Hi all,
Disclaimer: I got a little long-winded this time around. :) If you don't have time to read through the whole update, read the next 3 paragraphs and the last 3. Look for the big bolded sentence in the second to last paragraph. For the rest of you who are all in, don't skip to the end first. :)
Sorry for the delay since the last post. A whole lot has been going on since I last updated. Some days there's been a whole lot of something going on, but many days it's been a whole lot of nothing. The slowdown is real - and slow.
I've now made it through 4 treatments, and with each additional treatment, recovering my energy has taken longer. After treatment #4, it took about 10 days for me to get to a place where I could get up, get ready, leave the house to do a thing or two, and not pay for it later. It turns out that the head cold I got after treatment #3 wasn't really a head cold - it's just allergies that have come and not gone. They, along with all of my symptoms, seem to ebb and flow, but they seem to be here to stay. I wish I was one of those pretty girls who blew her nose all dainty-like, or had a sweet little cough, but that's just not me. So, everywhere I go, I'm blowing my nose like a freight train and coughing so hard that in moments I think others are worried that I'm gonna throw up on their shoes. Lovely. :)
All this extra downtime has given me time to think, mostly because I don't feel like doing much else. Ten days of thinking all about yourself and how you're feeling is really not a passtime that I can recommend. All that thinking leads you to all kinds of emotions - many of which aren't so fun or healthy. I feel sad because I see life going on around me, and not only can I not physically participate, I don't want to participate because I feel so lousy. I feel frustrated because it's taking longer and longer to feel better each time. I feel guilty because my "slow down" doesn't just affect me - it affects the whole family. The kids mention vacation or camping or Holiday World, and I know that for now that's just something we can't do - because of me. And best of all, there's the internal argument swirling in my head, "You need to stop having a pity party for yourself. You know there's lots to be thankful for. You know these negative attitudes aren't helping!"
Ugh.
So this summer our small group at church has been taking a little time to read through some of the Psalms. Lots of the Psalms are written by David - the same guy who killed the giant Goliath with a slingshot and went on to become the King of all of Israel. One morning, the kids and I read Psalm 63. But before they read it, I gave them a little back story to what was going on in David's life when he wrote it. When David was a boy, a prophet named Samuel showed up at his house one day and told David that God wanted to make him King of Israel. This would have been great, except Saul was already the King. So, David took that info, stuck it in his back pocket, and went on with life. But pretty quickly David and Saul's paths crossed. First, David came and did a a little harp playing for Saul to help him calm down when the evil spirit tormented him (Saul got a little loco in his later days). Then, David saved Saul and all of Israel when he killed their enemy Goliath (which made all the rest of their enemies run away in fear). Now, you'd think that Saul would be David's #1 fan, but since he was a little crazy, all this "help" had the opposite effect on Saul. He was jealous of David because he thought everybody liked David more than him; he was scared of David because he knew God was on David's side, not his. So, Saul sent David away with some of his army. And, no big shocker, David and the army had tons of success wherever they went. This did not do much for the whole jealous/scared thing. What came next was what many historians believe was 8 to 10 years of Saul chasing David all over the place, trying to kill him.
Sorry for the long Bible/history lesson there, but here's where all of that comes into play. Psalm 63 was written while David was hiding out in the desert (think: "world's worst hiding spot"). Here's a few verses of what David had to say:
You, God, are my God,
earnestly I seek you;
I thirst for you,
my whole being longs for you,
in a dry and parched land
where there is no water.
Because your love is better than life,
my lips will glorify you.
4 I will praise you as long as I live,
and in your name I will lift up my hands.
On my bed I remember you;
I think of you through the watches of the night.
7 Because you are my help,
I sing in the shadow of your wings.
8 I cling to you;
your right hand upholds me.
Let's review: David is being chased by a lunatic King, forced to run and hide on and off for 10 years, even though all he's ever done is be a help to the King. And this is David's response to God - he knows God is his God and is desperate to call out to Him for help; not only that, he is thanking God for the life He's given him; he sees that God is being his help, and he's singing "thank-you songs" to Him.
The kids and I talked about this a lot. We're not real sure that if it had been us in those circumstances we would have been singing "thank-you songs" to God. We think our songs would have taken a more whiny-angry-defeated tone.
And that's when it hit me - that's exactly what I was doing. I'm not being chased by a lunatic, but I am being pursued by a pretty crazy disease. And my response: "Oh woe is me!" And the really honest question I had to ask myself was this: "How's that working out for ya?" The answer: not so good. So, I spent a little more time thinking and having my own little talk with God, But this time, I spent time focusing on different things. I thought about who I believe God to be:
He is my God - He cares about about me specifically, and isn't just this guy in the sky who isn't concerned about the details of my life;
He loves me- and He loves me with a love that is perfect. It isn't necessarily a love that means that everything will always be all-good-all-of-the-time, but He loves me enough to walk me through this tough season to teach me new things and change me into a better person.
He is my help - even though it may not feel like He's helping me right now, there are so many ways (plenty of them I probably don't even know about) in which He is protecting my life and caring for me and our family.
And when you think about things that way, it does make you want to sing "thank-you songs".
So, fast-forward to Monday. Monday was my follow up meeting with the surgeon now that I am halfway through chemo. If he found that the tumors were not shrinking, that would mean that chemo would stop and surgery would happen ASAP. The night before the appointment, Mike and I were talking about how we were feeling heading into the appointment. We both agreed that we would definitely like to "see" that the chemo is causing the tumors to shrink, but we also agreed that if they hadn't, that would be ok too. We know God's got us on a journey here - obviously we hope that at the end of the journey we will be celebrating that the cancer is gone, but what the journey looks like from here to there is an unknown, and maybe what we think is the "best path" might not be what God has in mind.
Fortunately, Dr. Nate was able to do an ultrasound right there in his office, which meant there would be no waiting for the results. So, after a brief chat, we got to the ultrasound and learned that THE BREAST TUMOR HAS SHRUNK IN HALF! Yippee!! I think the doctor was so pleased with the result he forgot to check the lymph node. He started to put things up and let me clean all the ultrasound goo off of me, so I looked at him and said, "Would you mind checking the lymph node too?" He looked at me quizzically for half a second and said, "Sure. That's a great idea," and with a little smile on his face said, "I was just so pleased with the other result that I got distracted!" The lymph node is measured differently than the breast tumor, but after looking at it he said the lymph node looks, "much more like normal." Yippee again!!
So the plan moving forward will fall out in three steps:
1. I will finish the last 4 chemo treatments over the next month and a half. Tomorrow will be treatment #5. My last treatment will be in late July.
2. After a month to rest, I will have surgery in late August.
3. After another month to rest, I will start 6-8 weeks of radiation in late September. This was a bit of unexpected news, but the doctor explained that because of the lymph node involvement, this is a means of making sure that we kill off any cancer cells that might be left behind following surgery. As I explained it to the kids, we are gonna kill the cancer dead with the chemo and surgery, and then use radiation to stomp on it one more time to make sure it's good and dead.
So, hard stuff and good stuff, quiet days and crazy days - but isn't that what all of our journeys through life really are? As always, we are so thankful that you are journeying with us. We love you all!
