J. Michael Jones

No, I have no lab results. However, I was thinking this morning (once again) about this strange world that we who have active cancer face, as well as people with other serious diseases. It is where numbers on a paper (blood tests, biopsies, etc.) will tell you if life goes on the way it is, or where you might be getting a little better. . .  or, where you are starting down a grim path of great suffering and death.

Now, I’ve known Christian patients of mine who say that this waiting game doesn’t bother them, because they know that God is in control. Maybe they are being honest and I really can’t judge, but maybe they are not being honest. I’ve always said that we were human first, before we became people of any kind of faith. We all must carry the same fear of suffering, if not death. This fear has nothing to do with how spiritual we are or how much faith we have and certainly not how big our God is. It is how human (in a good sense) we are. . .  and how emotionally honest we are.

But this time around I noticed that the waiting game has bothered me less. Yes, I could claim that it is a matter of my great faith. I suspect, however, it is more my emotional state of despondency. So many times I’ve worked so hard to improve my labs, only to have them come back worse. Other times, a few times, my labs have surprised me for improving a bit. Of course I still pray that they come back great. I pray for healing too.

I am so tired of walking into medical provider’s offices, those who have seen my labs before me, and they feel like they have to tell my that my labs look like shit (my paraphrase) and this is despite me working my heart out via exercise, diet, supplements and anything I can do. How good it would feel to walk into a provider’s office and they have a smile (rather than scorn written on their face) and they say, “Great labs, Mike! Good work.”  Maybe that’s a fantasy.