Anyone Can Do This, Part 2

Sharing Burdens

Photo by National Cancer Institute on Unsplash

As the week progressed Sarah noticed a change in Liya. She no longer vomited and she was able to eat. She was enough better that Sarah thought about asking for another scan before treatment. But she didn’t. Instead, on a ride home from a doctor’s appointment, she told Liya to really ask God for what she wanted—complete healing-- instead of continually saying “whatever you want Lord”.

So, on the ride home Liya did just that, loudly and with much emotion, in her native language. Imagine Sarah’s chagrin at the sudden outpouring. She so rarely freely expressed emotion, so she wasn’t expecting it. But it was important!

Liya began chemotherapy in September. She was scheduled to go every other week.

The chemo seemed easy to bear the first time, aside from having to delay for low blood counts. They removed one of her medications for the second round and pushed it back a week.

Sarah knew that everything Liya was going through must be incredibly hard. To enter their house, to go through difficult medical treatment, to worry about her daughter—all of this was very hard. But Liya never complained, and only sometimes hinted this was a struggle.

Sometimes Sarah and the young one would sit around the table and talk after dinner. So, one night Sarah asked, “What has this been like for you?” Liya smiled and answered, “Before I was lonely. Now I am not. I have peace.”

The thing that stood out most in Sarah’s mind was how they had become family. Others recognized it too. The pastor said to them one day, "Do you realize what you have done? You have broken racial barriers, social barriers, economic barriers, all barriers." Sarah was embarrassed and thought, “Anyone can do this."

After the third round of chemo, Liya developed a tremendous headache. It proved to be an old subdural hematoma, perhaps from an old fall. That meant she had to have a whole drilled in her head to remove the old blood, and another stay in the hospital. She went home after a few days, then had to go back for a new hematoma. All of this delayed her chemotherapy.

She had another round of chemotherapy and another hematoma. Liya cried out, “What do you want of me?” and then had her third brain surgery. No one knew why.

Now out of the hospital, it was time for her scan to see how the cancer was. Together the young and Sarah went to the appointment to hear the results. Both were worried that all the complications and delays might have made the treatment ineffective.

“Your scan is clear.” The doctor said it calmly. Liya first shouted, then wept. First the doctor, then Sarah silently held her. She praised God for his mercy. Suddenly the future Sarah had feared was gone.

What happened next? Unlike fairy stories, this story does not end neatly.

To be continued…