The Unbearable Itchiness of Being, Redux

So, I finally got to sleep around 6:30am, just as Elizabeth was getting up with the girls.  I was able to sleep until 9:00, when I woke up to find the house empty - Elizabeth had gone out to get McDonalds' biscuits (yum!).  I was awakened by The Itch, which had now moved into the various regions that had been sliced & diced in surgery.  Needless to say, those aren't areas that I want to scratch. 

Reading through the chemo drug information I now find that itching, rash, etc., are possible side effects of one of the chemo cocktail drugs.  Great.  But maybe it can be treated.  Elizabeth called the oncologist's office to find out what to do about this.  In the meantime, grin & bear it, and offer up sufferings for a special intention.

Which brings me to another point, which is the soteriological aspect of human suffering.  I think I have mentioned before that union with Christ's suffering was my desire as I went through this cancer thing.  But even in the worst of the radiation side effects, I can't say that I felt closer to God.  I think I'm understanding why.  While God may have given me the strength to make it through the course of treatment, and certainly buoyed me up through the surgery, I was still self-focussed.  I was trying to join with Christ without any understanding of why Christ suffered!

The key, I think now, is not to embrace those sufferings for my own sake, but to do as Christ did and embrace those sufferings for others.  The realization for this came from the homily at my friend Jeff Emitt's funeral mass.  I'm going to try to follow in Jeff's footsteps with regard to whatever sufferings remain in this round of chemo - not for the purpose of growing in my relationship with Christ - but for the a priori purpose that these sufferings might be redemptive for an other.

How this works is a mystery, but it is the core of the Christian message.  O felix culpa!

And that's all well & good, but I wish this itching would stop...