Category Archives: illness

April 14, 2013 · 12:21 am

BFF: IX

By: Mia L. Hazlett
4/13/13

“Could you please just answer my question?  Do you believe in God?  Better yet, are you a Christian?”  Her avoidance was beginning to irritate me. A simple yes or no is all I needed to hear and we could move on.

“Honestly Mrs. Devins that is a very personal question which is irrelevant to our discussion.  I would really like to stay on track about your treatment,” the doctor shifted uncomfortably in her seat.

It amazed me she found my questions personal.  Over the past three weeks, we had shared the most intimate conversations about every aspect of not only my medical history, but of every woman in my family.  Every private detail about the current state of my body was spelled out in the little labeled manila folder she kept glancing at before she would ask me very “personal” questions.

She just didn’t get it.  I needed to be reassured that she didn’t think she was God.  I needed her to know that I wasn’t leaving my life in her hands, but I was praying to God to deliver an optimal outcome.  God was a huge part of my life and now I was supposed to put Him on the back burner to make sure she felt comfortable.  She looked at this as “treatment”, I perceived this “discussion” as my life.  My cancer treatment would alter my life forever.

I wasn’t requesting her to go through this treatment with me.  I’m not some religious zealot that was going to deny medical treatment and rely completely on prayer.  I just needed to know that through however long this treatment was going to take, she would respect my prayers to take precedent over medicine when I needed it to.

The point is, I’m scared.  I don’t know the outcome of all of this and neither does she. If it’s God’s will to take me home, I have to accept it somehow.  These are the conversations I’ve been having with Him since I was diagnosed.  Anger creeps in every now and again, but for the most part, I must remain faithful that He is in control.  So as irrelevant as she may find my simple question, she needs to understand she’s not in control.  She can squirm and shift all she wants in that chair, but I’m not leaving here without a yes or no.

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March 31, 2011 · 8:01 pm

BFF VI

BFF VI
By: Mia L. Hazlett
3/31/11

I wasn’t sure if I showed my utter devastation, but that’s exactly how I felt. I was absolutely devastated by what Kay just told me. But this was so far from being about me. My feelings didn’t matter. My thoughts didn’t matter. Nothing about me mattered right now. I just had to focus on my friend who was weeping in my arms as we stood in the restaurant’s bathroom.

This is exactly the release I needed. The journey was just beginning, but crying in Becky’s arms made this journey possible. Although the stakes are my life on this one, this moment brought me back to junior high. Jason Fegal, my seventh grade “date” to my first dance. He didn’t know he was there with me. We arrived separately and I had never formally asked him or anything. But someone had heard he liked me and they told Becky.

That’s all we needed. We knew the dance was coming up in a week. Our mothers got involved and we were allowed to buy new dresses. Not full make-up, but we were permitted to wear nail polish and lip gloss. You would have thought we were going to the prom the way our mothers carried on that night with all of the pictures. They dropped us off and as soon as we walked into that dance, we were on Jason patrol. He didn’t show up for another hour.

I remember standing around a corner against a wall with Becky, trying to figure out what she was going to say him. Obviously I couldn’t speak with him. Junior high rules: your best friend is in charge of getting the boys you like to like you. I can’t recall what we came up with for her to say, but I can remember them speaking clear as day and the feeling of wanting to die when she pointed at me. He and I caught eyes and I maturely ran into the hallway. Had I stayed, I would have witnessed Becky pushing him to the ground.

We went to the bathroom and she told me he already had a girlfriend that went to another school. I broke into tears and cried my little heart out in her comforting hug. She called him every name she could think of and I couldn’t understand why she was so upset. I later learned about the push and he didn’t have a girlfriend, but had called me ugly.

Now we stood in that same embrace in a little restaurant bathroom. Becky was calling the doctors and biopsy results everything she could think of. And just like that night at the dance, “Don’t worry Kay, we are going to knock this cancer on its ass.”

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