Entry #81
November 29, 2021

Day negative-three

Patience.

We are learning lots of it.

We are at the end of the second day of radiation. Four treatments down, two more to go.

​Each morning, a team arrives around 6:15 and transports Brady to the James. There, we wait in a holding room until they can take him to “the vault” that is prepared for him.

​Once in the vault, he has to be hooked up to all the sensors that make sure no one part of his body gets too hot from the radiation entering his cells. Then, they lay him down and use multiple folded sheets to get every part of his body in the position it has to be in. Then, the table he is lying on is repositioned over and over until it is perfect.

Once the bed is in place, they use the shadows to tape up various “blocks” to shield certain parts of his body from the radiation. After that, they have to take X-rays to make sure it is all perfectly placed. When all of that is finally completed and in place, treatment begins. First the front; then they turn his body to do the back. Once treatment is completed, we wait on the transport team to get back to take us back to NCH.

Each time, he has left exhausted and overall feeling pretty crummy. All in all, it is about three to four hours. Twice a day.

It’s a lot. Especially for a child.

This part of the battle is hard. Both emotionally and physically. Each time they put the “guard” on his head, I pray. I pray that the Lord is holding each of Brady’s cells in His hand to protect them. To protect every inch of his body. Head to toe and fingertip to fingertip.

There is something about that final piece going on his head that puts a lump in my throat every time. If you are following our journey, then you know how hard some of these entries are to read. I write them not for pity but to hopefully open eyes to the world that is happening to so many families behind hospital doors.

Before Brady’s diagnosis, I had no idea what families endured through a pediatric diagnosis like this.

None. Zero. I’ve never personally known any family in this situation. But now that we are faced with it, my prayer is to help bring light and understanding to not just cancer families but all families battling through impossible things. Trials that you would never expect to face. Trials that break your heart and make you cry.

I think sometimes we try to shield ourselves too much from pain. Pain is hard, so we try to avoid it or pass over it. But God wants our hearts to be broken for the things that break His heart too. That’s how we grow in compassion and understanding. Sickness, poverty, injustice, loneliness—you name it. He wants us to experience it so we can grow from it.

We try not to talk about hard things because we don’t want to cause sadness, but doesn’t that make it worse? Pretending everything is OK doesn’t actually make it OK. We need to feel the pain. We need to let the pain break our hearts. Feeling that pain helps us to better understand the pain others are feeling too.

You can never understand the depths of depression until you or someone close to you walks through it. You will never grasp the pain of losing a child or family member until it happens to you. You will never gain perspective of how exhausting caring for someone with a long-term illness is until you walk that road.
You will never know the tragedy of inequality if you’ve never had it happen to you.
I guess my point is this: let pain break you but don’t stay broken. Let the pain live on your heart like a scar.

Let it be a reminder of what you or someone has gone through so you can be full of compassion when your neighbor is in need or suffering. Let us be the people who show up in the darkness when someone needs it the most. Let us be the people who stand up when someone is pushed down. Let us be the people who pick up the pieces of someone else’s broken heart.

Those people, the ones with compassion for others that can only come from understanding pain, those are the type of neighbors God is asking us to be.
I hope our journey helps bring just a bit of light and understanding to what so many sitting in the rooms and halls around us are also facing.

Shields up.
Swords out.

Grace for all,
Kristin

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“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” The second is this: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” There is no commandment greater than these.
—Mark 12:30–31