SO WHAT'S A LITTLE CHEMO??

My infusion went very well today. It was great to be reunited after the summer with Dr. T., my awesome oncologist. I could not ask for a better doc. (Note my red cheeks from the steroids.....those things are killers......only 1 hour and 10 minutes of sleep last night). Dr. T. would like to do a PET scan on the 21st of September, and I agreed. I told him there is a part of me that really doesn't want to know, but I know that the results of the scan will be important for future drug selections, so we do it.

Dr. T and me

The wonderful gal (and new friend), Carole......who is a nurse and breast cancer liaison at my facility......who recommended Dr. T to me.....came down to visit me during my infusion. It was so good to see her. She is a bundle of positive energy and compassion and vitality, and I love that she is there as a resource. My friend Barb is the one who told me to call Carole, her sister-in-law, and I am so grateful that my friend Jill told me to call Barb!! Funny how God works things out!!

Carole C.

My nurse Lisa got my tubing in my vein in one totally pain-free 2 second stick. I don't know if they have new needles there that don't need to be pushed into the vein, but she did not push anything after the initial poke. She is now my new needle hero!! Dick and I were out of there in an hour and a half and on our way home.

Chemotherapy has become second nature

Feeling good all afternoon and we just went for a long walk and took a very long bike road around town after dinner. Praise God for no side effects!! I consider that a miracle every month!!

2nd AUGUST CHEMO

Chemo again tomorrow. Dick is going with me to meet my new doctor. I really wanted him to meet Dr. T. My facility has a family computer area/family room in the infusion center where he can work for the morning. It's the first time I've had to have 2 treatments in one month, but the 4 week interval just happened to catch this last leg of August. I started steroids this morning, so I am dreading the next 4 nights without sleep. I shudder even today thinking about being poked more than once tomorrow, but I can always hope.....


Talked to Sam this morning and he is coming home for a very short overnight on Saturday. It won't be long, but it will be great to get my arms around him!

Remember, your Rock is Christ, and it is the sea that 

ebbs and flows with the tides, not Him. 

Samuel Rutherford

THE FOG CLEARED

Missionary L.B. Cowman once went to America from China with a steamship captain who was a devoted Christian. When they were off the coast of Newfoundland, the captain said to him, " The last time I sailed here, which was five weeks ago, something happened that revolutionized my entire Christian life. And the captain told Cowman this story:


I had been on the bridge with fog for twenty-four straight hours when George Mueller of Bristol, England, who was a passenger on board, came to me and said, "Captain, I need to tell you that I must be in Quebec on Saturday afternoon."


"That's impossible," I replied.


"Very well," said Mueller, "if your ship cannot take me, God will find some other way, for I have never missed an engagement in 57 years. Let's go down to the chart-room to pray."


I looked at this man of of God and thought to myself, 'What lunatic asylum did he escape from? I had never encountered someone like this.' "Mr. Mueller," I said, "do you realize how dense the fog is?"


"No," he replied. "My eye is not on the dense fog but on the living God who controls every circumstance of my life."


Mueller then knelt down and prayed one of the most simple prayers I've ever heard. When he had finished, I started to pray but he put his hand on my shoulder and told me NOT to pray. He said, "First, you do not believe God will answer, and second, I BELIEVE HE HAS. Consequently, there is no need whatsoever for you to pray about it."


As I looked at him, he said, "Captain, I have known my Lord for 57 years, and there has never been even a single day that I have failed to get an audience with the King. Get up, Captain, and open the door, and you will see that the fog is gone."


I got up, and indeed the fog was gone. And on Saturday afternoon George Mueller was in Quebec for his meeting.




I will not be so presumptuous as to say that this is the way everyone should walk with cancer, but for ME, it is just that kind of belief that has been a necessity for me to walk with cancer.  I take God at His word, believe His promises about healing, and believe it is happening. I don't know when my "fog" will lift, but I have Mueller's same belief, and I am grateful for that faith.


I have faith in God that it will happen just as He told me. Acts 27:25

ROOTS AND WINGS

It has been a week of re-settling. We got home with just enough time for Sam to wash clothes, see friends for a couple days and repack for college. He moved in on Monday, and I could kick myself for forgetting my camera. When I recall that I moved my entire life's possessions in the back of a little Chevy Vega hatchback to Florida for graduate school, it makes me quiver a bit to admit that my child not only filled up his car, but half of the back of our van as well. Don't ask me where he can possibly find room in that tiny dorm for his "stuff." He did not inherit ANY of my minimalist genes. And though he was never a Boy Scout, his motto regarding clothes and electronics is, "Be prepared." (my eyes are rolling)  I am so hoping that someday, my child will learn that on so many levels, less is more.


Compared to taking Sam to college last year, one week out from a killer diagnosis, believing that I would never even see him finish his freshman year, the leave-taking was much easier. Oh, yeah, there were a few tears in my eyes, but I was not inconsolable like last year, or even close. And since we got home on Monday, I've been busy unpacking and organizing. If that empty bedroom just weren't there.......(as I talk to other moms this week, we all mention that empty room, a stark reminder that a corner of our hearts will always be empty when our child is not with us).


This rite-of-passage.........with water-colored memories of his childhood splashing around in my soul.......with whispers of his future career coming into focus.......with joy in seeing him with his best buds again.......watching him secure and happy in his college choice........well, it's OK. It is even more than OK. It's all good. It is as it is supposed to be. Giving your child roots and wings, and then being able to witness the flight. 


This is the honor and blessing and bittersweet joy of being a mom: Planting the roots, unbinding the wings, and being their soft place to fall, for ever and always. 

MY LAST WEEK AT THE LAKE

Our last week at the cabin............in pictures.....

Sam had a successful fishing trip!

A 5-lb. bass.......it will be mounted!

Our last blueberry pick!

A quarter moon over the lake

Our last raspberry pick

The twin fawns crossing the driveway 

This lone male was hanging out with our Mom and babes one afternoon. Hmmmmm....

Our deer family in the driveway

Dick around our last campfire

Sam and his friend Gretchen cooking spaghetti

Had to go check out the progress of my friend Lee's new house before I left

Mom and one of the "grand-deer" came to say goodbye

It's always sad to see the dock and boat lift on the shore...

I leave my heart at Balsam Lake when we leave...

A wonderful summer.....hard to see it end. We are heading home.....

ONE YEAR AGO TODAY

What does one say to oneself on the 1 year anniversary of hearing you have incurable lung cancer? “Happy anniversary” doesn’t fit……there was nothing remotely happy about that day.

One year. 365 days. Seems like yesterday. Seems like a lifetime ago.

The world as we knew it came to a crashing halt that warm Thursday morning and paralysis set in. Grief came to stay and hopelessness clung like a leech. Suddenly, cancer defined my life, and the life of my husband and son.

But somewhere in the ruins of my paralyzed soul, I knew I needed to find the treasures that this darkness would bring. There have always been rainbows after  storms. There have always been pearls inside ugly oysters. And God has always promised that ALL THINGS would work together for some good (Rom 8:28). I knew I needed to unearth any good that I could muster from this horror. I didn’t have to dig deep. The treasures in the darkness found their way to me.

Today is the day I open the chest and look at the treasures God has given me on this journey I never wanted to take. Today is the day I let the shattered pieces of a cancer-lived life speak its restoration and claim its spoils.

And so, one year later.... some of my treasures....

The immeasurable grace of my Savior and Healer who has sustained me through these darkness moments of my life…

The depth and breadth of my husband’s support, devotion, love, and faith has been staggering and life-giving…

The deep and tender love of my son, who God wooed to a college within easy driving distance so that we could be together as often as we needed to be during this time…whose faith was so strong, it was palpable....

The profound love and support of my parents and brothers and entire extended family…

In those first weeks and months, the daily medical advice I relied on from my brother Mike…

The incomparable care I have had from my church family and my friends, who have showered me with encouraging words, meals, gifts, cards, emails, phone calls and visits…

Mary Ruth and Julie, who walked into our home, one of them a stranger, and changed our grief into hope; for their unrelenting commitment to praying weekly with me; for that anointing with oil and initial prayer of faith they prayed over me that was the start of restoration and faith in healing…

Chemo did not strike me down with vomiting, nausea (little), or fatigue as I had dreaded. God protected my immune system…

My blood counts were always great. I never needed to postpone chemo because of poor labs…

Sam was able to finish his first year of college knowing his mom was okay. His worries did not have to include me…

Even with the radiation side-effect of arthritis in my leg, I never had to stop walking...

I was not sick one day all year with a cold or cough or flu (no doubt aided by the fact that I did not sub in the schools much)…

The financial gift from the Run For Rita Foundation which helped so much with medical bills…

I did not lose my hair or any weight...   
                                          
Mae and Margie. My M&M girls.

I found an amazing Christian oncologist who knows that God can do for me what chemo cannot... and believes with me that God is still a miracle-worker...

Lyn, secretary extraordinaire, who always called me first with the most germ-free sub jobs, and all my teacher friends who have expressed so much support…

Dick’s greatest fear----that I would sink into and stay in the abyss of a clinical depression----did not materialize…

The continued prayers for me by the faithful people at Life Abundant Church in Sioux Falls…

The re-connecting with and sweet support shown by my old friends from grade school(Patty), high school (Colleen) and college (Jo) and for my new yet-unmet friend Cole, who has blessed my socks off with her words of encouragement and love…

Dick did not have to give up his 2-week trip to Dominican Republic because of my health…

That God has spoken to my heart and given me both great biblical truths to hang onto and unwavering faith, based on The Word of God, that healing will be mine…

That this unwavering faith erodes fear…

At some point, I don’t remember when, laughter returned…

The books about healing that have buoyed me and sent me straight into the Bible for deeper learning about divine healing…

Learning that very little we consider important in life really is…

My niece Rachel’s tough-and-true words at the very moments I needed them…

Mundane tasks of every day took on the hue of blessings in light of cancer…

That with blueberries non-existent this summer in most of northern Minnesota (a rare thing), God has blessed our little township with another great surplus …..and blueberries are a #1 cancer-fighting food….

Friends Penny and Lee have come alongside me all summer to meet and pray and seek God’s will in our lives, and continue to stand with me in belief in my healing…

Finally, I have the ultimate treasure, trust in a God who reigns sovereign over all the earth, who loves his children immensely, and whose grace and mercy know no bounds. I do not know what my future holds, but I know Who holds my future, and I can trust the One who died for me.
 

FINAL THOUGHTS...

To my blog readers, thank you for caring enough to share my journey and lifting up so many prayers for me....that so many people have had any kind of interest in my random musings is surprising and very humbling...

As I notice today the 21,000+ hits to my blog since I starting penning it, I can only pray that someone may have renewed their relationship with Christ because of what I might have shared. If I have said anything that may have planted a seed of stronger faith in anyone, may God get any and all the glory. This journey is so much more about Him than it is about me.

CLAIMING PROMISES

I so appreciate how the Lord keeps directing me to study examples in Scripture that give weight and voice to my choice to believe I will be healed.

Today, the setting is the area around Jericho (in the fifth and sixth chapters of Joshua), a walled city, where few left or came in because it says the citizens all feared the Israelites. Joshua, Israel’s leader, sees a man with a drawn sword. He learns that the man is a commander of the army of the Lord. Joshua asks him, “What message does my Lord have for His servant?”

It is not certain whether the Lord spoke audibly to Joshua, or spoke through His representative, but the chapter goes on:

Then the Lord said to Joshua, “See, I have delivered Jericho into your hands along with its king and its fighting men.” (6:2)

God did not say I WILL deliver the city to you, but I HAVE delivered it. The victory was already theirs. They had only to claim it. Was Joshua thinking, how could this possibly happen? There was not one indication that this “impossible” scenario could take place.

The chapter goes on with the Lord instructing Joshua as to the logistics…..most of us know what the people were told to do. March around the city for 7 days and on the 7th day with a trumpet blast and a loud shout, the walls would crumble before their eyes. So Joshua, with the eye of faith fortifying him, called his people together and told them all of God’s instructions. I imagine many eyeballs were raised. This, after all, was the same clan who had wandered in the desert for 40 years because of their continued disobedience and disbelief in the Lord’s promises and provisions.

But to their credit, they complied with their leader’s orders, and for the next 6 days, they silently marched around the city with the Ark of the Covenant one time, and then returned at night to their camp. On the seventh day, they marched around Jericho’s fortressed walls seven times. The seventh time around, when the priests sounded the trumpet blast, Joshua commanded the people, “Shout! For the Lord has given you the city." (6:16) Once again, God reminds us that He had given the victory long before. All they had to do was claim it.

The wall collapsed and Israel charged into the city and took it.

The shout. That shout of unwavering faith. The shout that brought the victory from God’s lips to reality. Finally, the Israelites dared to take God at His word and believe it without doubt. It was faith that saw absolutely no possible way to have the promise fulfilled, but believed anyway. So simple. Believe God when He promises something. Let faith be an outgrowth of that belief. The nation of Israel finally did just that.

Stage 4 lung cancer is my wall. But after a year of intense studying about divine healing and finding so many Scriptural truths that point me to unwavering faith that it is happening, I believe my walls will fall. I have given my shout of faith, believe God is who He says He is, my Healer, and have total confidence that His promises never go unfulfilled (Psalm 146:6, 2 Cor 1:2). Joshua knew God’s word was truth, believed it, and acted on it in faith. I choose to do the same.

PET scans and CT scans show tumors. Everything I now know about healing tells me that those tumor walls will fall down, in God’s time. And there my mind, heart, and soul will rest in steadfast faith.

AUGUST CHEMO

Greetings from the infusion room in Hibbing, MN. I am tickled to be here with WIFI and a laptop and can actually use the internet. When I arrived at 8, they told me the only oncologist had a family emergency and would not be here, and I was to be cancelled. But let me tell you, I begged and they finally let me get my chemo anyway. They got an order from a doc in Duluth. I am so thankful. We are 45 minutes away and Dick is off doing errands (with his forgotten cell phone) and won't return to get me for 3 hours, so it would have been a LONG morning for me if they had not let me. It was a bad morning for needles. My first 2 sticks collapsed veins, the 3rd one went in, but they forgot to come in on time and the first bag of drugs ran dry and I started bleeding out of the IV site so they had to fix all that and tighten the needle into the vein. You don't know how much I hate needles!!!

My back has been bad enough (slowly having less pain every day) to force me to quit berry picking. Dick has been going without me and trying to get twice as much per picking. Dick went out and got 2 quarts in 2 hours last night. It was a productive night for stashing food for the winter. We went out (I have a cushy seat in the boat so my back does fine) and caught 16 fish after he came home with berries, so that's another 2 meals!!

One of the fawns came up by the garage. This pic is very blurry because I took it from quite a distance, but....



The deer come around nearly every day, sometimes twice. We never tire of watching them or having a "stare-down" with them!!

Well, my nurse thinks I should rest my arm instead of type, so I need to get offline. More later on......