Falling

At the end of the church service today while going up for communion I tripped and fell. I now have a nice bruise on my chin.

I'm sad, embarrassed, a little tender and very aware of how my cancer is affecting me. While I look quite "normal" from outside appearances, I can't feel a decent part of both of my legs (and this is due to where my cancer has decided to grow in my brain) and have lost a decent amount of muscle in my legs. The best that I can describe the lack of sensation to my legs is that it's like you've been sitting in a funny position and both of your feet are asleep. When you walk, your feet sort of awkwardly hit the ground harder than they should. You don't know exactly where you've placed your feet or where the ground is. Everything sort of tingles. You can't feel if you're stepping on a pebble but you can feel the deep pain of stepping on a toy. You don't know if you're stepping on a flat or uneven surface. And because you can't sense when you're off balance, it's very difficult to correct yourself when you do hit an uneven surface.

Falling hurts. Of course it hurts physically. And there are all of the risks of bruises and broken bones and worse things that go along with it. Falling hurts my heart and my pride even more. It's weakness. It's inability. It's losing control. And it's hard.

It was very difficult to go to our church service this morning as I was feeling quite vulnerable and emotional going into the service. I can only describe the time of describe as being soulful... a way for me to come before God in an honest way that expressed my heart with all of its vulnerabilities to Him. The message was encouraging. It's less about the mistakes you make and more about the direction you're heading in your relationship with God.

And then I fell face first on concrete. My husband was right beside me. Other people came to help. I said I was ok. I got up and continued on to receive communion. Embarrassed and hurting and with tears in my eyes, we got our son and left.

It's not easy to have a disease is slowly destroying your body. It's taking away my ability to be a wife, mother, daughter, sister, friend. It's not easy falling in front of a few hundred people who love you and hurt with you. It's not easy when a disease is slowly taking you away. It's not easy being very aware that of the changes that are taking place.

It's been a rough day.

Bruised