A Second Diagnosis

For those of you finding my blog by way of my YouTube page, I'm sad to update that my cancer has returned. As of June 2016, the melanoma has metastasized to my left kidney. Below is the following email I sent to a handful of friends when I found out: 

Hey y'all,

Today was a very difficult day.  As of today, around 2:30 pm this afternoon I was diagnosed with cancer - again.  Some of you know I had a biopsy of my left kidney earlier this week, and it turns out the tumor in my left kidney is indeed metastatic melanoma (the same type of cancer I had before).  This is the most dangerous and serious scenario possible.  I got the call from my doctor literally seconds before I was to walk into my Senator's office to let him know I accepted a new job.  

Side note:  On June 27, I'm set to start as the new Communications Director for the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space, and Technology.  (for you Houston and East Coast Florida peeps, that means we oversee all of NASA!)  

And today, in timing that I trust was the Lord's, I found out the diagnosis that I feared most.  I entered the Senator's office, and out of His kindness, my manager and our Legislative Director let the Senator know about my diagnosis as I composed myself outside the office.  Truly, I have worked with such an incredible team and a wonderful Senator who loves Jesus - he is the real deal - and God has been so gracious to allow me to work with these dear fellow believers.  The Senator, who I've worked for the last two years, gave me a hug, said he would be praying for me, and asked to pray right there.  All four of us joined hands and prayed; a moment I will never forget for the rest of my life.  A lot happens on Capitol Hill, even prayer in the midst of a crazy day.  Such a sweet, human moment acknowledging the Lord's power over this and I kept thinking of the verse where two or more are gathered.  What a kindness from the Lord!  I held it together the best I could, and fell apart emotionally as I walked out of his office and into the hallway.  God bless them for being there for me in one of my most darkest hours of life.  Kristine, one of my best friends, sat with me as I worked to get myself together and called the hospital back to ask more questions. She then forced me out of my office for the day, ha!  You see, Kristine is one of these talented, concise, and thorough communicators that when she has her mind set to getting something done with excellence, she does it.  So, she was set on sending me home, haha!  God love her for that because I couldn't think what was best for me to do in that moment.  Your brain is just fried and not thinking clearly.  

I nearly made it to four years of cancer free.  But today, today we identified the recent culprit.  An active cluster of malignant melanoma cells inside my body that is LITERALLY trying to kill me right now.  There is an active terrorist nesting in my left kidney trying to grow bigger and stronger by the day.  How terrifying is that.  So how are we going to try and stop it?  

Miraculously, there is a clinical trial at Johns Hopkins' Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center (which is where my treatment has been since 2013) and I qualify.  These trial is difficult to get into, and Hopkins only gives out 20 spots.  19 of them have been filled, there was only one left.  I get the very last spot, as though God had my name on it.  It's a cutting edge drug that has been having very positive results with very minimal side effects (massively different and less severe than the first chemo I did in 2013).  What I know right now is limited.  Then the oncology team will order another CT scan which will show us if the therapy is working (praying on my face that it works!).  This could very well make the tumor disappear entirely, and potentially any other harmful cancerous cells floating around.  It only takes ONE cancer cell to find some place in your body to attach and grow.  What if this treatment doesn't work?   

....then I go to a drug called Yervoy, which is a much stronger drug and FDA approved.  However, before we go with the tougher option, we're going to try this therapy first which has been having amazing results.  

Next step:  on Tuesday morning at 9 AM, I'm meeting with my oncologist at Johns Hopkins and the research nurse to sign my life away, again, and get all the info they need.  I could possibly start the IV therapy this as soon as Friday June 17 I believe.  

How you can pray:

*Pray the drugs I'll be taking shrink and kill the tumor and any surrounding cancer cells in my bloodstream

*Pray for me to fight fear as I'm really scared right now (to trust Him)

*Pray that I don't hold onto life too tightly, that I hold it with an open hand allowing God to use my life for His glory and just fully trust Him with everything

*Pray that I grow in my understanding of God's grace and working out my own salvation through this trial

*Pray for my friends, family, coworkers that are not committed to following Jesus to come to surrender their lives to Him fully and see how much Jesus loves them!

*Pray that I can love others well through this trial

*Pray that I hold fast to God and His truth in the coming months

To keep in mind, I'm still choosing NOT to be that public about this.  I will when the time is right, but for now, I'm limiting it to the group receiving this email.  So please don't forward this, blast it out, don't share it on social media, and keep it confidential.  I'm still trying to determine the best way to share this news. 

I'm grateful for each of you and your choice to love me through this. I know it's not easy, and people often aren't sure how to confront and deal with cancer - but I do encourage you to simply ask me.  You're welcome to email, call, or text encouragement or bible verses to me anytime - I always need it.  Undoubtedly, I'm so thankful for your patience and grace with me and willingness to bear my burdens with me.  You're all examples of God's sweet, everlasting love and grace.  As 1 Peter 4:8 says, Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.  I certainly have a multitude of sins, and am beyond grateful and undeserving for your willingness to love me through them - and through this trial set before me.  

For the Christian, our suffering and trials produce a perseverance in Christ, a hope, a character, a deeper dependence on God, in which we able to be sanctified to look more like Him!  Praise God, our suffering indeed holds a deep purpose!  But for the non-Christian, what purpose does suffering and trials actually have?  Some may say, "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger."  Sure, but then what?  Stronger for what?  There's no eternal purpose in being merely stronger for the sake of being "stronger" other than for ourselves.  But with Christ, our trials and suffering produce a change in heart that nothing - not even Satan - can take away from us.  

If you've made it this far in my midnight rambling out of a mix of delirium and dried tears, thank you!!!  I owe you a brownie and a high five!  :-)  

In His Grace,

Kristina

The Blessing of Forgetfulness

At this past New Years Eve, I had an awesome time with an amazing group of girlfriends in Houston, Texas.  Likewise, I'm also on a group text of five other women from my home church here in Washington, DC, and in both groups, we decided to come up with one or two theme verses for the next year.  I chose these two verses:

Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. - Psalm 51:10, NIV

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable - if anything is excellent or praiseworthy - think about such things. - Philippians 4:8, NIV

These two verses have been a consistent prayer of mine nearly every day.  At times, its easier than others.  Purity of heart goes further than just omitting sexual sins and debauchery.  I've found that purity of heart dives into our motives, what we think about money, how we view giving and generosity, how we think about others, how we talk about others, how we think and talk about our work, how we use our time, even why and how we approach God, and the list goes on and on.  All that to say, the mere verse of Psalm 51:10 has been an incredibly sanctifying verse to meditate on the last few months.

The sweet part of this verse isn't simply the request for a pure heart (in which one has to acknowledge that their heart is NOT pure first before they can request a pure heart), but also the request for God to renew a steadfast spirit within.  (Some other scripture versions use the word "right" instead of "steadfast")  The word "renew" is so sweet.  The word "new" brings about the picture of clean, fresh start, a second chance, a new beginning, a do over, out with the old and in with the new, improved, and restore.  And God certainly promises to give us a new spirit should we be humble enough to seek Him!

I also came across another verse shortly after I chose the two verses I mentioned earlier:

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. - Matthew 5:8, NIV

Undoubtedly, God counts purity of heart as a good thing, a blessed thing, and something to be desired.  And no doubt, it is something we will all be working on till God calls us home.  A chance to start over, a new spirit, to have a clean heart; what sweet imagery and what a relief!  We no longer have to carry the sins of our past around with us, but we can hold fast to the promises of God and what was finished work on the Cross to know we can be redeemed.  We can have a renewed spirit, we can seek purity in heart, we can let go of our past sins and be worthy to sit before our Holy God.  Nothing else defines you except Christ Himself.  Not your past sins, not your work, not your school, not your health status, not your marital status, not your economic class or how much money you make; the purity of your heart and what defines you is squarely in the hands of an Almighty God.  He is the One that renews and makes all things new!  What a comfort!  ....and what a promise!

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! - 2 Corinthians 5:17, NIV

Coming up, I have an oncology checkup on Friday, May 20th.  I was supposed to have my oncology checkup on April 8, but I forgot.  Yep, I forgot.  Can you believe that?  I actually forgot.  The significance of forgetting the appointment is rather significant to me, ha!  You see, three years ago, I would have NEVER forgotten an appointment like that, nor would I have been able to forget it.  It's certainly a pain to reschedule and pay for the appointment I didn't get to, but its a weird blessing in a way.  My life has moved on.  I became so enmeshed with living life beyond cancer that I completely didn't think about getting to my next checkup.  It was an odd relief.  I'm a tremendously different person today than I was a mere three years ago, and it is all by God's grace.  While cancer was absolutely traumatic and painful in a multitude of ways (as chronicled earlier in this blog), I've moved on and able to heal (emotionally and physically) and appropriately let go.  Sure, there are memories and rises in concern from time to time, but by God's grace, I'm still here.  My heart is still beating and my lungs are still working.  I'm able to have more days to serve our God and others.  I'm able to have more birthdays too!

For those who have weathered this journey with me, there are not enough words of thanks but know your treasure in heaven is plenty.  God surely knows.  God has used you to teach me more about selfless love and pure compassion.

So on May 20th, I'll go for the usual round of CT scan, bloodwork, and oncological exam.  It's all routine.  And then I'll leave the cancer hospital and get on with my day!  It's always sobering, as there are many who are still in the cancer hospital that are not able to get on with their day - and I could easily still be in their shoes.  So today I'm grateful for the prayers of so many, and so thankful for the prayers of those who help me in seeking a pure heart and a renewed steadfast spirit.  These are the things that no one can truly take away, not even Satan himself.  Anything that causes us to have a deeper dependence on God is ultimately a blessing, even if it is at times painful or challenging.  

The Risk of Being Real

This is my feeble attempt to provide an update, and to hopefully just make sense of random verbal musings and processing swirling my brain (as I usually do, my apologies if it seems like scattered paint on a canvas).

As for my health, I'm alive!  I'm surviving, things are going well.  I had a check-up recently with bloodwork, and my lymphocytes were actually slightly low.  My oncologist said it wasn't anything to be too worried about, so onward we go.  I need to get around to scheduling my next skin exam just to make sure I'm staying healthy.  I'll have a CT scan coming up in April I believe, so that's the next item on the schedule.  Praying my lungs stay in good condition.

Well, I had a birthday.  If memory serves me correctly, I have a 62% chance of seeing my 40th birthday so the ability to welcome another one is always sweet.  Living in the gift of birthdays doesn't always equal a peachy, happy-go-lucky season of life.  Fortunately, my birthday was so fun and wonderful friends/family to match!

Of course, living in the "value what is now" brings its own blessings and challenges.  You actually have to talk yourself into being ok with "no plans" and mere blank space in your schedule.  After having nearly everything stripped from you including your ability to just go on a jog, you want to embrace every living second of life.  Working through the wake of havoc in one's life brings about a range of emotions and feelings in addition to accrued perspective.  And perhaps perspective that is indeed a gift from God Himself.  We're all a work in progress though, cancer or no cancer.  One thing I've grown to crave and embrace out of a multitude of trials is simply authenticity.  A safe place where it is ok to not be ok, not just for you but for those you are in relationship with too.  The sweet collision where humanity manifests on a path that only God can orchestrate.  He is our Conductor, the knower of our hearts regardless of their condition, the Author and Perfecter of our faith, and undoubtedly our King.  So, why is authentic relationship so risky?

As two friends recently shared with me, their biggest fear in pursuing deeper relationship with someone where authenticity and transparency exists is in fact, rejection.  And rightly so, rejection is a terrifying conclusion.  I also have another group of friends that fear being remotely transparent about any sort of emotion due to the risk of not being taken seriously, or the risk of seeming unprofessional in a city that beckons the dismissal of work/life/balance at every corner.  (We do live in Washington, DC after all)  And mostly the complaint of hesitating in authenticity is, like my first two friends, fear of being exposed, or misunderstood, or abandonment, or not being accepted, or someone taking a look at the deepest intricacies of one's heart and offering the mere proverbial reply, "it's just not good enough."  We all deal with it at some level.  It's scary.  It has the risk of leaving one feeling alone, hurt, not in the popular crowd, rejected, not accepted, outcasted, misunderstood, and a host of other terrifying feelings.  You may actually lose.

However, I am one of those people that does believe God has created us for relationship.  We need relationship with Him.  And further, I go a step to say we need relationship with people too.  God has created us in such a way that as He has loved us first by His own choosing, we can show His existence by our love for others.

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. - 1 John 4:7, NIV

No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. - 1 John 4: 12, NIV

Simply put, pursuing authentic relationships is far with worth the risk.  C.S. Lewis puts it this way:

"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in the casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable." - C.S. Lewis

It's not easy.  And I've certainly lost some myself in my lifetime in every way imaginable.  However, we can trust that God has certainly used it for His good.  It is without regret.  Not to say that I wouldn't change a thousand things about the past because I would, but I don't need to - God can (and does) redeem anything and everything.

By His grace, we stand in the face of our fear and hold on to God's truth.  This has been me lately.  Each day, my knuckles have been white from hanging on to Jesus so hard.  It's not that fear is overwhelming, its that my Savior has unfailing truth and an everlasting love.  In the storm, we can hang on and trust that He has overcome the world - and with Him, all things are possible.  By His grace, He can provide an authenticity that doesn't fail, doesn't reject, doesn't leave you lost, doesn't abandon you, doesn't turn you away, doesn't die, doesn't fade away.  God can look at your deepest, darkest, most unsightly scars and scoop you into His arms and never let you go.  Nor would He ever want to, no matter how fearful you are or how much you hold back - He is there.

Being authentic with God is a sweet, most sacred place that compares to nothing else.  He alone makes us whole.  And being able to take up the risk, and seek authenticity among believers is a risk worth taking.  Human beings may fail you, but the you may never know the fruit on the other side.  To know and be known is a gift God brings in a community of believers, and the relationships go even deeper with God's wisdom.  To be completely spiritually naked before another image bearer of God is a level of vulnerability that few may willingly venture to, but the ability - if you are that person observing - to return grace is purely in the character of God Himself.  To see past a person's shameful sin, their attempts to manage their image, the mask they wear, the persona they try to emulate to keep it together, to look past all of that and love them anyway is a grace that can only come from God.

So, to that I say, God is worth it.  Grace is worth it.  Humility is worth it.  Kindness is worth it.  Patience is worth it.  Compassion is worth it.  Forgiveness is worth it.  Transparency is worth it.  Authenticity is worth it.  Being real is worth it.  Your heart is worth it.  You are worth it.  Jesus is worth it.  Love is worth it.