Doing Battle, Week 23

In the first month after the diagnosis, things would change by the hour somedays and updating on a weekly basis didn't seem like enough. Now that we're where we are, weekly sometimes seems like too much sharing, especially after twenty-three weeks!

But it means so much to me when I find out people stop by this blog once in a while to check up on us. It actually surprises me too, because...who wants to read about cancer every week?? But you keep caring and you keep praying and I just want to say...thank you. We have more journey left, but we're making our way through!

This week I had the follow-up to my surgery. The incisions look good and Mr. Doctor said I can resume any activities I want. He may also have said something about not overdoing it, but I stopped listening at "you can resume activity". And that is why my people don't trust me to do doctor's appointments by myself. ;)

He did ok radiation, so I went to get re-scanned and re-aligned (they were able to use the previous tattoos). When I walked in at 6:50 AM, the radiologist, who I hadn't met with since October, stepped out to greet me. He gave me such a compassionate look that said, wow...you made it back. And in that split second my mind went through all these months since October and what I've been through to actually make it back. I almost cried, right there in the waiting room.

This week I also did lots of leg work to get my medication. There is a learning curve with our new insurance company and it seems like a lot more work. So I did plenty of phone tag and waiting on hold and being transferred and tracking down money due us from the old insurance company. And while its frustrating (in almost a comical way), I think of the many senior citizens who are alone and trying to mange it all. Its a part-time job! And healthcare is a really, really bad system. No, not system...that implies something that is functioning and working together. Entity, maybe?

Aiden and I went to the hospital to pick up my MRI results and I walked down a hallway that somehow I remember walking down from ER to maternity the night Amanda was born. Weird what our brains remember.

The MRI says what my body has confirmed...that I need to start radiation now. And that's what I'll be doing this week. Radiation is five days a week, for six weeks. Seven days a week during those six weeks I will take chemo pills.

I'm excited to get the next step going but I'm not naive anymore. I know this phase will have its own set of challenges and so I'm back in my head doing battle. Battling the fear and the futile wishing I could just be done and not have to do anymore hard. But I can, and I will and God's grace is enough.

We were crushed and overwhelmed beyond our ability to endure, and we thought we would 

never live through it.  In fact, we expected to die. But as a result, we stopped relying 

on ourselves and learned to rely on God, who raises the dead. 

2 Cor 4:8b-9