unDIAGNOSED. Randy Beal
I remember was George waking me again.
“Randy!” he shouted, shaking me, “the pilot just announced that we caught a strong tailwind on the way back and made it in record time!” He and Steve were shocked. I just smiled. Perhaps the faith of that pastor had rubbed off a little on me.
For several weeks after my return, I remained extremely sleepy and experienced several headaches. I was able to function somewhat normally but felt more run-down than usual. I also noticed a slight slurring of my speech. None of this gave me much concern. Though I was no longer a stupid teenager, I had managed to carry over a great deal of that stupidity into my 20s and decided to ignore these symptoms. I also started to notice a tingly feeling in the bottoms of my feet and toes, primarily when playing weekly pick-up basketball games. Sometimes this was accompanied by blurred vision. Again, it caused no concern. I just dealt with it by not dealing with it. The invincibility of youth still enveloped me, and I looked forward to more days of travel and adventures. Life was looking good.
Life Happens
Today has been a rough day mentally and physically for me. I have been feeling down and out and have felt like crying for no apparent reason. I've had days like this before; they are rare though. Thank God I have an outlet to work through these emotions--my blog. I figured it was okay to share this with you all, being as you've shared my highs and lows. I pushed through and when walking, I was able to knock out 120 steps. They weren’t easy, but I couldn't let up. 120 seems like I'm going backwards since 202 was my high. But I have to look at it as 120 steps is better than no steps. When I finished I had the theme song from the "Facts of Life" playing in my head.
You take the good, you take the bad,
you take them both and there you have
the facts of life, the facts of life
That's how life is, good and bad. But it's how you respond to it that matters most. Just through the course of writing this blog, my demeanor has changed from bad to good. I have a smile on my face now!
Snapping back to the harsh reality of the day-to-day can be jarring. I wrote this blog entry when I was discouraged. I had logged in less steps than in the previous week and it made my ultimate goal of walking again seem further away.
It makes me think of something former NY Jets Quarterback, Chad Pennington, said: “How do you look at adversity? Do you look at it as defeat or another opportunity?”
When I lay them both side by side, defeat or opportunity, the choice is clear. I don’t feel defeated. I look at what I’ve been through, what I’m still going through, as a chance to do more. To prove my worth. To prove to myself that I’ve got the internal fortitude. To prove that I can both overcome adversity myself and help others overcome. This gives me renewed strength to venture forward, regardless of how many steps.
Father’s Day came and went in 2001 and everything was business as usual. For me, Father's Day is now a bittersweet time of celebration at most. Of course, I think about and cherish memories I had with my dad on this day, like everyone else. I can’t help but feel like an outsider, looking in, though. I don’t begrudge seeing others taking their dads out to dinner and buying them unneeded but heartfelt tokens of appreciation. I took these traditions for granted for many years, but now just wish I could be the one to pick up the tab again or present the “world’s best dad” mug. They say you never appreciate what you have until it’s gone, but I think on Father’s Day we are at least trying.
Shortly after Father's Day, on Friday, July 13th, 2001, I received a call from my mom. I was at work and my sister had stopped by. We were expecting to hear news from the doctors about our dad. He had been suffering from a constant nagging cough for several weeks until his constant nagging wife prevailed upon him to get it checked out. The news came like a ton of bricks: my father was diagnosed with terminal small-cell carcinoma. In layman’s terms: lung cancer. He was given six months to live. I don’t remember much after hearing that, but my sister tells me that my whole demeanor changed. She has never forgotten what I said next, “I’m too young to lose my father.”
My dad was a quiet man but had quite a bit of physical presence: tall, rugged, intimidating at first glance. My friends, in fact, referred to him as John Wayne because of the smooth confidence and tough grit he projected. I can think of many examples of this, but the one that seemed to impress my friends was the lawn mower incident. My dad had been riding the mower when the front tire went flat. He turned the motor off, bent down, and, with one hand, hefted the tractor up off the ground. With his other hand, he gave a quick jerk to the tire and yanked it off, unaware of the awestruck teenage boy audience hanging off his every move.
Mom left the heavy-duty disciplining up to dad. I don’t ever remember him spanking me, but his silent disappointment often left me feeling like I’d been beaten up and proved the best deterrent to foolish behavior. He was cool like that. Gentle, but authoritative. Supportive, but stern. It seemed impossible and surreal that someone so powerful could be felled by a cancer that called itself small-celled.
How do you process news like this? Anger seemed to be my most readily accessible emotion. Since I couldn’t justify staying angry at my father in his state of suffering, my heavenly Father became the target of my anger. I was furious with God. I had been brought up to believe that God rewards faithfulness. Indeed, my family was incredibly faithful: church every Sunday, tithe-paying, volunteering in various areas of ministry. It now appeared that this faithfulness was not only going unrewarded, but was actually compensated with tragedy. I began to doubt the very existence of God.
Psychologists break down grieving into stages, and maybe there is some level of comfort to be had in pigeon-holing complex emotions. To say I was in the anger stage oversimplifies it. I was an emotional wreck: angry, doubtful, frustrated, depressed, despairing all at once. Like many who are hurting, I fed on this emotional stew over and over again in a vain attempt to understand what was happening to me.
After a while of this, I asked myself, “Am I going to forsake everything I was raised to believe in an instant?” The answer was, “No!” I started to read books and reevaluate my faith. I concluded that the way I had lived my life up to his point had not been in vain.
My dad started receiving chemo treatments, and almost always came in to work directly from the hospital. He was often quite sick on these days and would have to lean against a pillar to catch his breath or run to the bathroom. He refused to let it get the best of him, setting a great example for me on how to live a determined life. I didn’t realize how soon this lesson would come into play.
Around Christmastime of 2001, we received exciting news: the cancer was gone! This was it, the miracle we had prayed for, our faithfulness being rewarded. How glad I was that I had chosen to not abandon my faith. This news fit my paradigms about how God worked and about what was fair and right. I was relieved and elated and felt that we had been given a second lease on life.
It turned out to be a short-term lease. The cancer returned a few months later with a vengeance as did the chemo treatments. I took the cue from my dad and refused to give up hope that he would recover. I prayed more fervently than ever before. I fasted. I studied accounts of healing in the Bible. I did a ton of reading and research on faith, subconsciously thinking that if somehow I could increase and improve my flawed faith, it would make everything OK.
The last week of his life was tough. He spent a week in the hospital but was given permission to come home Father’s Day weekend. Before leaving the hospital, I asked him when he was going to beat this.
He said “I haven’t heard from the big guy yet.”
Over the weekend, the whole family gathered around him. Comfort food abounded. We ate so much. I’m not sure why food is so tied in to loss. Maybe because eating is such an elemental activity of life and it affirms our connection to the living. I won’t over-analyze, though. I like food.
Before my dad’s death, there were a few scares. He was on oxygen and a few times started choking. I would run towards him to try and help, not sure if those were his last breaths. Father’s Day met with a few more choking bouts. Dad also came up with some very odd questions