Faith, Velcro, and Capillaries

From July 20, 2019

Dear Friends --

First, thanks for the outpouring of love and condolences for my beloved dad -- it's been both an awful and sacred week. We continue to grieve and hold each other close, and find new places of grace and mercy throughout. 

And in it all, Foxy has returned to work her magic on the front lines to shrink my uninvited tumors. I completed round two this week -- 48 hours of a slow drip I was able to do at home with a clever little pump. Foxy to go. 

Side-bar: At some point a few of us ought to huddle about how hundreds of thousands of people are walking around with little chemo pumps wrapped in super drab black velcro packs, essentially fanny packs desperately in need of an upgrade. There's an untapped market to reimagine those packs into something spectacular. We'll sort it out later, but there's a fortune to made here.

Anyhow, after two days my side effects have been miniscule. Mainly I have more excuses to nap and read, and my fingers and toes occasionally tingle, tiny little reminders that Foxy's fighter jets are moving even through the narrowest capillary corridors. 

But mainly this week I discovered that Foxy at home is all about watching a little pump, trying not to watch the little pump, and chatting with Connor and Lucy about how pumps like this began with the magic of an extraordinary high school chemistry teacher some impossible day maybe 47 years ago, who managed to inspire some student to think new about chemo and ways to save lives. 

Mostly Foxy at home is all about trust. Is it working?

Before I left the hospital I gently pressed the Good Dr V on this point. "Maybe we should check soon to see if it's working," I suggested. "Like how about the second round? You know, just to check!"

Dr V was having none of it. "No. We're not going to check in between. We're going to check after four or five rounds. Here's why: this is working, so we're going to let it work."

The last time my dad and I chatted I told him this story, and how desperately I wanted a magic wand to check, but how Dr V wouldn't budge.

And my dad -- my sherpa -- took a deep breath, and I heard him smile. "Ok kiddo. Well, you're now living where all of us are called to be. You're now living in deep faith, because we know faith is having the confidence of what we hope for, and the assurance about what we do not see."

He went on to say how that for most of us that place is more conceptual, and abstract. But he noted that I'm alive inside of it, and how that must be extraordinary. And maybe that's really what the mountain is truly all about. Step by step, faith shows us the reality of what we hope for, and is the evidence of things we cannot see.

That's why these steps of my climb are so particularly sacred. Each one is a bet placed on faith, a forward motion fueled by the kind of hope that's actually bigger than scans and test results and all the news that will eventually come.

And through it all, I'll be marveling at a little pump, waiting, giving thanks, wondering what's going on in my fingers and toes, and moving closer to that extraordinary and blessed space that only faith can reveal.

xoxo