat and humidity, especially here in the south. But more and more, I have come to love spring.

Watching all the things come back to life. The lovely pallette of colors that show up to dot God’s canvas. It makes me smile. It fills my soul. It gives me hope.

And right now, I could use a bunch of all three.

A few months back, at Christmas time, my sister Cathy came home for the week, as she has for the past 25 years or so since my mom’s passing. We look forward to the visit all year. Now, I make it home to Chicago in between most years to spend some additional time with her, but Christmas is a guarantee.

Cathy has missed a few of these visits in the past; once because of a Chicago-style blizzard (that year we left the Christmas tree up until her visit in April) and a few times because she tends to get sick that time of year with respiratory gunk.

Cathy hates missing Christmas. I hate when she misses it, too.

This year just before the holiday she started coughing. We speak every Thursday night, so I could tell she was trying to repress the cough when we were on the phone.

“I’m okay, Cheryl. I’ll rest and drink a lot of water…” she would say with force before I could get the suggestions in myself. Her FOMO in full swing.

I asked her staff lead, Kim, to take her to the doc to make sure she would get some meds and be okay to travel.

Kim assured me she had been seen and given meds and was given the OK to travel, so home Cathy came.

By the time she got to us, her cough was atrocious. The spasms so gripping she couldn’t speak or control them.

I was angry.

Not at Cathy, not at all. I was angry with the doctor who prescribed her cough “pills” but not antibiotics (I’ll ask more specific questions in the future). I was angry that she had to travel in this condition which had to be a rough 3-hours on a dry airplane. I was a little angry at Kim for not calling it and talking to me about postponing the trip.

And poor Cathy. All she could do for Christmas was literally sit on the couch because moving = coughing spasms.

We wound up ordering a wheelchair for her tour through the CLT airport on her way home. Walking was too much of a strain for her lungs. Upon her return, Kim brought her back to the doc, who this time prescribed antibiotics, which she promptly failed after taking the course. No doubt, whatever she had was much worse after her travel.

A few weeks later, Cathy was prescribed a second, stronger course of antibiotics, which by mid-February it was clear she had failed as well.

When I realized she was still coughing, albeit a dry cough, her voice still sounding like Phyllis Diller’s (or any long-term smoker from my midwest childhood), I demanded she go back to the doc and maybe be referred to a pulmonologist. Which, thankfully, finally happened.

Kim took Cathy to the specialist two weeks ago, and they ordered a CT and blood panel. The results came back early last week.

Both were abnormal.

When Cathy went back for her follow-up, Kim Facetimed me in. And there it was, clear as day on the lung CT.

Cathy has a golf ball-sized mass on her right lung. Directly attached to the bronchial opening. Her coughing is literally her body trying to gasp for a full breath.

As the conversation with the doctor continued, he explained next steps. A biopsy would be required, but his schedule was booked the next week. It would be the Thursday or Friday after. Regardless of the outcome of the biopsy, the mass cannot be removed. It’s in the dead-center of her lung, and there’s no way to get to it without a) destroying the lung or b) removing the lung, neither of which is a viable option.

Cathy is 71 years old biologically (she’d want me to share that she’ll be 72 on her birthday, May 6th)…but mentally and emotionally, she’s around 8-10. She’s had surgery before, so when the doctor said she’d be asleep for the procedure, her biggest concern was that she was going to have to have an IV in her hand. Bless her. All I could think was, “That’s right, baby, you focus on making it through the IV.” Cathy does not understand the implications of her condition or what is likely up ahead. I am thankful for a few remaining moments of her being unaware.

The one thing I am not is naive. Having had cancer myself, having lost my mother to it, having witnessed other friends deal with it, and listening to stories of their loved ones battling it, I am highly aware that lung cancer by itself is not often the starting point. It is often a metastatic site.

I am not borrowing worries, I am being a realist.

The chances that Cathy has cancer elsewhere is pretty high. And the prognosis is not awesome. And as much as I am aware of this reality, where I have been naive is in considering my sister’s mortality.

Somehow, I always pictured that Cathy would take after our Aunt Alma. Aunt Alma was my grandfather’s cousin. And she lived to be 96. Her faculties were intact until she was about 94. She was a tough old bird, that one.

But the reality is, other than Aunt Alma, we don’t have the strongest or longest genes. Both my parents died in their 60s, my paternal grandparents in their 50s, and my maternal grandparents in their early 70s. It’s not a guarantee, but if you aren’t on it health and lifestyle-wise, it can be an indicator of a losing ticket in the lifespan gene pool.

I just always assumed Cathy’s specialness would somehow protect her. She’s never smoked a day in her life, never had a drink of alcohol, and never experienced the stress of raising a family or paying a mortgage. In many ways, her lifestyle is that of an 8-year old.

I was upset, then angry once I started really digesting the information. It’s not fair that Cathy will likely be subjected to treatment – Chemo and radiation to, at best, shrink the tumor(s). That she’ll have to experience pain and nausea and all the things that are associated with treatment, and still, the likelihood she’ll go into full remission is pretty low.

And then I was reminded of Psalm 39:4:

LORD, remind me how brief my time on earth will be.
Remind me that my days are numbered—
how fleeting my life is.

None of us are promised unlimited time on earth. I have no idea how long I will get either. One thing for sure is while I’m here, it will never feel like enough. I have no doubt crossing over into Jesus’s arms will be glorious and I will release my hold on my earthly life in that same instant, but for now, only knowing my earthly life, I’m pretty attached.

And I’m pretty attached to my sister, for that matter.

My mom always said, time moves quickly the older you get. That statement has never been truer than in this moment. Cathy is my big sister. She’s just always been a part of my life. I am having trouble processing a world where that isn’t the reality.

Cathy’s biopsy is scheduled for April 11th. I’ll be there with her for the procedure. I feel blessed to be in a position where I can travel to be with her.

If you’ve stuck with me this long, I ask if you are a praying friend, family or stranger who stumbled upon this message, that you pray on Cathy’s behalf. Pray that she feels comfort in the coming days and weeks. That she finds restorative rest and even that she stays a little naive in the process. Pray that she feels the love of all her family and friends, and most of all that she feels the love of her heavenly father.

I know Cathy is “special” and young-in-mind, and would be returning to God in the end, regardless, but one constant thing about Cathy, she loves Jesus. She is an unshakeable, undeniable believer. I have zero doubt that anyone who comes near her will know Jesus better for it. And maybe that will be part of this story. It will be interesting to see who God brings in her path (a nurse, a doctor, a hospital staff member) that needs a little more Jesus in their life. Cathy will be more than happy to make an introduction.

Amen.