I’m crying less these days.  I think I would be rich if I had some pennies for every time I’ve smiled through tears over the last months.   Often the smile means God is giving us grace for yet another difficult thing, sometimes it just means I’m embarrassed to be crying again!   It has been a month of tears for sure... the last two weeks found us crying in at Caleb’s side in NICU, with friends in the hospital cafeteria, and alone in a hospital bed with Nathan beside me on the pull out couch.

It seems that the last few days there have been many reasons to smile, no tears in the mix.   On Monday Caleb was released from NICU, to our delight and surprise.   They had removed his feeding tube on Sunday night, and he continued to be able to finish his bottles on his own.   We had hoped for maybe the end of the week, and to have him join us so soon was definite cause for celebration.   I think that more than anything I felt a sort of exhausted contentment... all of my little ones were together at last.  (You can see some videos and pics at Caleb Clips and Photos.)

But I was exhausted.   I am feeling some effects from the chemo... dizziness and I guess a general weariness most of all.  Today was actually a better day than the last three, so I am really grateful.   I sort of figured that every day would get worse than the one before it, but today I had a lot less dizzy, lightheaded moments.  

People have wondered about my treatments, if I’m taking chemo every day, etc.   I don’t know a lot about cancer and other treatments, but for my type of breast cancer, I am on a three week rotation.   I get my chemo, and about ten days into it is when my lowest blood counts should be, the time when the body has been depleted by the chemo.  After that it starts to build back up over the next ten days or so, until my next treatment.   The effects of the chemo are cumulative, they will build up over time, so the lows will get lower, and the highs will be lower as well.   I have six rounds, so we’re looking at eighteen weeks.   From what I understand, it will take about three months after the end of my chemo before my body starts to strengthen again, and months beyond that as it tries to restore the damage of the chemo.  

Hopefully, I can stay strong and as healthy as possible through this process, and I am trusting the Lord to carry us.   I’m taking an arsenal of stuff through our naturopathic doctor’s recommendation that should help my body through the chemo rounds.   The herceptin drug that I had that initial reaction to will continue to be taken for 12 months, and somewhere in the midst of it, after my 18 weeks of chemo, I’m supposed to have a mastectomy and then start radiation.   That’s all just the doctor’s equation... we’re looking to Jesus each step of the way, assuming nothing and leaning hard.

But the tears are still there.   We’re in this little routine of life at Miss Sue’s house, laughing with the children, delighting in the beauty around us, enjoying baby Caleb... but underneath it all there is this shadow called cancer, and even the happiest moments feel like smiling through tears.

One such moment was when the doorbell rang today.   “Carlee!  It looks like a special delivery!  Go get the door!”   Mom and Dani had just returned from a little bit of time away together for lunch when the doorbell rang and they peered out the front window.   I went to the door wondering what they meant... had someone sent me flowers?   The delivery guy had his back to me when the door opened, reading a slip of paper as if looking to see if the address was correct.   When he turned around I started crying yet again.   It was my Dad.   They hadn’t told me he was coming, in fact their lunch outing had included picking him up from the airport!   Some dear friends had even given him funds for the airfare when they heard that the Lord had been speaking to his heart that it was time to go to Alaska.   It was easy to smile through those tears.       

And there are tears that you just can’t smile through, like the email I got from a new friend, Julie.  She heard the story of my cancer in a round about way, and has taken time to email me words of encouragement in the midst of their own grief.   Their little girl Annie is just under two years old, she’s fighting a terrible cancer, and the last scans were not good.   (Friends, when you pray for me, will you pray for this family as well?)  Suddenly our pain feels so small, as I watch my healthy children play and think of the babies left behind in NICU.       

I feel very void of answers tonight.   I saw a lot of pain in my husband’s eyes today, and I don’t know how to fix it.   I was snuggling Wesley in an almost normal moment until he pulled at my shirt and I saw the tube poking through my chest where the chemo dumps into my blood stream.   In the moment there is joy and peace, but try to glimpse ahead and there is a tumultuous sea of uncertainty.   

So I don’t know what to do, or what answers to give, but just to run to Jesus.  In my heart I see Him like an oak tree, deep roots of a lifetime of finding Him trustworthy make me certain that I can nestle there and be safe from the storm.   So I hunker down, safe in the arms of Jesus, and I’m smiling again.... through my tears.