{"id":3153,"date":"2016-08-01T09:27:44","date_gmt":"2016-08-01T16:27:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jonandlayne.com\/?p=3153"},"modified":"2016-08-01T09:27:44","modified_gmt":"2016-08-01T16:27:44","slug":"the-work-is-not-yet-finished","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jonandlayne.com\/the-work-is-not-yet-finished\/","title":{"rendered":"The Work is Not Yet Finished"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Jon Post<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

I met a young mother in the hospital last week. I was there preparing to bring four OTHER women into Casa Ahav\u00e1 and one of the oncologists pulled me into the conference room and told me about this woman with breast cancer.<\/p>\n

\u201cCan you take her too?\u201d asked the oncologist.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve no space\u201d came my tired and overused reply.<\/p>\n

But I found myself walking the hallway to this young mother\u2019s room anyway. I found myself at the foot of her bed, opening her file, seeing the familiar doctor scrawl across the \u201cdiagnosis\u201d line, and feeling the familiar drop in my chest as I read what I already knew;<\/p>\n

Breast cancer.<\/p>\n

She was on the phone with her daughter when I came in.<\/p>\n

Her daughter is 7 years old.<\/p>\n

I heard the joy and pain in her voice as she asked how her daughter was doing in school and if she was obeying her grandmother. I heard her end the phone call with the tired lie \u201cI will be home soon.\u201d<\/p>\n

I asked her about her daughter she immediately told me of her wonderful little girl and how much she misses her. How long it\u2019s been since she was with her and how important it is for her to be in her school.<\/p>\n

Unspoken but understood was the fear that she may not see her daughter again.<\/p>\n

Unspoken but understood was the resignation to the pain of chemotherapy and its unrelenting assault on a body already broken by cancer.<\/p>\n

Now she sits in front of me in a hospital bed, pleading for mercy and a bed in my home and I tell her, \u201cWait, sister. Wait. The work is not yet finished.\u201d<\/p>\n

Riverbeds carved in flesh from tears and the secretions of necrotic wounds mark her cheeks and her side, and she nods her head in understanding.<\/p>\n

She will endure.<\/p>\n

She will wait.<\/p>\n

She has no other options.<\/p>\n

Her far away home offers witchcraft and lies as a cures for splitting DNA and cells with too many nuclei that multiply and multiply and poison her blood and her lymphatic system. Witchcraft chants and smelly herbs in a dark mud hut and a man dressed in traditional clothing promised her the mass of tissue swelling in her breast would reduce and she gave him her money and her soul and she left feeling empty and used.<\/p>\n

Here at the hospital a combination of Fluorouracil, Cisplatin, and pain drip into her swollen forearm. They promise tumor reduction, dead DNA strands, halted cell division, nausea, Nephrotoxicity, loneliness, depression, and homesickness.<\/p>\n

\u201cWait, sister. Wait. The work is not yet finished.\u201d<\/p>\n

I stare at my hands after I\u2019ve uttered those words and wonder if there can be any comfort in them.<\/p>\n

I have four women staying in my home and I\u2019ve promised beds to two others.<\/p>\n\n\t\t