Jesus With Skin On

Just like they say "Don't Feed the Bears" in national parks, and people do anyway, my family has this habit of feeding my cancer and whining to feed their own. Scott bought a few snacks on the way to the hospital tonight for my MRI. The doctors are trying to better locate the 5mm tumor they will remove April 13th....if they find it.

He ate most of them. In hindsight, maybe I should have eaten more. If sugar feeds cancer and causes tumors to grow, and my tumor is too small to be 100% sure they'll find it, shouldn't I have eaten them all?

Many people have heard the story of the little boy who was scared at night and called his mommy in.

She prayed with him and tried to comfort him with reminders that the Lord was with him,

 he was never really alone.

His precious answer? "But, Mommy, I want Jesus with skin on."

I knew the Lord was with me, but tonight Scott was my Jesus with skin on.

When I get into a tall building, I always have to see the view.
Scott got stuck with filling out yet another set of forms,
while I tried to capture the old Seattle homes with the
backdrop of the snow covered Cascade Mountains.

Notice the warnings on the doors?

Because of the strong magnetic field, there are warnings for many people -

I notice they didn't warn against braces.

If my daughters, Beth and Grace, had been there

would they have been swept into the tube with me and

stuck to the inside by their tinsel teeth?

I was able to stand behind the door away from the magnetism

and get a picture of the latest machine that was supposed to help find this bb sized tumor.

The tube was really small.

I mean really, really, really small.

The technician, Ben, joked that the tube wasn't really that small for me,

because he had people three times my size try to fit into it.

Ben even offered to take a picture of me. He made me smile. It was the last smile I had for about an hour. I looked into the tube, noticed it was about 1/2 the size of the PET scan tube, and noticed this horrible mask they were going to fasten on my face. The clausterphobia was causing me a lot of anxiety.
I told him through tears, "They don't tell you all this stuff when they sign you up for an MRI." He gave me a quick hug, then went out into the waiting room and said, "Mr. P., you need to come. Your wife is crying."

Scott began calming me down with Scripture and strict instructions not to open my eyes, even while I was just sitting there. He helped me wipe my nose, push up my sleeves for the IV, lay down and get comfortable. They had to pad around my head with foam cushions and put in ear plugs. I was feeling squished, and they hadn't even put on the mask yet. When he did fasten it on, I accidentlly opened my eyes and panicked a little. I asked for another moment. The kind technician took off the mast, allowed me to breathe a few more times, close my eyes and try again.

He inserted the IV with strict instructions not to move my arm. With a few final adjustments, the bed was raised and moved into the tunnel.

It was SO dark.

But, instead of panic, I felt peace.

I kept thinking of the verse,

"I am with thee and will keep thee, in all places, saith the Lord."

I knew the Lord was with me, but Jesus with skin on was lovingly rubbing my feet, assuring me with his presence. Once he stopped for some reason, and not feeling his touch, I shook my foot until he began holding it again.

The machine made a noise somewhere between a woodpecker pecking on a quonset and a jackhammer. The noise traveled up and down the machine and I could even feel the vibrations on my hip bones. If I hadn't been under strict instructions to NOT MOVE and NOT TALK I might have been able to come up with a few comedic one-liners.

The technician knew it would be hard for me to get into that tunnel, and he wonderfully praised me on the microphone after each test. But, I don't think he realized the other serious challenge I was facing. He began each new scan with strict instructions not to talk.

For the final test I couldn't swallow or breathe for 30 seconds. It seemed like 30 minutes.

And then, after all the anxiety,

it was over,

and I had survived

with the help of the Lord

and my husband, Jesus with skin on.

If you remember from previous blogs, simple things entertain me.

Mud puddles, window cleaners, the sound of snowflakes.

Tonight, I loved the sqare glass blocks set into a slightly concave pattern.

How DO they do that?