Update #80

Yesterday was my mom's birthday, Chad's mom's birthday, my good friend's birthday and my cousin's birthday (and perhaps even someone else to whom this email is going).

How I wish I had some celebratory news to share, especially with them.

Sadly, that isn't the case.

Despite the chemo treatments I've been on, the cancer continues to progress. [Yes, that means all the nausea this past summer was for naught! A bit frustrating, but I understand that that's just part of the process of dealing with this disease.]

So as scheduled, I will have a chest port installed today around 11 AM and then on Friday I will start a new chemo drug.  This one is given two weeks on, one week off.  To ensure that this medicine is having a positive impact, I will have repeat scans done in just 6 weeks, rather than the typical 3 months.

Oh goody.  

This is so much fun. 

Actually, I'm doing ok. I wasn't blind-sided by this news and that made it a lot easier to hear.  If I had thought that my body was responding beautifully and then heard what I heard yesterday, I would have had a much harder time accepting this.  If my chemo treatments thus far had been a walk in the park without side effects, then I would be scared and sad to move on to a new drug. And, most importantly, if I thought my life was only about living the most number of days, then I would be absolutely traumatized that this news - without God's intervention  to halt and eradicate the cancer in my body - would drastically shorten those days. 

No, these results weren't easy to hear.  Please don't read the above paragraph and think that there were no tears shed, no worries that crossed minds, no apprehensions about the yuckiness of cancer progression.  There were.   But, I also don't want you to think that we measure the goodness of our lives – and more importantly, the goodness of God -  based off of scan results.  I've had enough scan results – both "good" and "bad" results – to tell you that they cannot fully satisfy you (the "good ones), nor can they fully destroy you (the "bad" ones).  

Ooops…just looked at the time.  Gotta go. Off to Roswell.

Hey, at least this time this surgery ADDS something to my body, rather than takes something away from it!  :)

Much love and thankfulness for you,

K.