God gave me a vehicle that, when driven properly, can be creative and skilled artistically. I can also write a coherent string of sentences most of the time. When I found the lump in December of 2016, my immediate thought was to find out what it was and, if it was bad, then it needed to get cut out of me as soon as possible. It was like a foreign object that didn’t belong there and just needed to go. When the local hospital told me it was malignant but that I could wait until the new year to schedule the excision surgery, I said, “No, I want it out NOW,” so I scheduled to have a lumpectomy at a nearby surgery center that could fit me into their schedule. Wondering whether that was the correct decision is wasted thought-time and is now just one more step in my journey of discovery. Two oncologists at two different centers told me that due to the type and size of the excised tumor, I’d have to undergo a protocol of powerful chemotherapy and radiation followed by a five-year regimen of another pharmaceutical. Though one oncologist was a male DO and the other was a female MD and they were presiding in two separate facilities run by two separate corporations, the words out of their mouths were nearly identical. I felt like they had this recipe or formula that read “If the tumor is X then C + R + P = our standard course.” They each gave me a 7-page document of the probable side effects of their chemotherapy drug. As an Occupational Therapist, I always thought tacking the word “therapy” onto something that caused so much physiological havoc was offensive. Then Jon asked the DO cancer guy, “Kathleen is an artist; we know neuropathy is a common side effect of this course of treatment. Should she be concerned that she might not be able to do her art anymore?” The DO, saying nothing, dropped his head and did a sort of shake/nod that told Jon and I all we needed to know. My life as an artist was likely going to end.
That was the turning point for me. Why was I trying to “beat” cancer if the “treatment” was going to destroy my nerve endings so that my fingers would tingle all the time, that I would have difficulty grasping paintbrushes or sculpting tools and that I would have decreased awareness in my hands?
I did not know it at the time, but I was beginning to seek God in that moment: Who He is, how He made me and what His will was for me. I’d worked as an OT for 30 years, but still did my art when I could. Chemotherapy would make me too sick to work as an OT, possibly causing me to have to retire early, but if I couldn’t feel a pencil in my hand, the thing that God had put in my heart to do would be destroyed. I was already at a low point in my life emotionally, physically, and spiritually. God had a better way for me, it just took some nudges along the way to find His path and along the way, He reacquainted me with the vehicle He gave me to drive.
Kathleen Petitjean | Fine Art 