So Long, Mayfield

This is Part II of remarks following the post-port surgery appointment.

We brought Gemma and Joshua with us because we wanted them to see the mysterious place where I'd gone so many times and had my surgeries. They were very excited about seeing the hospital, so I think they had some sort of need along these lines.

Yes, all of that went well. I was glad they could meet Mayfield, so they could see that Mommy was being cared for by nice people. I was glad Mayfield could meet them because he is the one God used to save their Mommy's life. All looked good with the port. And so this is where Mayfield leaves off and we continue on under the care of one Dr. Maurice Markus.

This was the sad part that I just wasn't expecting. It felt like a real loss to say good-bye to this doctor. I cried most of the day.

Maybe a big part of the emotional charge is that the rest of the walk is still unknown. I don't know what chemo is going to feel like, or what these coming 18 weeks will be. I didn't know everything about the past 6 weeks, either, but at the start of them, I knew Mayfield and it was an enormous relief and blessing to have him as a constant.

Not to saying anything bad about Dr. Science, of course. Once I learn the story behind his name, I'm sure I will like him just as much.

So, here I am, some history behind me, looking ahead into a murky darkness with nothing but God's promises and a mental image of baldness, fatigue, and emaciation. (Though, if the latter happens, just think how many medical folks will be telling me how thin I am!)

In a position like this, I climb into the Way-Back machine and visit Amy Ferrone, graduate student, as she sat her cozy, cinderblock, studio apartment about 2 months before her wedding.

That morning, I had broken out into a cold sweat. Possibly the only nerve-related cold sweat of my life. Was I really going to marry this man? I hardly knew him! And that's a literal statement.

I was planning to get married to this person I hardly knew, move to a place where I had no friends, and no job, that was longer than a day-trip drive from anyone I even knew and then. . .live there for a year, 9 months of which Bryan would be at sea.

This was madness.

Why was I doing this?

I remember taking deep breaths, and deciding to read through my journal. This calmed me. I was reminded as I read that God had orchestrated this whole thing. That this was His crazy idea, not ours.

The cold sweat faded. Then I read where I "happened" to be studying in the Bible at the time. I came to the part where Moses is sharing a last speech with the people of Israel before they cross into the Promised Land after their long years of wandering.

They had some history behind them, as I do now and did then as that young fiance. They had only God's promise and a murky darkness of the unknown ahead of them.

God told them, and I paraphrase, "Remember the ways which I have led you these 40 years. I worked miracles among you to sustain you and protect you--miracles that your fathers hadn't even seen before, I designed them uniquely for you. And here's one of the reasons I led you in the wilderness for 40 years and worked miracles among you instead of just delivering you straight to the Promised Land: So that you would know that people don't live by bread alone, but they live by the Words that proceed from Me."

That is, this is one of the ways God worked then and still works today: He gives us experiences with Himself, and tells us to remember them. And when we're tempted to rely on "bread alone"--e.g. on what we know in this physical body, what we see, what we hear, what we read about, what we feel--to remember that this is not all we are and this is not all our life is.

We don't live by bread alone. We also live by the words that proceed from the mouth of the Lord our God. That is, we decide to trust what God says--His commandments, His promises, what He has done in our lives to show Himself to us--over what we can see for ourselves.

Back then, 10 years ago, this was a watershed moment for me. What I could see for myself was that it's stupid to marry someone you hardly know and walk into a life where nothing is certain. But what God had said to me and Bryan was that we should get married that Spring. I thought, 'These are the verses I will remember on the days of this coming year that absolutely suck. God has sustained me--sometimes in supernatural ways--to get me to this point, and if I will keep my eyes on Him and off what I perceive to be a bummer situation, then I will live.'

That first year was really terrible. Full of a grief I never expected. But I lived to be thankful for the experience, though it took me a few years to arrive at that gratitude. I know Bryan pretty well now. Turns out he was the right guy to marry.

You see where I'm going with this: History behind me, nothing but God's promises and a murky darkness ahead of me.

What I haven't told you is how Mayfield came to be my doctor.

My first clinical appointment was on a different base, with a nurse practitioner who sent me for an immediate mammo and ultra-sound. The second the MRI results came back (a week later), this nurse practitioner was on the phone, trying to line up a surgical consult for me.

I was on the phone with her, too, urgently making it known how intently I wanted to see a civilian and not anyone at Ft. Carson.

I believe she tried her best. But she ended up talking to the surgery clinic at Ft. Carson with my MRI result on her screen and on theirs. The surgeon "on call" was Wilcox. This means he would be assigned my case. But he was planning to be on leave that week, so he'd have to see me as early as possible the next week.

Mayfield "happened" to be walking by the office while this phone call was happening, heard about the scheduling issue, and said, "I'll take this patient."

I do not believe this was a coincidence. And in the coming 18 weeks, we'll be able to look at this gift--a divinely arranged appointment with the doctor who would do so much to make a difficult process a little easier and a lot more joyful--as a word that proceeded from God. What I see is 18 weeks of bodily weakness and physical trial. What I will trust in is that God has chosen it for me, and that He will use it to some good purpose of His own, and that one day, I will be able to see for myself all the reasons to be thankful for these 18 weeks.

If all we have looking ahead into the darkness of the unknown are God's promises, (and we have more than this, I know--we have the help and support of so many awesome people), then we also have a history with a God Who makes good on those promises.

This was a good-bye to Dr. Mayfield. But God's grace stays with us.