Me and Beam On

BEAM ON

I had to pick something over my left shoulder to look at. This is to keep my throat out of the line of fire during radiation. There's a sign mounted high up on the wall to the left in the radiation treatment room, white with big black block letters. BEAM ON lights up when the stuff is happening.

BEAM ON. It makes me want to laugh. It's so "straight at it," right? The BEAM is ON when it lights up. the BEAM is off when it's off. Sometimes BEAM ON stays on for several seconds (about the length of a Hail Mary). Sometimes it's on for just a second. Now that I love BEAM ON I almost get irritated when this big, huge, rotating piece of equipment blocks my view of it. Most of the time, it's just me and BEAM ON, alone in the room. I think BEAM ON is my Wilson.

Monday I didn't think BEAM ON was cute at all. I know, I said I was hoping to find things about this part of my treatment that would bring me closer to God, but Monday that feeling was just flat out gone. I was mad. That appointment was a "dry run" in the actual treatment room, this time lining me up and taking x-rays. One of the radiation techs I had met the week before when I was in for mapping. He was very nice. I wasn't. I had a "let's get this over with" attitude. Being naked from the waist up, but fully clothed from the waist down (in heels, no less) lying in a very uncomfortable position was not helping. Also there's the small matter of unceremoniously exposing the scar-where-my-boob-used-to-be. Just a daily reminder: I had cancer and a mastectomy.

I got through it, but broke down crying for the second time after I left the office. This time it was because I missed chemo.

Chemo was not fun. If you've been following along you know, there were some pretty nasty side effects and pain. But you also know that there were definitely Holy Spirit moments. Chemo is solitary, but community at the same time. You're in a room with lots of people, some nurses, some fellow cancer patients. There are conversations. There is plenty of time to pray for the people around you. I've said, and really believe, that it was a sacred time.

In radiation treatment, you're alone. So far, at the time I go for treatments I haven't had a chance to talk to or interact with any fellow patient. Even though the techs are in the next room with just a (big, thick, concrete) wall between us, and they can see and hear me every little second, I'm alone.  It's just me and BEAM ON.

Monday that just made me mad. What was sacred about this!? Where were my spiritual opportunities going to come from? How was this going to be fruitful for me or others? What the heck was going on, God?

The next morning in my prayer time God showed me what was going on. What I messed up was thinking that because this is different, it's different. But it's not. Every minute with these people, whoever they are, and for however long, is sacred. Every moment I'm alone, God is with me, and that's sacred. Every moment I am laying there I can pray for someone, and that's sacred. It's not different. It's the same. Because it's still my life, it's still me, it's still possible to find God in every person, in every situation.

I took cookies to the techs on Fat Tuesday, my first treatment day. I wanted to start this part of my treatment by GIVING something to them, feeding them. "Monday Polly" was sorry, and nothing says sorry like double chocolate cookies from Tim Horton's.

I'll get 26 more chances to get this right, and to find out what God wants me to do/see/work on. BEAM ON.