Living through the first couple weeks of waiting and wondering what the lump could be was a nightmare. We found the lump on a Friday evening, so the soonest we could call a doctor was 3 days later. It was disconcerting to wait, but I wasn't fearful yet. The regular doctor saw him that Monday. An ultrasound was ordered for Friday of that week. We still had no answers, it could be anything from a cyst, lypoma, an infection or cancer. It got a little scarier knowing the doctor couldn't immediately rule out cancer. The other difficulty was that I couldn't talk to anyone about my fears -my husband had requested that we not share such a personal issue while it was still unknown. I began fearing for my husband's life. I began wondering how in the world I would raise our children alone, let alone attempt to help them deal with the loss of their beloved daddy. I cried, I stressed, and I felt utterly lost and alone except when I took the time to pray. My prayers didn't have much focus at the time. I prayed for God's will because I know he has our lives in his master plan. I knew God would provide for me whatever the outcome. After days of living in constant lack of focus and fear I realized I hadn't given it to God. I'd prayed and asked for his help, but I was still trying to carry the burden on my own. When I stopped worrying about tomorrow, I put my total trust in God to take care of all of my tomorrows. I began focusing on each specific day, we started doing more things with our children, and with each other. We began carefully talking about this new hurdle we were facing.
It was even scary to talk to my husband because I didn't want to burden him with my uncontrolled emotions and fears. I wanted to support him and help his stability...but after we started talking and listening to each other, we grew closer and eased the other's concerns.
After putting my trust and confidence in the Lord, I went into "survival mode". I stopped making plans for the future and literally only focused on each day as it came...I was too afraid to make plans or dream dreams in case the worst happened and dashed those hopes into the ground. It was another two weeks before I found the way to start living 'normally' again.
Living normally consisted of starting to think of the future again, but not really planning for the future. My husband and I talk of things we want to do, but we only spend time planning for the immediate future...dealing with one step of this journey at a time. Our future dreams are much the same as they were before, but the implications in our thoughts are very different. Now instead of my dreams being expectations, they are simply hopes. Things that I am aware may not occur or could change with the unknown future circumstances. For instance, in survival mode I didn't even dare to think of my youngest child's upcoming birthday. Now we have talked about it, talked about what we'd like to do for her, but it is only talk. We won't start taking actions for it until we have passed some of the more immediate events in our future.
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