Wrestling with God

Tonight I had a long conversation with my friend, Olga. As I've posted before, she is dying of liver disease. I learned tonight that her kidneys are starting to shut down and she is producing dark brown urine in small amounts. She is blowing up like a balloon, however. Her legs are puffy and numb clear up past her knees. How she has been able to maintain her faculties in the face of what she has had to endure is beyond me.
Olga tells me that she had five liters of fluid taken off her abdomen last week. Apparently, she was having trouble breathing with all that acites. She wonders why the doctor hasn't tapped both sides of her abdomen because she feels that something is terribly wrong with the left side of her belly: it growls and squeals. Sometimes it looks like she is pregnant and a baby is kicking her, so violent is the movement emanating from her. It has been this way for four years.
The doctor says she has severe, advanced cirrhosis that results from the Hepatitis C that she contracted as an infant after a transfusion. She almost died then, but for some reason she has been able to survive.
She survived a painful young life taking care of a hypochondriac mother since the age of 13.
She survived an emotionally and verbally violent relationship for 20 years.
She survived a divorce that left her completely broken.
She survived graduate school and the loans that came with it.
She survived motherhood of three children who now will hardly talk to her.
She survived being let go from her church responsibilities because her presence (as a woman who divorced her husband) was too much drama for the church.
She survived her credit being completely destroyed by her husband before he left her.
All of this, she survived in the hope that she would one day have someone who loved her, someone whose "shoulder I can lay my head on when I'm dying."
But she has almost nothing, her sons are overwhelmed by her illness, and there is no one to lean except a few of us from church.
I suppose I have been hit rather hard by the responsibility that I have as a friend, to stand by her in a most unfixable situation. She is in end-stage liver failure, and her kidneys are starting to shut down as well. She doesn't want a transplant because she doesn't have anyone to care for her--a requirement in order to get a transplant. Olga knows that she will have to take immunosuppressants for the rest of her life to avoid organ rejection, and that this will also make her body a fertile breeding ground for the Hepatitis virus inside of her. So how long will she live post-transplant? Will it be worth it?
Meanwhile, she comes up short at least $700/month, but can't get out of her lease until June. She can barely keep her two part-time jobs, what with her legs and all her recent trips to the Emergency Room.
We are poised to take her in when she needs to come. We can give her a quiet place to live out her last months, or to recover from a transplant. She can relax here without financial concerns, hold our puppies, nap with the cat, and abandon her cares. And we have shoulders for her to lay her head on when she is dying.
It breaks my heart.
I asked Olga tonight if she has ever considered being annointed according to the Biblical injunction in James 5. She recently spoke with a pastor about it at length and they prayed together. During the prayer she said she had an "unexpected experience." She had a vivid image come to mind of her walking to a door and seeing a room full of very bright light, and people were seated at a table having a wonderful meal. She could not get herself to go inside, yet she felt drawn to the door. Is it because she feels that she is going to beat this thing? Possibly. In fact, Olga reports that several times during the day she feels a wave of peace and hope that everything is going to be okay.
Olga doesn't know what this vivid image means, but she feels that she doesn't deserve anything just for her that is as good as what she saw. She asked that she have one more week to think about being annointed so she can pray about it and consider what that would mean for her. I encouraged her to take some time (but not too long) to prepare for this. It is my prayer that God will see fit to bring some kind of healing to her. If not physical healing, then spiritual healing, peace, and readiness for whatever lies ahead.
It leaves me with a very heavy heart, knowing how gravely ill my friend is. But mostly, knowing the level of emotional suffering and how unfulfilled her hopes have been. It is very hard to live in the not-knowingness of an unfixable situation. She has been living with it for most of her life, and I am just coming into it.
Please, if you have any extra prayers, remember Olga. She is in great need in just about every way.

And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding,

will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Phillipians 4:7