Doing Battle, Week 81 & 82

Tough to sum up these two weeks. Normally the tax season closeout is enough to handle but this year we added 1 CT Scan, 2 MRIs (all requiring separate trips to New York) and 3 telemed doctor appointments, which included conversations such as "there's new cancer". 

Rainbows mean promises kept. There are miracles everywhere, we just need eyes to see.

Avery's good company.

We received food from a couple different friends, made with much love.

This seemingly ordinary photo is an extraordinary act of faithful love. Shaun is unceasingly attentive and caring...he has a deep well of patience, compassion and a will to get up every day and do what needs to be done for his family.

Bending down, pulling blankets...all currently painful activities for me. Because of this, Shaun has been making the bed, something I care deeply about and he cares not at all. When I saw that he'd arranged everything to make things easier for me, my heart burst. We were 19 and 23 when we stood before God and witnesses and committed to sticking it out in good times and bad and health. This is a picture of what love in sickness looks like.

I still remember so clearly the day I got the original call back in 2014 that I had cancer. The doctor delivered the news and then told me a staff member would be calling to schedule next appointments. In preparation for that call, I opened up my day planner, which was full of typical fall activities of a young family with four kids. That person never asked me when I needed to be driving kids to soccer practice, she just gave me a list of a half dozen appointments that had been made for me.

Fast forward seven years, a post-radiation MRI was scheduled for mid-April. Feeling good, I declined the appointment, knowing how hectic the last couple days of tax season are. But then on March 30th I woke up with pain that made it hard to do every day activities, such as walking and sneezing, so my doctors wanted to move things back up. And so, on this Sunday we headed down to Manhattan for blood work and an MRI.

My first telemedicine visit with my oncologist of seven years, and it was nice to not have to drive into the city to get 10 minutes with her. She let me know that both the blood work and the MRI indicated another spot of cancer. She ordered a CT Scan.

The next day, a telemedicine visit with my radiologist who I have never met in person. He said he had already seen that "other" spot when he was planning out my radiation back in February and so he widened the radiation field. He felt certain it had already been treated and that what I was feeling was a fallout due to the amount of radiation I've had in my life, especially most recently. He ordered another MRI to look at the area a different way.

He also addressed the pain I had reported when I "called his office crying." In all these years I have cried just once because of pain, it was two days after my major surgery. When I was recalling his comment after the call, my mind cut to a scene from Anne of Green Gables when Anne declared she would never forgive Gilbert Blythe because he'd called her "carrots" in front of the whole class.

Alas, I have already forgiven him because he's been instrumental in getting me back to health. Also, I realize there are no extra points for not crying, its just who I am. ;)

Days later, our post-MRI #2 call...from the happy faces Amy captured maybe you can tell that the report was GOOD!! NO new cancer!! The spot they were concerned about was one the radiologist had already seen and it got treated in February. We felt great relief and are rejoicing and exhaling!

The reason for the back and hip pain I've been experiencing all these weeks is a sacral fracture. Its most common in elderly women with osteoporosis (I definitely feel elderly!!) but also a known side-effect of radiation in the quantity I've had. There is really no treatment for it other than rest and time, up to seven months. I will happily endure that...I figure its a good trade for a life-saving treatment.

One of my very least favorite sayings/words of advice is Follow your heart. On any given day, leaving my heart on the default setting would result in calamity and disaster. Daily, I have to remind myself of truth, recall God's faithfulness and big-ness.  My strength, my peace come from Him...HE is the source of all good and true things. This song has been one of my anthems:

I love Your voice

You have led me through the fire

In darkest night You are close like no other

I've known You as a Father

I've known You as a Friend

And I have lived in the goodness of God

'Cause all my life You have been faithful, 

And all my life You have been so, so good

With every breath that I am able

Oh, I will sing of the goodness of God