Bodies of water, whether lakes, rivers, creeks, streams or oceans, never fail to draw my attention. The lovely Sarah and I were richly blessed to spend time in Oregon last week, where I spent time near the Columbia River, on the Willamette River, and planting my feet in the Pacific Ocean.
This post is about the ocean, and how it heals.
Thursday, August 10, marked 11 years since I underwent a partial colectomy to remove the remains of a sizable tumor in my rectum and to have a permanent colostomy installed.
“Installed” feels strange to use but I don’t know of an adequate replacement. It wasn’t supposed to be permanent but became so, much to the chagrin of my surgeon who was more disappointed than I was that things ended up as they did.
Maybe “imposed” is a better word. God knows, a colostomy is an imposition. Completely changed the way my body functions. Without much of a warning, except for the circles the good doctor drew on my abdomen the morning of surgery.
August 10, 2012.
“If it (the ostomy) is on the right side it’s temporary. If on the left it’s permanent.”
For months he’d been promising to “put me back together” after a temporary ostomy, so talk of a permanent fixture was new. And undaunting in the moment.
Just get this thing out of me.
Even that became a question after surgery.
“I’m putting extra pillows under your left side because that’s where all the action was,” said the nurse, unknowingly sharing the news my surgeon wanted to share first.
Downcast, almost defeated, he didn’t want to look at me. But I wasn’t disappointed.
I woke up from the surgery. That was a miracle. I’d written my will and advance directives with a lawyer and everything just in case. I’d played the cancer card so we could join St. John’s Lutheran Church a week before the surgery because if I died on the table my obituary needed to say “was a member of” and I wanted my ashes placed in the columbarium there.
Just in case.
It wasn’t needed. I was alive. While it was a new challenge, a colostomy wasn’t the end of the world. Annie, my ostomy nurse, saw to that with the first words she spoke after meeting me.
“This does not change who you are in any way. You can still do all the things you’ve always done.”
Except poop on a toilet.
Except never think about not carrying medical supplies with me at all times.
Except always wonder when the next time is I’m going to shit myself. In public.
And I’m still here.
I thought about that miracle surgery a lot on Thursday afternoon, as Sarah and I drove the 101 down Oregon’s coast from Seaside to Depoe Bay. Sarah had never seen the Pacific Ocean before, so we trudged across the beach to stick our feet in the water. It was cool bordering on cold.
And healing. I felt my soul relax in a way it hasn’t in a while.
As we drove the Pacific Coast it was difficult to drive and not get distracted by gorgeous views of water and rock formations that are completely different from the parts of the Atlantic Coast we love.
Josh Groban released a song called “River” in 2018, the lyrics of which encapsulate my thoughts about the healing power of water bodies:
“I walk down to the (insert body of water)
Where the troubles they can’t find me
Let the waters there remind me
The sun will be there when we wake
I walk down to the (insert body of water)
Though I might not understand it
It’s not always as we planned it
But we grow stronger when we break
So I walk down to the (insert body of water)
I walk down to the (insert body of water.”
On Thursday, my soul found rest for a little while. And maybe some restoration from that hard day 11 years ago.
See, there’s more to the miracle story of that day. What Ann Voskamp would call “hard Eucharisteo.” That’s the Greek work for gratitude, a word I love so much I had it tattooed over my heart.
Because of what happened next.
Not only was my surgeon disappointed about the permanence of the colostomy, the worse news was he wasn’t sure he got all the cancer. Only the pathology report would tell, and we would have to wait for it. My surgery was on a Friday. We had to hold tight, not panic, and trust God through the weekend and beyond.
Everything depended on this pathology report. My prognosis. Any treatment plan. Proof of life. All of it.
There are whales at Depoe Bay. Gray whales.
They don’t surface much, flap their tails or breach. But evidence of whales is plentiful.
Spouts of mist from their blowholes arise at intervals. Sunlight dapples their backs as just inches of the animals float on the surface for moments at a time.
We watched the water. Pointed at the spouts. Hoped for a tail or a playful breach backward. Never happened. And still we watched.
Evidence of whales.
As we stood watch, and then dined while watching from a restaurant window, I couldn’t help but think that these whales are like God.
I don’t have to see all of God for there to be evidence of God. Whales are big and God is bigger.
My evidence?
Fast forward four days into my story to August 14, 2012. We’d spent the weekend in my hospital room on pins and needles waiting for the pathology report. Friends and family visited to keep our minds occupied elsewhere, and to pray with us that the pathology report would be good news.
And then it happened.
My surgeon floated in. His countenance restored to the upbeat, happy man he had been before the news on Friday afternoon. The report was back.
By God’s grace our pastor, the inimitable Rev. Amy Carole Figg (now Ley), was in the room for the news. She asked if we wanted her to leave.
We asked her to stay. If the news was bad we were going to need her. If it was good, we would celebrate.
Good news.
No signs of cancer living in any of the tissue he removed. None.
I cried. Sarah cried. Amy cried. My surgeon may have cried.
He cajoled the pathologist while he was in another surgery because we had already been waiting for four days and he didn’t want us to wait any longer. As soon as the surgery was over, he rushed to my room.
Good, good news.
We cried some more.
Tears.
Like water.
Healing water.
In a social media post that day 11 years ago, Pastor Amy quoted Ephesians 3:20-21 from The Message: “God can do anything, you know — far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it by not pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us.”
Gently.
Like a rolling river.
Or the waves of the ocean.
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