The Uncertainty Principle

In Science, the uncertainty principle says that you can tell where an electron is at any moment, OR you can check out its behavior, but you can’t have both, because by the time you nail the sucker down to one spot it’s actually been, it’s long gone, and you have no idea what it’s doing anymore. Kind of like kids. It gives, as one scientist calls it, a fuzziness to nature (I like that because I want to ask, doesn’t that make you wonder?)

In medicine it translates to this: the more doctors who see you, the less they can tell you about the behavior of your tumor. I have been seen and prodded and tested by seven doctors now in three countries. The last one, Dr. Gloom, could tell me where the tumor was¸ but not how it’s behaving, because he has never examined me before. But his examination did bring to light something I wasn’t noticing, and since I’ve actually been present for all seven examinations, maybe I’m allowed an educated guess. I have no idea where the monster is¸ haven’t ever been able to feel the thing inside me even though it’s over 5 cm across, but I think it’s shrinking! I’ll tell you why, and it’s a little awkward, but ladies, I’m just going to say the words because maybe it will keep one of you in the future from making the mistake I made, thinking that the changes I was seeing in my right breast were only more crazy effects of menopause. The right side was heavier, making it hard to jog in the morning. The tumor started dragging on tissue from the inside out, inverting things, like nipples. I should have noticed that much, but I didn’t know any better, and the Oaxaca radiologist that took my mammogram missed that, too. Or that particular effect hadn’t shown up yet. Who know. The thing is, now the inversion seems to be gone. Uncertainty principle at work there.

Cancer is all about uncertainty. The best the doctors can give you are prognoses, guesses, percentages, chances, rolls of the dice. My chances of survival are roughly 80%, according to Robert’s memory. My memory pegged higher, wishful thinking maybe, so right there, there’s uncertainty. I never know what to expect after each session in the Chair. Another ER visit? A numb mouth? More drugs with all their own side effects? Yesterday I had two moments where my pulse hit 200. Probably effects from the chemo. If the episodes hadn’t stopped on their own, I would have been off to another flatlining session. But they did after a few minutes. Whew. Will this keep happening? What triggers it? Uncertainty principle at work.

I also don’t know much about what happens after chemo. Mastectomy. What’s that like—not sure I even want to know. What will they find? Will there be daily radiation after that? Will it stop the monster? Will I be among those fortunate 80% who make it to 5 years? And what will all this poison and antibiotics and surgery and radiation do to my body in the long term? And when is the heart surgery? And can I wait that long without flatlining again? I have a dark spot on my ear that worries me. Dr. Gloom glanced at it and pronounced it nothing to worry about. Hmmm. Do I trust this doctor I’ve never met before, who doesn’t know about numb mouths and L-Glutamine? What does he know? Never would have been worried before about a spot on the ear, but now I wonder what causes what. What leads to what? Who really knows what they are doing? There is that uncertainty principle again.

And that is what it means to live in Oz. It’s not all bad. God actually invented the uncertainty principle when he created the universe and then had kids himself and risked everything to earn their love. And failed. At least for a while. He’s gaining ground. YAY! And He injected Abraham with the uncertainly principle when he told him to get up and go to a place Abraham had never seen before. And those of us that are Abraham’s spiritual descendants have got that same gene. We are all pilgrims in search of a better home. The gene keeps us from really settling anywhere else. Keeps us groping for God, for a Kingdom of God we know has to be there somewhere if we could only find it—or make it. Uncertainty keeps us longing for home, keeps us tasting that Gospel of Homesickness.