"I Just Don't Want to Shrink"

After my bone marrow biopsy and spinal tap last week, I ended up with the dreaded spinal headache.  I didn't anticipate it, since I've had two other spinal taps in the past 6 months without any problem.  But, this one got me.  Anytime I was upright -- sitting or standing -- my head pounded and I felt completely sick to my stomach.  I could hardly eat anything, and couldn't keep down what I tried to eat.  I had to go back to the clinic twice for IV fluids.  I'm not going to pretend I was a hero; I was fairly ticked to be feeling so miserable.  I figure there's plenty of feeling miserable ahead so I didn't really want to do it now.  I was so frustrated that I couldn't take care of my kids...because, again, plenty of that ahead.  The last week has pretty much consisted of my parents or Cory taking me to doctor's appointments (because I felt too sick to drive myself), and staying horizontal as much as I could.  I've hated feeling like a burden already because there's long road ahead of having to completely depend on Cory and my parents and brothers and sisters to take care of my family and myself.  That is the hardest part of all this.  Friends, this is not something I want to do. Some days, I just have to let myself admit that.  I'm scared for what's ahead for me physically, and I don't want my family to have to do this. But, as my mom says my wise grandma said, "You don't gotta wanna, ya just gotta." So, we gotta do this.  And we won't do it alone.  Besides the blessing of help from my family and friends that are physically here with us, we know there is extraordinary help beyond what we can see.

We did have a brief moment where it looked like a transplant may not be necessary. Based on something Dr. Shami saw in my blood recently, he wanted to do some genetic testing to see if we might be able to find that I have a low-risk leukemia (meaning low risk of relapse). If this were the case, I would just need a couple more rounds of consolidation chemo and we'd be done.  And right now, a couple rounds of chemo sounds like a cakewalk compared to a transplant. Oh, how we prayed and hoped this would be the case.  We met with Dr. Shami yesterday.  The genetic tests came back negative, which means we move forward with the transplant as our ultimate hope for a cure.  I was disappointed.  Maybe disappointed is an understatement.  Cory reminded me that now is the real test of our faith.  Heavenly Father wants us to ask for things, for miracles even.  And miracles do happen; we've seen that already.  For now, though, that was not the particular miracle we were to see.  Now, Cory reminded me, the test of our faith comes as we respond to what we do have to do; not to what we wanted.  Apparently, the Lord has a greater purpose for us in what's ahead. And it is in our Father and Savior that we place ALL of our trust, confidence, hope, and faith. I keep thinking of a recent talk by Elder David A. Bednar, an apostle in our church.  He spoke about conversations with Elder Neal A. Maxwell, also an apostle in our church, who battled leukemia himself.  Elder Bednar told the following:

During the course of our conversations that day, I asked Elder Maxwell what lessons he had learned through his illness. I will remember always the precise and penetrating answer he gave. “Dave,” he said, “I have learned that not shrinking is more important than surviving.”

His response to my inquiry was a principle with which he had gained extensive personal experience during his chemotherapy. As Elder Maxwell and his wife were driving to the hospital in January of 1997, on the day he was scheduled to begin his first round of treatment, they pulled into the parking lot and paused for a private moment together. Elder Maxwell “breathed a deep sigh and looked at [his wife]. He reached for her hand and said … , ‘I just don’t want to shrink’” (Bruce C. Hafen, A Disciple’s Life: The Biography of Neal A. Maxwell [2002], 16).

In his October 1997 general conference message, entitled “Apply the Atoning Blood of Christ,” Elder Maxwell taught with great authenticity: “As we confront our own … trials and tribulations, we too can plead with the Father, just as Jesus did, that we ‘might not … shrink’—meaning to retreat or to recoil (D&C 19:18). Not shrinking is much more important than surviving! Moreover, partaking of a bitter cup without becoming bitter is likewise part of the emulation of Jesus” (Ensign, Nov. 1997, 22). (To read Elder Bednar's full talk, "That We Might Not Shrink" , click here).

Elder Maxwell was referring to a scripture found in the Doctrine and Covenants, a collection of modern-day revelation scriptures.  In Doctrine and Covenants 19:18, the Savior says this of His suffering in Gethsemane:

"Which suffering caused myself,even God, the greatest of all, to tremble because of pain, and to bleed at every pore, and to suffer both body and spirit -- and would not I might not drink the bitter cup, and shrink --"

I've thought of that phrase over and over the last several months: "I just don't want to shrink".  I've faltered and whined; I'm human.  I've said I don't want to do this.  Always, though, I have to pull myself back to that phrase.  There is a higher purpose in this, as there is for anything any of us have to face in this life.  We all have stuff.  All of you reading this have your own burdens you are bearing.  You keep going, and we'll keep going.  And we'll all help each other along the way as we become who the Lord knows we are.