According to the dictionary of medical terms at WebMD.com, a flat affect is defined as "absence of or diminution in the amount of emotional tone or outward emotional reaction typically shown by oneself or others under similar circumstances; a milder form is termed blunted affect." In this term, the word 'affect' is pronounced AFF-fekt, not uh-FEKT as in, "This circumstance affected me negatively." Also not to be confused with 'effect,' which is used as a noun in sentences like "This circumstance had a negative effect on me." There's your grammar lesson for the day.
It's important to define this term, I believe, because I referred to myself recently as having a flat affect and was exploring the possible causes. I probably don't have a true medical diagnosis of flat affect; my guess, both from my college education (I have a bachelor's degree in psychology) and from previous experience, is that I'm experiencing mild depression. Pregnancy hormones could have something to do with this, but I also believe it's partly due to R.'s recent experience with a brain tumor and the ensuing chemotherapy. Let's go back to that story...
When I left off, R. had just gotten his Hickman catheter and was ready to start ten weeks of chemo, at the end of which he would have another MRI to check on the benign tumor on his optic nerve. My husband and I prayed harder than we've ever prayed before. I sent several weekly email updates to family and friends, who shared our son's story with their friends, etc., until we were being bathed in prayer by Christian believers all over the world. I truly believed God was going to heal R. I decided to believe and not doubt, and ask for the biggest miracle possible - not only the removal of the tumor, but the removal of the entire NF-1 disorder from R's body. If my God is big enough to raise Jesus Christ from the dead, then He is definitely powerful enough to heal my son, I reasoned.
The ten weeks went by. R. had his MRI - and there was no change. The tumor was still there. We were crushed. How could God not have answered the heartfelt prayers of so many people for one little boy? I began to doubt whether God really cared for us or not. Why, after all, are we commanded to "pray without ceasing" (1 Thessalonians 5:17), and told that "the prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective" (James 5:17) if God is just going to do whatever He wants anyway? I don't want to get into a theological discussion of the paradox of God's ultimate sovereignty versus the power of prayer to change things, but this is what I struggled with, and these doubts began to chip away at my faith.
The short story is, I stopped hoping. I stopped asking God for anything. My prayers consisted of, "Lord, may your will be done." God's will was God's will, and I felt like He was just going to do whatever He deemed best, no matter what I said or did, so I didn't need to ask for anything anymore. After all, God does know best, doesn't he? He's the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, and His ways are not our ways. I figured my prayers were not necessary anymore. I began to expect the worst-case scenario in every aspect of life. I was terrified to leave my children or go on any vacations. My mind conjured up awful tragedies that surely awaited us if we dared to leave the safety of our home or town.
In the midst of all this, R. was actually doing well. He tolerated the chemo beautifully, never having nausea or vomiting, never losing all his hair, still able to attend preschool - and we would come to find out that it was considered a victory for the tumor to have stopped growing. Our expectations of it being completely erased were unrealistic, medically speaking. Over the next sixteen months, my husband finished residency, we moved from Wichita, Kansas, to his hometown in southeast South Dakota, and R. continued to receive chemo once per week - now in a phase called 'maintenance,' where the same drugs were administered in different concentrations. R. started kindergarten in the fall of 2010. He had regular eye exams to check on his sight and his optic nerve. He lost some weight and had less energy, and was also extremely emotionally fragile. We still flushed his Hickman line and changed the dressing every single night before bed, and he was not allowed to swim in the lake near our home because of the danger of infection.
As we plodded through the next year and a half, having sedated MRIs every three months (R. had to hold so still for these tests to be accurate that he had to be sedated every time), I contemplated our situation. I knew lots of people who had it worse than we did. I met them every time we went to the hospital for treatment - kids with leukemia or other cancers who were sick and miserable. They couldn't eat, couldn't play, had debilitating nausea, took numerous medicines intravenously and by mouth, and some of their families had moved hundreds of miles to be close to the cancer center for treatment. Some of them would die. At least my son's condition was not life-threatening. Truth be told, the chemo was working. Our expectations of the tumor's complete removal were unrealistic, medically speaking. Each MRI showed either no change or perhaps a millimeter of shrinkage in the tumor, which was considered a success from the doctors' standpoint.
I knew that, according to modern medicine, R. would always have this disorder. There is no cure for neurofibromatosis. He would always be at risk for new tumors developing. He would have to remain under the care of a genetic specialist and a neurologist (at the very least) for the rest of his life, to monitor his disorder and find any new tumors that might form. I also knew that I had asked God to take it away from R., and He had refrained from doing so. Helplessly, I struggled to reconcile the loving God I know from the Bible with the same one who, for some reason, had chosen not to heal my son.
(God really did give us a miracle with how well R. tolerated the harsh chemo drugs and stayed his preciously quirky, happy little self through the whole thing instead of getting angry or bitter with us and his doctors - but all I could focus on was how God hadn't given me exactly what I asked for.)
You see, when people have kids, they tend to make all kinds of mental plans around these kids' futures. They imagine what the kids will be when they grow up. Part of the joy in being a parent is found in teaching and refining these little people to be good, productive citizens of the world someday. We mold, we shape, we correct, we train - so that our precious little pipsqueaks will someday grow up to be solid, sensible adults who then raise lovely little families of their own. But when you're constantly preoccupied with a child whose medical condition precludes any certainty about their future, well...hoping and planning for the future becomes less appealing.
I know God wants me to take joy in life again. He wants me to love without reservations, to hope without fear, and to live abundantly in spite of - or perhaps because of - the fact that there are no guarantees. Once as I prayed about R. and the future, I angrily demanded of my Lord, "If you might take away anyone I love at any time, then what is there left for me?" And I felt Him impress upon my heart, "I AM left. I AM the one thing that will never, ever change. I AM the one you will always have. I want to be the desire of your heart - I want to be the only thing you need, even if I AM all you have left."
The conclusion I've reached is that my recent 'flat affect' or mild depression, if you will, is probably mostly the result of my own failure to be thankful. My heavenly Father is the same God yesterday, today, and forever, and my viewpoint of Him should not be filtered through my own fickle feelings. The Bible is the truth, and I can either choose to believe it and trust in Him, or not. Circumstances are but temporary, and they don't change the eternal qualities of God Himself. I have to remind myself of that.
I have more stories of losses I've experienced, ones which formed the framework of my faith both before and since R.'s medical problems began. Someday I'll share them with you, but they are stories of my husband's family tragedies, not technically mine, so they must be treated with extreme care. I don't write these things to get attention or to make anyone feel sorry for me - I know that many people out there have suffered far worse than I could ever imagine, and I don't want to diminish their pain in any way by comparing it to mine. I have simply shared one of my stories (albeit an incomplete, clumsily written account) because it helps me figure out where I am now in relation to where I've been. Each word I write helps lift the burden a little bit. Thanks to you for reading.
Love,
Jess
No comments:
Post a Comment