Hard Things...a guest post by Thalassa

 
This post was written by Thalassa as an essay for school. She brought both Eric and I to tears as she shed light into moments of how this experience has affected her. I think she should consider starting a blog of her own! But in the very least, she is always welcome here. :)

Hard Things  

            This summer, I was exited for my whole world to change as an 8th grader, but my world changed in a whole new way no one would ever suspect. One Sabbath Day (day of rest and relaxation), I was woken up in the middle of the cold dark night to see my parents worried faces looking down at me. “Is something wrong?” I asked startled. “Dad is going to the hospital,” mom replied, “he is having some stomach pain, he will be fine. Nana and Poppie will be here soon.” (Nana and Poppie are our grandparents.) This comment was met with my brother’s wide eyes starring up into my anxious parents’ faces, and both of us held on tight to them. In a few minuets, they were off in the car and my brother and I were waiting in an empty dark home. A few days later, Eric (my brother) and I were sitting in a bland but clean hospital room, the kind that smells of strong disinfectant, next to my dad in the bed. I was staring in horror at the wall next to my dad, as my mom, in a heartbreaking tone, explained that my dad was just diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer which had spread to his liver, and he maybe had 5 years to live.

            Immediately, my mom sprung into action, and in a little while, had a fully functioning plan with the cancer center at UCSD. Dad was going to have lots of chemo and then, if all went well, a liver resection. A plan was in place, and dad could leave the hospital but our lives were changed forever. We began to cherish every moment we spent together, we began to pray more to God for healing, and whenever we could we would use our new annual passes to go to Disneyland. But even at Disneyland, the feeling of loss never truly went away. In everyday life between trips to Disneyland there was still work to get done. My math bar kept growing, and schoolwork from school kept piling up. The everyday challenge of getting in the right mindset to do school was hard. I wanted to shrink away and hide, to cry and dwell in self pity. Instead I ran to God, Whose grace and mercy held me and washed away my fears. Then the first chemo day came. My mom and dad sadly trudged out the door into the cold of dawn to get poked with needles, and to be filled to the brim with poison. Eric and I were left at the house, to do school alone while our grandparents looked on. But, God was with us. Dad came home from chemo tired, and feeling drowsy; we never knew if he needed to sleep or could stay awake for a little longer. And I, a scared little girl, could just wait. Still, I got some little goals done. I sang my heart out in musical theater, trying to escape the icy grip of fear but mostly failing. Also, I learned how to ride a bike which has been a goal of mine for five years. 

            Cancer is one of those things that you have to take on day by day. Sometimes we just cried, sometimes we got a lot of things done but as long as we had God we were just fine. Pretty much nothing I thought would happen this year went the way I thought it would. 8th grade I think is safe to say, was the worst year of my life. Despite that, I still kept my grades up in the A range. And I learned how to deal with hard things - pray and love the people that are around you instead of attacking them, even if you feel like it. I still shared my “world famous coloratura” in the theater, and pedaled faster then everyone else in my bike class on two wheels. Working through difficult things is hard, especially when it keeps going with no end in sight. And it’s still going - the newest update is that my dad’s tumors in his liver are getting bigger so liver resection might be thrown out the window, and that the chemo has stopped working. Even with this news, my family still has hope. I have learned to, even through hard things, truly pray, have faith, and love others.

LOST...and Afraid

It has again been a while since I’ve written…I’ve had a number of posts cross my mind, but I’m finding that the energy and concentration/creativity it takes to flush them out into something cohesive and understandable doesn’t come easily when I’m fighting fear. And these past few months have been quite consumed with fighting fear.

What I have been more diligent about is shows. There have been many evenings where the most the four of us could muster after engaging in our respective battles of the day was a solid session of binge watching. I’m certainly not claiming that this is the very best coping method, but it is one we’ve employed. We’ve traveled the world with the Amazing Race, uncovered the mysteries of time and space alongside the Dr. in his TARDIS, and most recently found ourselves LOST.

I’m the only one of the four of us who watched this during it’s first go-round; the kids were so little when it originally ran, and Eric was still steadily advancing his drinking career. One thing that, oddly, caught my attention from the pilot episode all those years ago was how Jack handled fear. 

     “

          Well, fear's sort of an odd thing…the terror was just so crazy. So real. And I knew I had to deal with it. So I just made a choice. I'd let the fear in, let it take over, let it do its thing, but only for five seconds, that's all I was going to give it. So I started to count: one, two, three, four, five. Then it was gone. I went back to work...

                                                                                                                                               —Jack   ”

Over the years that somehow stuck with me, and in scattered situations I tried this method out - take it in, feel the fear, then force it out. I don’t know that it has ever worked all that well for me, but what I’m recently finding is that when given even the slightest bit of reign, fear is a frightful adversary capable of lightening fast exponential growth. Through these last months, it feels there has been so much lost and so many things to fear…the time frame we had hoped for Eric’s surgery was pushed back somewhat indefinitely and chemo was extended, we lost access to the medical system that had become Eric’s “home base” and were moved back into the system and oncologist that had originally told us there were not many options available to him, we’ve lost large portions of any semblance of “normal” in our day to day living, and I fear for how that wears on every single one of us in unique ways, I’ve lost the dreams and plans I had for my last year fully homeschooling my daughter, and just last week we received news that the maintenance chemo that Eric has been on for the last two months has lost it’s effectiveness. That one more than anything, given even just the slightest number of seconds, can bring me to growing afraid.

But if that’s all that I focus on from the events of the last few months, I’ve also lost perspective…for many, many things have been gained. Memories of laughter and family walks and days at Disney, watching our children perform in their fantastic school musical, experiencing the swelling joy of our daughter accomplishing a goal she set for herself this year and finally learning to ride a two wheel bike, the kindness and generosity of both strangers and friends, five precious years of sobriety, and only just yesterday the addition of another year to our son’s running life count.

What I have been finding to be true for me in handling fear is that while it may be natural, understandable, and in many cases even seem fully reasonable…I have to let it go. And this isn’t just a random release into the ether, but a moment by moment invitation for Perfect Love to cast out all fear. The two cannot coexist. In the places where I find myself so fiercely clutching fear, rather than giving it seconds to grow I have to ask for it to be released and I look for the love. Or, I look for how I can love. 

And do you know what happens? I begin to lose things again…my narrowing of perspective and full insistence on how something (or everything!) must be done, my lack of patience with everyone around me, and my bitterness, however entitled I feel I am to it. Only then are these lost things replaced with a growing love and wonder. Only then am I even able to begin to clearly hear and respond to God’s direction for me. Only then can I be effective, and know true peace regardless of circumstance.

This week there will be many opportunities to continue to hone this growing realization and practice. We will get results from CT scans to show us if the cancer has spread beyond Eric’s liver. We will meet with multiple surgeons to discuss options (which will be greatly influenced by the results of said scan), and with the oncologist to discuss non-surgical options. I will make many, many phone calls to continue the campaign for Eric’s access and insurance coverage, and the kids and I will do our best to begin tying up loose ends so we can finish out this school year learned and intact. 

Learned and intact. In my opinion that sounds so much better than lost and afraid.

Happy Fifth Birthday!!!

So this year, on May 2nd in the middle of it all, Eric turned five. Here, in his words, is how he got to five years of sobriety. I love you, My Husband, and am so very proud of you.

Eric's Five year celebration...our good friend, Ken, gave him his cake and the most generous chip I have seen to date. (Will post Eric's share separately.) So proud of you My Love!!
Posted by Sara Trickey on Sunday, May 17, 2015

Here are Eric's own words on five years of sobriety. Simply put, he's amazing.Eric was also celebrated today at Church...five years of sobriety embraced in a place where he has pastored for twelve. That simple equation shows me that while God's Grace is wholly sufficient, it's an incredible thing to experience His people living grace saturated lives as well.
Posted by Sara Trickey on Monday, May 18, 2015

Ravel and Fray

The mechanical whir of his chemo pump breaks intermittently into the night quiet...I feel a visceral reaction to it every single time. This methodical interruption keeps a steady flow of poison coursing directly into My Love's heart in forty second intervals, a series of blasts that are both harming him before my very eyes and, hopefully, giving him his best medical chance at beating this beast.

We are so sick of cancer.

It's wild what you can become accustomed to, and we have fallen into a terribly uncomfortable cadence of life that includes biweekly chemo, a slowed pace necessitating lots of down time with just a few bursts of high activity, and much exhaustion resulting in many naps (on Eric's part) and some telling signs of ravel and fray (largely on mine). Sadly, it's often not very lovely.

I posted a video update on Monday, and went outside to record so that it would be a prettier setting than the grey drab of treatment rooms. Eric wasn't up for being filmed, but with new information at hand I wanted to get a few quick details out to friends and family. I gave a short monologue, ran back into the cafe to grab Eric's breakfast (incredibly, he actually eats during chemo), and headed back downstairs to him. It wasn't until later, after posting, that I watched back through the video myself, and my first thought was I look so tired.

(This is my accidental selfie, when I thought I had turned my phone to video. It was on "square." Thankfully I didn't talk too long before realizing it.)




In addition to being tired, my stress tells include a general malaise toward or outright neglect of any tasks that require scheduling and consistency - sorting/filing mail, straightening up our home, timely arrival to events, replies to phone calls/email (I'm sorry), and a myriad more. Creativity feels impaired - our Christmas tree, while still up, is all but undecorated. Well, except for three paper snowflakes, which are actually sheets of the children's old homework we used to practice for a Children's Church project.

Oh, and this...we missed removing it when we assembled our new tree, and decided to leave it on and just pretend it was an ornament. Because sometimes things like that make me laugh.





But quite possibly my very best high stress tell would be periodic outbursts of strong emotion. This has looked like crying in the middle of Sprouts over meatballs, and more tears, of joy, in the midst of small accomplishments or extended kindnesses. It has taken on the shape of a voice in the crowd (erm...mine), calling out the injustice of an individual's lying to the Catalina Express ticket taker while trying to jump line and board first. It was entirely unnecessary, and I wasn't really all that invested in boarding order, but all too quickly words flew out that I wished I could immediately rescind. On another night, I nearly ruined an attempt at a "normal" evening out with friends by screaming "HE HAS STAGE FOUR CANCER!!!" in the middle of a crowded concert at a fellow, albeit insensitive and not entirely without her own share of fault, concertgoer.

Thankfully, my friends love me anyways. Even if I embarrassed all of them. Especially Eric. But he has continued to mock scream those words at me periodically ever since that night, so I'm not quite so sad for him.

Here's what's hard - the ravel and fray, for all that they might be normal, are proof positive of the degree to which I am trying to carry so much of this myself. God continues to whisper "Trust...trust Me." And there are so many places that I know I just am not. This blood clot complication has tucked itself into a crevice in my brain, and has burrowed deep. I feel afraid, until I surrender that fear and replace it with love and there I am able to find peace...until I give fear purchase again.

In previous situations I have asked God for a promise, for specific words from Him that I can hold on to through the painful parts. With each of our children He gave me verses that I clung to with a vengeance in the face of every odd and statistic, knowing that He had promised that they would live. I have asked for the same promises through this, and He has told me no. That we've already done difficult things in that way before, and I am being grown into somewhere new. He continues to call me to trust. And I continue to tell Him at least daily how much I don't like it.

But after Monday, when I felt so very full to bursting of worry, fear and doubt, I again remembered to turn it over to God. I remembered how little control in all of this I have anyways, even if cancer weren't in the picture. And I began to see how much I was trying to force through on just my own sheer will and wanting. I released it, again, to Him. Immediately He reminded me that He is moved by His people's entreaties, and listens to their pleas. That restoration is His, and we are able to move in true purpose only after having a humbled heart. And that The LORD, He is God. He didn't give me a definitive promise of healing, but He spoke.

Tomorrow we meet with the surgeon. He has determining say on whether or not this blood clot will delay or fully waylay surgery. I don't know what the next step will look like, but I feel that we are on another precipice of change...our great desire is that we move into a phase that includes surgery. More than that, that Eric be completely healed. It is all so out of my control. But for my part I will continue to entreaty and plea before God, I will seek wisdom and listen with careful detail to what we are told, and when the ugly tells of ravel and fray make evidence of themselves yet again, I will, hopefully, ingrain just a little more deeply this hard learned lesson of trust and surrender.

Another Seventeen...

...Eric Trickey at seventeen (the very tall man in black, first clearly seen at second 42.) I want to put this here so I don't lose it!

 

Post by Hobbs Basketball By The Numbers.

The Miraculous and The Mundane

Seventeen.

I remember that age so well! Filled with potential, adventure and promise - I savored the days, wanting to make them BIG and memorable, while I nearly burst in anticipation of what was coming next. I started college, graduated from high school, redefined relationships, soared high with accomplishment, experienced great devastation, and made some decisions that, unbeknownst to 17 year old me, carried life long impact. I felt powerful but small in the face of unlimited possibility. It was exhilarating, and the age I carried in spite of the passage of many years as "truly me" for a very long time.

Seventeen.

This morning we awoke to our seventeenth wedding anniversary. Eric and I have laughed about "seventeen years of wedded bliss", and decided our true breakdown rather includes a year or two of newlywed shock, about ten years worth of sheer gutting it out, and five of beautiful, joyful delight. What's funny is that through all of it we loved each other fiercely...but for a stretch there were many days that felt more fierce than lovely.

 Ever since Eric's diagnosis I have been thinking about our vows. You run through with such quick certainty for better or worse, for richer and for poorer, in sickness and in health - till death do us part. I am often quite the optimist, and so while there was a part of my mind that acknowledged the possibility that the less desirable of those pairings could surface, I couldn't imagine with any particular definition what anything but the more enjoyable options might look like.

 

We, of course, would be brilliantly happy. The potential, adventure and promise ahead was saturated with possibility and I couldn't fathom a situation that our love couldn't conquer. I was so blinded with anticipation of what could come next that I wasn't prepared for the gravity of goodbyes to what had been; I cried through much of the first night in our new home while the moving van, fresh from Colorado, stood sentinel outside.

Prior to marriage, Eric and I had never lived in the same state, let alone the same home. We spent a summer together in the Colorado mountains as camp counselors, but were both romantically entangled with others at the time. Our relationship was one of immediate and lasting friendship, quick courtship, and lightning fast engagement. We racked up $500 phone bills (remember when that was even possible!?!), and I longed for the ability to just call to him from another room and hear him answer.  In my imagined scenarios he would, of course, always answer immediately, simply enamored with his lovely new bride and be completely interested in whatever she had to share/request/require - didn't our phone records prove how very valuable we held every little thing the other had to say? How much more would we love sharing every experience in person!

But, as every single married person reading this will know, that's not quite what it looked like in real living. Occluding the flashes of wedded bliss there were real dishes that needed doing, real money to be earned so that real food could be eaten on those dishes and a real roof kept over our newlywed heads. And, to my great dismay, there were actually times that I realized that my beloved husband wasn't really even listening to me! In those early months more tears were shed, harsh words were flung (as well as a few dishes!) and my visions of exclusively living in the realm of better/richer/health came crashing down.

Seventeen.

With seventeen comes a bit more perspective. Over the years we have finally learned to work on our own stuff. We've, with intention, acquired a few skills to make this marriage thing work a little better. We've grown closer to our Creator and understand that the only way either one of us will have anything of worth available for another, is to operate out of our overflow from a relationship with Him. And I've come to believe that the sum point of matrimonial promise reduces down to The Miraculous and The Mundane. 

Marriage is so much less about finding the elusive "perfect" person out of the world of options, and so much more so about how you become shaped in life together. This is the one with whom you will sit front row witness to brilliant interruptions of the miraculous, and the monotony of the seemingly endless mundane. How we do both the miraculous and mundane will form who we are, and through each of those experiences we have great opportunity to change.

The mundane of a daily job - and my perspective of drudgery or delight. The mundane of housework - and my perspective of resentment at the ones making the mess or thankfulness for family and abundant provision. The mundane of daily childrearing - and my frustration with the unrefined or elation at realized growth. Through seventeen years we have shared these and millions of other mundane tasks, to do's, and activities, and if I can share one secret learned after their accumulation it would be this - real joy is hidden in how you approach the mundane. Choose to find the joy tucked deep in the mundane, for these are the tasks that shape our very lives. By nature the mundane is there, will continue to be there...until it isn't, and what's wild is that the mundane everyday little things are the first to be missed when they're gone.

But we also get to experience with this one person the miraculous. Bills paid when there was absolutely no way to cover them even a day before. Children carried and born out of your passion for each other, and delighted in as they come into their own. Healing. Recovery. Transformation. There are moments when all you can do is sit tight together and hold on to one another for dear life as the miraculous happens, often when you least expect it.

At seventeen I feel we have only begun to appreciate the miraculous and the mundane, only recently uncovered a "truly us" that is powerful and strong. I want so very many more years and the chance to look at everything that we have grown into now and laugh at the silliness of beginnings. I want to continue to experience the exhilaration of a life lived well alongside of each other.

 

I love you, Eric Trickey. I am beyond thankful that you are the one with whom I experience both the miraculous and the mundane.

Happy Seventeen.

Thanksgiving Pie!!

Oh my goodness...Friends, you are looking at the physical embodiment of love. 

Last year I had Thanksgiving Pie for the very first time. My dear friend, Blue Skye, personal chef to stars, made this for our November Supper Club. Flaky, crumbly crust, homemade cranberry sauce, tender turkey...it is all things yum. This year being my first GF Thanksgiving, I have been obsessing for two weeks over the idea of this delectable concoction, with calling and requesting the recipe from Skye on my perpetual-but-not-quite-completed to do list. (Did I mention that all this delicious is gluten free as well!?!)

Late tonight I received a text from another friend on her way home from dinner with Skye and family, asking if she might possibly be able to bring by a Pie over for our family. YES!! Can I even tell you how very loved and cared for I am feeling right now? Without any mention or having been asked, the very culinary desire of my heart has been met...I just love how Holy Spirit prompts and in love The Body responds. Thank you, my friends, for loving us so well!!

And as I am snitching still warm tastes inconspicuously from the edges, I think I will need to call for the recipe tomorrow. At the very least, with a big THANK YOU!!