From the Hilltop



He makes my feet like the feet of a deer;
    he causes me to stand on the heights.

Psalm 18:33



 

It has been such a long time since I've written a post!

The weather is beginning to cool, and the days are growing shorter as we approach autumn in the north woods once again.

I am doing what I do naturally at this time of year...I turn inward.

I am a nester, and as an agoraphobic, I  tend to find security and comfort within the walls of my home...or within the canopy of trees in our forest yard. My dear husband and faithful dogs by my side.

I am out of active cancer treatment at this time...It has been nine months since my last infusion and I now only bear the scar where my port catheter once was. It is a testimony to the year that the Good Lord allowed me to endure life with cancer. It was also a year of GRACE, extra grace!

I am now relegated to seeing my oncologist every six months, and to seeing my surgeon every six months as well, I have an appointment coming up with the latter. I will be discussing the fact that now, nearly two years later, I am having quite a lot of discomfort in the area where I had the double mastectomy...lots of tightness and a stinging, burning sensation that I refer to as 'cigarette burns'...(I got burned on my knee accidently when I was little when I swung up onto my oldest brother's neck while he was holding his cigarette, and I ran my knee into it.) THAT is the sensation that I get pretty much daily now around my side and back area adjacent to the mastectomy scar...It is the regeneration of nerve endings...or phantom pain. The tightness occurs all across my chest and feels like a tight vice squeezing me...this is often referred to as an 'iron bra' feeling...Well, lately it feels as though there are brass knuckles pushing into my ribcage as well! I am not complaining though...I have actually grown quite accustomed to these weird sensations, and I know it could be so much worse! After all I am still alive and able to write this...so I do still have all of my faculties, and I really do believe that God has made / is making me a better person through everything I have endured.

It is strange, but I am actually having a tougher time dealing with the anxiety than I ever had with going through cancer! I recently needed to go to the ER because I had a paralyzing anxiety attack at church two months ago...and I have not been able to go back since. In fact, I've not been able to go anywhere by myself other than to the Lake to meet with my friend Deb, and to the park for our ladies Bible study group picnic. I do miss attending church, but as the ER doctor stated...I cannot push myself too far alone, and going someplace where there is so much sensory stimulation (the sights and sounds, and even the various smells) of a large group of people...is just too much for me to handle.

I was able to handle going to the oncologist every three weeks for my infusion for a year, because it was always very quiet in there, and I felt safe and secure there after only a couple appointments...so it became one of my 'safe zones'...You see, we agoraphobics have certain 'safe zones' and 'safe people'...these are places and people that we can be in and with without experiencing the dreaded anxiety and suffer the impending panic attacks that keep us homebound most of the time.

So, why am I writing now after all this time? It is pretty simple...my internet service has been working better than ever now after many months with slow, sometimes non existent service! Also, as I found with trying to find blogs dealing with breast cancer from a Christian perspective, I have not been very successful finding blogs dealing with agoraphobia from a Christian perspective either...let alone anyone who is a Christian with breast cancer and agoraphobia both! So, here I am creating a blog about an agoraphobic Christian woman with breast cancer. I have always prided myself on being a one of a kind, lol!

So, what is God doing in my life lately? I have been asking myself that question quite a lot, especially since that last really bad panic attack struck me in church...after all, I thought he wanted me to be back in church...Well, I am forced to look not at the circumstances in my life, but to focus on the Lord's will for me...how he has equipped and gifted me with spiritual gifts in order to be of some use to His Kingdom here on earth. After all, He has set me upon this hill in order to gain a new perspective.

Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works,

and glorify your Father who is in heaven.

 Matt.5:16

So, here I am, writing about my strange life in hopes of reaching out to someone who is in a similar situation, hoping to be able to encourage and even help them with their own struggle either with cancer or with anxiety or both...maybe you are not living with anxiety to the extreme that I am, or maybe you have a different form of cancer, or other serious life threatening disease, I don't know...but it is my hope that you can find something of use , some kind of comfort as you read the words I write down on these pages. If you are reading this, maybe God sent you here, maybe you are my reason for writing this today?

 

Blessings & Love, and always remember...

we are... ~Never Forsaken~