PRINTING UP MY NOVEL

I am printing up my novel as I type these words, in case I die or go blind, and my family will have it. I don't think those two things will happen. I have faith that the Lord is going to see me through, no matter how deep the waters I am about to go through. But when you've been told you have brain cancer with no warning signs whatsoever, it makes you think all kinds of thoughts. Jesus is my healer, and that is what I'm standing on. I want this novel printed out, because I have probably 15 versions of it. I've started it over and over and over. It's a contemporary story with a concurrent story running through it set in the 1940s and 1950s. It's a story of grace and goodness and darkness and pain, and I'm praying it will get published.

As I type, my left eye feels like a knife is stuck in it. Great cause for concern. This morning, at 8, we are all leaving to go to the neurosurgeon's office. That is the next step in this journey--no, nightmare--I've been thrust into, since Wednesday when I was diagnosed with a high definition glioma in the brain. That stinker of a doctor didn't tell me the name of the cancer. He knew I'd google it. I only found out last evening when my eye doctor called. She was the one who diagnosed me Tuesday afternoon with one quarter loss of right periphereal vision in both eyes and then ordered an MRI. Of all the thoughtful, intelligent, calm questions I asked the neuroradiologist Wednesday evening after the MRI when he was delivering the diagnosis, I forget to ask, "What is the name of my cancer?" He kept calling it malignant brain tumor, and that threw me off. When the eye doctor told me the name last evening, after looking at a couple of websites, I was more keenly aware of how bad this is.

The neuroradiologist said that, if between the time I leave him on Wednesday and the time I get the biopsy which he said needed to be done Thursday or Friday at the very latest, that I I get a headach, faint, throw up, or one other thing I can't think of right now, that I'm to rush to ER. This morning at 4:30 a.m., I awoke with a stabbing headache. I waited until six then got my husband and family members up, and we decided that since we are leaving at 8 a.m. to go to my neurosurgeon's, we would just go there rather than ER.

So, soon we will be heading out the door to No Man's Land, meaning, I don't know what's about to happen to me. I'm a take-charge, locomotive woman who likes to plan and then carry out the plans, and this time, I have no control over anything.

Last night before we all went to bed, we plopped down in the family room and put two CDs in the stero of ministers quoting the healing and faith-building scriptures of the Bible. Very, very comforting. Then we all knelt around the big zebra-striped ottoman and prayed. Hard.

As I type, I'm looking at a wooden plaque below my computer screen. It says, "Lord, help me to remember that nothing is going to happen to me today that You and I together can't handle." Below those words are these: "An old preacher's greeting to each new day."

It was my father's, and it's always had special meaning to me.

Today, it really has special meaning.

I'm glad I woke up early, even though pain was the alarm clock. It gave me time to post these thoughts.