- Hope Deferred (I Dreamed A Dream)

Hi Everyone, so today was a pretty decent day (well, technically, it was yesterday, but I'm finally posting this at 1:51 am Wednesday morning). Got to the hospital around 11:15 am to check into ODS (One Day Surgery). See, even when you have something seriously wrong with you, Quebec hospitals still only want you to hang around for a few hours after your operation, and then it's like, "Get outta here, you whiner !!"

Wanna qualify for a longer stay in hospital? Halfway through your stay in the Recovery Room, start acting strange and disoriented, drool a bit and say random things in a scared whisper like "I see dead people walking around!" and I guess they'd have to transfer you to a room  for an overnight stay (although this could work against you if they decide you need a padded cell or something).

Another way to qualify for an overnight stay would be to become best friends with the Head Nurse, a Hospital Administrator, or the Guy In Charge of Housekeeping, and I suppose that could open some doors for you as well.

Anyways, I wasn't feeling that adventurous today, so I opted for acting normally and leaving on time. Surgery was at 2 pm and lasted about half an hour. For those of you just tuning in to this blog (hmm, how far back in this fascinating story should I go? "I was born in 1959 to parents who were..." No, no, no - too far back...), I was diagnosed with breast cancer on August 19th of this year, had a double mastectomy September 15th, and found out October 15th that one of the two lymph nodes they'd removed was positive.

Today, I went back into surgery to get another bunch of lymph nodes removed for analysis, to see if the cancer has spread further than previously thought, and if so, how much. And, since Quebec hospitals also believe that a bit of suspense adds spice to life, I'll now have to wait 2 - 4 weeks to find out just how many of those lymph nodes, if any, are positive for cancer. Yay! I love a mystery! Phhhhttt.

George very kindly took me in and hung around the hospital all day, and then we came back to his place where he's spoiling me with endless cups of tea and great home cooked meals. So I'm very blessed.

Of course, Timmy is here, too, helping me to recuperate. He's a real trooper (see picture at right).

My doctor went in through the same small incision he'd previously made near my right underarm when he removed the two lymph nodes on September 15th. He says he removed a bunch of fat or tissue or whatever today and has no idea how many lymph nodes are in there...that's someone else's job to dig those out now.

I woke up in lots of pain and wasn't getting any relief from the pain meds they were giving me, so they added a sedative into the mix and I had a lovely, drowsy afternoon until they kicked me out around 6 pm tonight.

It's amazing the stuff you learn when you have a certain illness.  I'd never heard of the term "receptors" in relation to tumors, but gradually I'm learning more about them. Breast cancer tumors have 3 possible receptors: Estrogen, Progesterone, and HER2. I am positive for Estrogen and Progesterone, and negative for HER2.

Today, my doctor told me I'll probably only need 4 rounds of chemo - around 6 months worth - because I am negative for HER2. Yay! He'd previously told me that my chemo would probably last a year. So that will be cool, although I am certainly not going to get my hopes up until the final pathology report comes in next month.

And so now I wait. I wait for news of my health, I wait until I start chemo, probably in November or December, and I wait for my deferred dreams (of going into overseas missions) to become a reality.

There's a verse in the Bible that says, "Hope deferred makes the heart sick." (Proverbs 13:12). I get that! If you're a human being, you've probably had this experience at one time or another in your life, too. You wait for something you really, really want, you hope like crazy it'll come your way, and month after month - or maybe year after year or - ugh - even decade after decade, you wait....and you wait....and you wait....until your hope is just about crushed.

You wait for that promotion.....you wait to meet Mr. or Mrs. Right....you wait for that big break....for your moment in the sun.

You wait for the moment you can finally afford your first home....you wait for your erring child to smarten up, to see the light and to start living right....you wait for retirement....for the moment when you don't have to run around every single day like a madman....

You wait for the day you start feeling better....or for the day you don't feel so broken inside, or so dysfunctional, or so whatever. You wait and you wait until it feels like your head is going to explode if you have to wait another single, blessed minute. And, like the verse above says, if you wait too long, that wait can become unbearable, turning hope into despair, despondency, and resignation to reality.

It's normal to dream....to see beyond our "today". Susan Boyle had a dream - to become a famous, world-class singer. Born when her mother was 47, she was briefly deprived of oxygen during the difficult birth and was later diagnosed as having learning difficulties. She was bullied as a child, was nicknamed "Susie Simple" by other children, and left school with very few qualifications. She sometimes visited the theatre to listen to professional singers, and though she performed at a number of local venues, it never amounted to much of anything.

Susan almost abandoned her plan to enter Britain's Got Talent, but someone persuaded her to audition despite her believing "...she was too old and that it was a young person's game". Boyle said that her mother's death motivated her to go on the show, so she auditioned to pay tribute to her mother.

Overnight, Susan became internationally known. The most popular YouTube video submission of her audition for the show garnered nearly 2.5 million views in the first 72 hours. A total of 103 million video views on 20 different websites was reached within nine days. ABC News hailed her "Britain's newest pop sensation", and its Entertainment section headlined Boyle as "The Woman Who Shut Up Simon Cowell".

The song she chose to sing, "I Dreamed a Dream" is from the stage musical "Les Miserables" or "The Miserable Ones", based on a novel written in 1862. The song is sung as a solo by the character Fantine, a woman whose life is one of abject poverty and tragedy. Fantine has given birth to an illegitimate daughter, is abandoned by the father of the child, and is forced to resort to prostitution in order to pay for her daughter's board and expenses. She spends time in prison, and though she is released, she dies a premature death.

There is no wonder that we are stirred deeply by this woman named Susan Boyle, whose dream is now coming true in mid-life, in a time when the economy has robbed so many of their dreams, and who sings about the hopelessness of someone whose dreams never came true.

Susan's new album "I Dreamed A Dream" is slated for release November 23rd, 2009.

And what about you? Have your dreams become a faint reality? Distant at best? Are you bogged down in despair? Barely hanging on? Hanging by a thread?

Hang in there, fellow pilgrim; all is not lost. Perhaps you need to let go of your dream....to "let go and let God", so to speak. Maybe you need to surrender your dream, your dreams, to the One Who created you, and let Him do something spectacular in your life, something new and different, as I believe He is in the process of doing for me.

Maybe His dreams for you are far deeper than the dreams you've ever had for yourself! I'm preaching to myself, here, believe me! I'm choosing to ponder this for myself, because the only other alternative at this point is for me to give in to despair, and I simply cannot afford to do that right now.

And so I live in hope. Hope that my dreams won't be deferred too much longer, yes, but also hope - wondrous hope! - that God's plans are far better than mine, and He is working out something very beautiful in my life right now.

Surrender your dreams to Him today, and see what new dreams He has waiting for you.