Cancer Prep List

I am still dealing with some effects of steroid-misuse....... I finally fell asleep this morning at 3am, and slept for five hours which is a notable improvement over the last two-plus days.

As I was laying awake again last night with the steroids running all rodeo through my blood and the Ambien that I had taken hiding somewhere in a sulking corner, of which the Adavan I took two hours later joined after one quick look around - I was left to my own devices dealing with the drug that hi-jacked my body and I am laying there making up more lists.

Some of them - and if you have had poor experiences with steroids as well, you will understand this - are *not printable*, but this one, makes the cut.

Mostly.

What to do Before You Start Cancer:

1.  Go to your dentist.  If your blood counts are low that's one more thing in your life that you cannot do unless you are having huge problems.  I am brushing my teeth like five times a day along with using a good non-alcohol rinse even more times on some days, so I'm not probably getting a lot of plaque buildup, but I do miss my dentist and wish I would not have been so lackadaisical about my two times a year insurance paid appointments. Could it have been any easier to get there???

2.  Take care of all fungus.  Gross to talk about, but true life here folks.  I've dealt with a fungus on a toenail for several years now, and leaned away from taking the final meds that would have finally *nailed* it gone - but the *super* toenail fungus meds were like $300, so I didn't do it.

Getting out my summer shoes seems to have reminded that toe how much trouble it could cause with one single rash.  They really don't like you to deal with this when your blood counts and immunity are low.  They keep leaning towards the idea of the old marketing "KISS method"  - Keep It Simple Stupid!  Don't make your body fight anything else it doesn't have to - narrow it down to one foe - the cancer.

So, my simple backwards looking advice - pay the $300 for the meds and get rid of any lurking fungus pronto!!

3.  Be married to someone that takes the computer keyboard with him to bed on nights he realizes steroids are going to have you awake all night.  

It'a a cruel kindness someone has to be in charge of because:

1. First, you will type crazy things and say things you should not while the mean nasty bullies are coursing through your blood stream untamable.  In fact I can feel some blood vessels widening just to let them cruise on by - it's like they are giving wide berth to the pirates in the river and if we have to make it wider to avoid the bloody jolly rogers, we certainly can suddenly.  Trust me there's no fight in my body when it sees the Decadron-Bully-Monster marching in - they don't even walk up to it and say "hey, can't we just all get along here?"  No.  My body just takes one frightful look and goes into sheer full on retreat and decides to let it have its way, leaving the quivering unprotected mass behind under full control of the Monster-Decadron.  Maybe it's kind of like being in a 1970's Rolling Stones hotel room.  Nothing is recognizable in a few hours.  
2. Secondly, you won't care if you type crazy things and say things you should not while on steroids.  

This should be on your annual marriage checkup list.  Someone has to watch that gate for you when you get a trigger happy steroid dose.   

4.  This might be part 3 of number 3:  Long before you meet steroids, learn to laugh at yourself.  Otherwise, I could easily see where violence could come into play quickly.  And I am only half kidding.  Think of it as taking PMS, Menopause, Male Aggressive Disorder - along with a couple of other ingredients like puppy dog tails or such - but think of putting that all into one pot and simmering it for three days making it ten times more potent than the original 500% strength it already was, then injecting it into your blood stream.

You better be ready to laugh when you partner lovingly says things like "talk lower"; "calm down, sweets"; "it's not that big of a deal".  Because, as your head is spinning around trying to decide which piece of flesh you can get the easiest bite out of, you will want to, um, laugh at yourself and how extreme you have become.

That takes a lot of pre-practice.

5.  Get a stove vent that vents OUTSIDE!!  Smelling extreme foods, while cooking or having a cloud of dense fog in the kitchen is not good on most days, but when dealing with chemo it's a deal breaker.  We have the builder grade typical stove vent that vents all stove top gases right back out the top of it, right back into the kitchen.

We have been trying to find someone that is brave enough and cheap enough to break through the wall and do a proper stove vent, but they seem to be few and far between.  Scott was frozen out while I spent a good part of January, February and March with the doors and windows all open while he cooked.

It was the really strong smells, like bland potatoes cooking, or toast, or hotdogs and beans that could completely do me in.  Let Scott pull out a heavy stove top pan and start a good saute - and I was locked in my room for an hour until the air cleared.  Roasting meat was out of the question for four days a week.

My iron kettle stomach that rarely so much as caused me to gag, has been broken this past year.  It's as squeamish as sixth grade girls at a horror movie now.  

If I do another go-around of chemo, I'm guessing we might just put that hole in the outside wall ourselves..... and maybe, like Pa Ingles, use tar paper over it during the winter or something.

6.  Get your ears pierced.  For like the fourth time in my life.  I've never had good healing results with any of my previous attempts at ear piercing, so I decided to let them "heal" for about fifteen years.  Then, a couple of years ago, I announced to Scott I was going to get them done again.  He bought me a nice pair of earrings that year for Christmas.

They still are not done.  I had not realized that the only places that do ear piercing these days is situated in the middle of the mall.  We don't even do it in the stores now, it's right out there where everyone is walking by, looking, calculating the right spots along with the lady with the placement gun, and it all just seemed a bit much to me.

Not having hair, kind of makes me wish I had done that after-all - it helps "the look" if you can get some big fabulous ear rings to dangle, drawing the eye away from your naked hairline.

The first time I had my ears pierced, was the fall of my seventh grade year.  I had a new friend named Dian, and we seemed a bit prone towards trouble.  She had an older sister that had done her ears, swore it was simple and so we thought we would give it a try one Saturday morning after I had slept over at her place.

Dian took me to her kitchen, proceeded to get out the needed tools and they piled up like this:  one needle threaded with a long piece of thread; one ice cube; one potato.  I don't remember there being any rubbing alcohol or any peroxide present, but with it being the early "hippie" seventies, that's not such a big surprise.  We were "natural" then.  Children of the earth.  All at peace with our environs and all.

She instructed me to put the ice cube on my ear lobe to numb it.  I did.  She then told me to hold the potato behind my ear as she keenly looked at my ear lobe for a good starting point.  I asked her "why the potato?" and she said "that's so the needle doesn't go through to your neck when I jab it through."

Still not any concern on my part.  By the way, I don't remember washing the potato at all.

She squinted but seemed perfectly confident she could do this.  She started to laugh, squinted again at my ear lobe and took a little break to think about it all.

My ear lobe was sufficiently frozen, I told her I could handle the potato and protect my neck, just to go for it.

She closed her eyes and jabbed.  She jumped maybe sixteen inches into the air when she felt it go through the first layer of skin.

It turns out your ear is a little sensitive even when iced.  I didn't yell because I knew she would jump again and it could possibly land a needle in my eye, literally, but she had got it through the first layer of my ear.

She pulled back and sat down, with the needle dangling halfway through my ear, the thread hanging down......

We laughed and laughed, because we were thirteen and because she had jumped so high, then I said "Dian, you have to finish this".  And she said "I can't do that now"......

She did look close to passing out every time she fingered the needle.

Oh, oh, oh.....

I was a little tough, with most of my playmates being brothers and neighbor boys and all most of my first decade of life, so I pulled from somewhere deep and made some lifetime decisions.

I tried to push it through, tried again, and it went through finally.  I now had a piece of thread clear through my earlobe.

It was already hot and angry.  I have *sensitive* skin and it certainly was not liking this any more than it did the four third degree sunburns I've had in my lifetime.

This was way before it was ever popular to do different things with ear piercings.  This was way before I might have been able to pull off having just one ear pierced until I could beg my mom to get me somewhere to get the other one done, like the next time we went to the doctor once a year - which at that time was kind of the proper place to get such things done.

I mean for ears and ear piercings in the early 70's there was one option: you had to have two holes - one placed evenly on each side of your face - and that was the way it had to be.

Hippies might have been all cool then, but there were pierced ear standards.

Dian, recovering nicely and taking control of the situation again, pulled out the thread and tried to fish an earring through both layers of my ear lobe.

Even though she apparently had issues with needles, put a studded ear ring in her hand and there was no stopping her on this mission.  Not any comments from me such as "hey that's not where the needle went through the back" or anything was going to stop that ear looking all cool and pierced now.

But, then, we had the other ear.

I considered my options and it appeared rather difficult to do the other ear by myself with a tiny hand mirror.

Her sister Debbie, who had done this herself I thought, walked through the kitchen and said with a little hint of 'oh what are they doing now -- stupid seventh graders!!' "you HAVE to do the other ear!  Do you know what that's gonna look like if you don't?"

I had a pretty grim image in my mind already.

She was on her way to work.  Or somewhere, so there were no plea bargains with her.  Dian's brother Louie walked through the kitchen and just shook his head and laughed.

We were on our own here.  And from the looks of Dian, it was kind of apparent it wasn't even a "we" here.

I just decided to do it.  I iced my ear, Dian held the mirror and I pushed fast and hard and decisively.  She fished another ear ring into that side and they were both done.

And angry and hot to the touch.  They never did heal up correctly.

There are several "Dian and Karen" stories just as interesting and outrageous, but we stop here today.  I still laugh every time I think of her.

***

When they asked me my first week of chemo at OSU if "needles made me queasy", that is the first memory that flashed through my mind.

"Um, no, I've survived several ear piercings, I'm ok".....

My Ugly Foe Again........

Please let me know if you have issues opening this - I seem to be a downright genius when it comes to picking up viruses and such on computers..... I need help.

***

I got into treatment today and it was closer than I thought it was going to be.

As you all can probably recite with me by now, I need my Grans, Absolute line to read 1,000.  It was at exactly 1,000 today.  They have started to manually count it, so the computer will not slide me in under that count doing what computers do best - being too cold and calculating and just plain callous.

To me it makes no difference if the computer coughs out a number like 999.96.  I'm like "that's close enough!!" and call out a "Mulligan!!"  But that puts it under protocol and we cannot proceed.  Understanding this, there are some good people in the OSU lab that actually spend their time counting the cell grids themselves.  They triple check it to be sure that it's not just "human-desire" over-riding perfect counting.

That's a lot of time on their end and I truly appreciate it.

I appreciate all of them.  A lot. 

My hemoglobin dropped a lot, and my white blood cells as well.  I knew I had been tired, but I didn't think it would drop this much until next week.

And you all know what next week is -- THE END OF CYCLE 6 FOR STUDY SUBJECT #6!!!!   The end of this go around of chemo - and it doesn't look good for my blood making a showing at the OK Coral next Wednesday.   

I need a little extra ammo here.

Julie, my favorite study-nurse-manager was not overly optimistic about next week - but, like me,  she isn't assuming anymore either.  She reminded me that after the chemo reductions last month, and then my lowest white blood cell count ever, that I surprised - well really it was God that surprised - everyone just a couple of weeks ago, so who knows.  There are a couple of plans being plotted out if that eventuality happens.  We cannot, do not want the surgery date changed out another week as of now, and she is going to bat for me.  Again. 

I love her.

***

On the other hand, maybe you have picked this up, but it was not a good steroid day for ole' Karen here folks.  I told the new-to-me-nurse today, that even though the steroids have been reduced, I still have great issue with them.  We have mutual feelings for each other - I grudgingly respect steroids for what they do, but I hate them.  And they feel the same about me.

Only I think they greatly lack the 'grudgingly-respect' part.   

I told the nurse that the steroids and injectable Benadryl still need to be delivered s.l.o.w.l.y.  She had a "shadow" today and was explaining how she can do the IV set up and deliver all three Taxal/Ro pre-meds at the same time, and the same speed.  No one has ever done that before - either there or at OSU main campus, greatly respecting the reactions some people have to these pre-meds if given too quickly.

Scott was watching as well, and said the same words nervously out loud and clearly - "she needs them really slow"......  It's always good to have a patient advocate close at hand that remembers dire consequences and spinning heads. 

Alas and alack.   She did not listen to either one of us.

I kind of thought I might be on the losing end of things when she spoke against one of my doctors orders last week.  She said "don't worry about that".  I have a tendency these last weeks to be obedient and not listen to the ones mocking caution at this point.  I mean if I had flown through treatment with good blood counts and no transfusions and no side effects, I might be thinking "over-cautious" myself.

But, I'm leaning towards the one most likely to be called "Sheriff" when the dust settles and the shoot out is over. 

It made me a little nervous from the start. 

After the rogue-cowboy-nurse left, I was in the danger zone again, with "head-exploding" signs going off all around me.  After whispering some vile, angry things to Scott, he made a hand motion to lower my voice.  I was too late to get a room today, and was in a curtained stall.  Everyone could hear everyone else.  Even tight whispers. 

I clamped my mouth shut.  Tight.

I was ready to pick up that brand new IV pump and stand and throw it through the fourth floor window.  If I were a baseball pitcher, I would have beaned every batter.  And been glad about it.

Roger Clemens may be innocent - I do not see this level of evil-hateful-anger in any of his film clips at the time he was supposedly using.   Although his jaw is clinched I've noticed.....

If I had not purposely clamped my mouth shut tight, I would probably be making a return trip tomorrow to beg forgiveness. 

But the nurse proceeded to tell me while she showed me and the "shadow" her technique, how she can setup and push all three plungers at the same time into the IV ports - because she said, and I quote, "I certainly don't have twenty minutes to sit there and administer meds"; then she told me how some seventy year old women had responded; then laughed.  (I'm guessing I will not be thinking kind thoughts towards her when still awake at 5am either.......)

She had no idea how close she was to eating that whole IV stand, IV ports and plungers.

I kept getting angrier and angrier, meaner and meaner and my brain just went into "leave no prisoners" mode, and I wanted to draw out my six shooter and square off with her right then and there.

She needed to do all the pre-meds in under one and a half minutes flat, because, you know, she needed to stand out in the hall and talk for twenty minutes.

I'm guessing this is why they do not publish hospital personnel addresses.

They were super busy today, so another one of the nurses that is wonderful and has been my nurse a couple of times, stopped in after the Taxal was finished, took one look at me and said "are you ok?"  I told her, and tried to laugh as I said it, that "I just need a big sledge hammer and a huge stone to take out some 'roid rage on".

She was a little concerned, wondering if I might be reacting to the Taxal, as I really didn't look so good and the Taxal reaction risk increases the more you get it towards the end.  My eyes were pretty sunk in, and I was a little pale even with makeup and shaking with an oven warmed blanket over me.  She removed my port needle, personally went and got me some pain reliever, and gave me a big hug as I was leaving. 

That helped.  A lot and a little bit.

I overheard fast-plunger-pusher-nurse telling a new patient the computer print out of probable side effects of the chemo pre-meds.  When she got to the steroid part, she said the words "some people just get meaner and meaner".

I think I ground off half of my molars at that moment. I might even have exploded a few blood vessels at that moment. 

My next script may be for a chemo mouth guard to save my jaw joint and molars...... 

***

So, it ended up being a very ambivalent day again.  I got into treatment, but my blood counts were lower than anyone wanted them to be today.

I had another bad experience with steroids.  And they won. 

Carbo kicked my butt, again.

Someone had a light in their eyes though, when she said "hey, you surprised us all a couple of weeks ago and had higher blood counts than you should have then" and I got a chance to say "yeah, God really moved - that was a miracle, wasn't it?" 

I saw sweet Dr. Mrozik in the hall today and she clasped her hands and smiled really big, then hugged me and said "not too long, now Karen!!"

The non-hugger is hugging a lot these days.  

Scott and I were counting on the way home today and added up:

I've had 17 Taxal treatments.  Six Carbo treatments.  (Please properly shudder when you hear that word in high dose amounts.)   Forty-nine doses of Ro chemo.

Seventeen doses of pre-med steroid.

Since D-1 Day on January 10th, I've had 72 doses of chemo.  

That's a lot of "knock-down" and when Kari was kindly unhooking my port needle today and wrapping up my used IV and needles and tubes in a nice taped up plastic drape to throw away properly, some tears just dropped out of my eyes because I cannot process those steroids sometimes, and my head hurt so, and she said "you've had a really hard day" and she looked even closer at me and asked me again if I "was ok".

I told her "it was actually a really easy day" and "I didn't know why I was feeling this way", except that I had missed my wonderful "Benadryl nap"; she said "you've had a lot of chemo, more than most, these last months, Taxal is hard on you at this stage of the game".......

And fast steroids.  

Then she went to get me some pain meds.

I still haven't slept.  In fact, I can't quit the fidgeting and moving and low shakes. 

I go back to what I have learned this week - that I should not, cannot deny the hardness of this valley in the desert.  But, God is setting up that banquet table in this wilderness, and I am looking over the exquisite table and thinking of the goodness of sitting down to a banquet in the presence of my enemy.

***

One more thing weighs heavy on my mind - I know one that has had a much harder day than I had today.  Her husband posted this on Facebook this morning:

"Pray for us today as we go to the Cleveland Clinic main campus. We will be checking into gamma knife surgery to treat the 3 brain tumors that Linda has. Pray that we'll make the right decisions about treatments."

Linda had breast cancer and started chemo treatments a couple of years ago.  She started emailing me in January when she heard of  my diagnosis, giving me tips and advice and foreknowledge of what might happen with things that you just don't talk to anyone else about unless they have heard similar words directed towards them.

She too has an aggressive breast cancer, only her's is "the other kind" which I don't know so much about, but similar things happen, and it was so good to have her to contact me and hear first hand what happens and some of the fallout from it all. 

She was done with her chemo treatments well over a year ago, and then *this* just last week.

I admire her courage greatly.  I pray for her all the time.  Her kindness and openness and honesty will never be forgotten.

Some folks say the internet is impersonal.  I have found it in this instance to be a lifeline.  A treasure given to me to prepare me and calm me and help me when staring down those gunmen.

Somebody to hold my hand when I don't even know which way the bullets are coming from.  Someone who feels the same way about steroids that I do.  Someone who just reached out and helped tremendously.   

I humbly ask your prayers for her.  She's a fighter and loves God.  And has a super husband-caretaker that has been awesome. 

She has had a heavy day, and is heavy on my heart.

I love her and send her internet hugs.  

***

Today, I was touched by different women in different ways.  I hope I never forget that some un-cautious and indifferent words and actions can lay one person low and change lives. Another can make me go continuously before the throne of God on her behalf.  One, with a few kind words and pain-help, can help me get home without spitting out my hurting brain.

If we are to live in community, we must not forget how pain shapes us.  How pain can shape others we touch.

***

Years and years ago I memorized the 23rd Psalm.   Mostly, because in my ignorance, I did not understand the phraseology of "I shall not want"..... I thought memorizing it and meditating on it until I "got it" would help.  It did.

And it is still with me today.

I love David.  I love his honesty in the difficult and hurtful, and downright shameful things in his life.  He killed a lion when young and remembered that all the days of his life.  He remembered a lot of things by writing them down and leaving them for encouragement for others.

Kind of like what Linda has done for me - be honest, write it down, and encourage others.   Only our God sets a banquet table for us in the middle of the desert.  Only our God anoints us with oil.  Only our God overflows our cup. 

A Psalm of David.

23 The Lord is my shepherd,

I shall not want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures;
He leads me beside quiet waters.
He restores my soul;
He guides me in the paths of righteousness
For His name’s sake.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I fear no evil, for You are with me;
Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.
You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;
You have anointed my head with oil;
My cup overflows.
Surely goodness and lovingkindness will follow me all the days of my life,
And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Standing Stone

While riding in the car today with Scott, I started an out loud, verbal list.  It's a hopeful list.  There are some things on the list that I have thought about for a long time.  The official name of the list is "Three Weeks After Chemo".  Three weeks is enough time for my blood to repair and for me to finally indulge in some things I have really been missing.  A lot. 

So three weeks after chemo and one week before surgery, I have a lot of living to do. 

1.  I am going to kiss Scott on the lips.  (sorry if we make you blush kids ;)

2.  I am going to share a glass of wine with him - drink out of the same glass.  I am going to steal something off of his fork and not worry about the germs.  I am going to hold his hand after school and not think about picking up strep. 

3.  I am going to hold those sweet grandbabies - even the bigger ones - and not let them go.  I am going to smother them with "grandmumsy-kisses" and tell them when they think I am done, that they need more.  I am going to wipe their noses and lay down with them when they aren't feeling so well and stroke their hair and faces. 

We will not ask them ever again to put on hand sanitizer before taking off their coats.  

4.  I am going to hug my kids every time I see them.  And when I am hugging them, I am going to say into their ear "I love you". 

5.  I am going to eat a really big salad.  With strawberries and blueberries on it.  And cheese, really good cheese on it.  Fresh salad greens that came off of the dirt pile of a garden just an hour before.  That dirt out there that has so much bacteria in it.  I'm going to eat the salad greens off of there even if they are old and snarly and bitter.  And if that is the case, I will be glad to taste the bitter.

6.  I am going to go sit in the middle of a mall and just watch people.  Just enjoy being around people and conversing some and interacting. 

7.  I am going to eat a soft serve ice cream cone while sitting in that said mall. 

8.  And one of the biggest tests of all - I am going to go to a large discount department store.  In our town that's Walmart.  But it could be Target.  Or Kmart.  Or Meijer.  Or Costco.  Any store that has that many people walk through that many doors on any given day has a lot of germs.  A lot.  I have avoided them like the plague, and now, now I will go into our local meeting place of all of Ashland with a great big smile.  

I might even sit down at their little diner and eat something. 

I am going to walk into that cauldron of recycled air that collects all of the germs in any three county area and keeps pumping them out over and over and over again each day - sometimes even breaking them apart further causing them to do more damage.  I am going to walk into that germy, oozing, sneezing, coughing, viral place - and that's just touching the cart - then I am going to walk on in and check the blue-light specials.  (and my doctors thought I was a little too brain damaged to remember all of that)

9.  I am going to take a long, hot bath.  I am going to soak my muscles that have been longing for hot water therapy for ever so long.  I am going to luxuriate in hot water that has not been boiled up to my chin.  With a couple of drops of peppermint oil in the water to completely relax. 

10.  I am going to get a massage. 

11.  I am going to go outside and pull weeds.   And dig in the garden.  And transplant my flowers.  And touch dirt.  And plants.  And not worry about bee stings and mosquito bites that could now send me to the hospital. 

12.  I am going to drive a car for miles and miles and miles and miles and go far away.  Not sure where yet, but far away.

13.  I am never again going to treat the act of reading and reading comprehension as a secondary blessing.

14.  I am going to pick up, smell, imagine the taste, then purchase fruit.  Fruit that has had 25 hands touch it from harvest to my mouth.  I'm going to touch it, taste it, eat it.  

15.  I am going to take Scott out to a nice restaurant - we have not sat together, perused a menu for half an hour then ordered a meal for over six months.  Longer - the last meal we ate out together was when we were doing some early Christmas shopping.  Last year.  We had no idea. 

I want to sit with him and have someone serve him, and I want to enjoy it all.  We have missed our four-hour-restauraunt-meals a lot.  We have missed trying new foods, new wines, new ideas.  We have missed dipping a common loaf of bread into olive oil and ordering a second one.  We have missed delicate desserts served with flourish.  It was a pleasure that we did not get to enjoy nearly enough because we were always conscience of the cost, but now it seems more important than ever. 

We have missed dining with each other in a large room with other people.  

16.  I am going to get up in the morning and not feel bone-scratching tired.  Not feel half sick.  Or wholly sick.  Not feel a dozen pains.  Not wonder about my blood counts.  Not take my temperature. 

********

That's just a partial list. 

I need a list like this because I don't want to ever forget.  And forgetting pain is sometimes too easy.  With getting some chemo reductions this past month, I suddenly crave coffee.  I could barely smell it three months ago - but I choose not to remember how loathsome it was. 

It is so easy to forget.  And the forgetting makes you live a life that takes away from others that are in the midst of pain - just because you don't remember it so keenly, doesn't mean it is not tearing their lives apart.  Just because you are not feeling it hit you hard now, does not mean it does not hit hard. 

Stuffing it somewhere in the back of your mind and trying to forget the pain only makes the journey somehow cheaper.  Less worthy of telling.  Not as important as it should be. 

If there is one thing I must remember on this journey - it is not to forget. 

That's why there are so many stone pillars throughout Israel - they didn't want to forget either.  They had gone through great fear or pain or suffering and then met God - and they set up a stone stack or "massebah" as a remembrance.  Because they knew that humans are pretty good at forgetting the bad horrible things they don't want to think on, but they also knew you had to remember those to remember how you met God through it all. 

If we down-play the bad, that makes God's intercession not quite so awesome. 

If we over-play the bad, we miss life, and His great blessings that He meets us with while we are in the pain. The "prepared banquet before my enemies" talked about in Psalm 23. 

So as a good balance, I want to make up a list, so I remember, but I want to make up a list that puts me back into living life. Back into eating at His banquet table.  In the midst of the desert.  In the presence of my enemy - cancer. 

The shock of hearing the words "aggressive" and "fast" and "cancer" all in one sentence does not ever sound better or easier or kinder.  But knowing that God has given me this moment - this time, this living right now because none of us are promised tomorrow - knowing that and remembering that makes the good so much sweeter. 

I don't want to ever forget what God has done for me.  How He has met me at my weakest, hardest moment.  I don't want to ever forget that God can take my life tomorrow, or I might have thirty years of life left.  I don't know - but I do know that I have been given a gift.  A gift of knowing Him deeper.  A gift of knowing Him in the storm as well as on the beach.  A gift of knowing Him when evil, like leaven, tries to overtake one of His children. 

A gift of seeing miracles and knowing that He is a God that delights in delighting us on the toughest trails of our journey through life. 

Ray Vanderlaan has a great study on the "Standing Stones" of ancient people.  In the Bible, we are told of many who used such examples to signify great events when they "met God".  In his words:  

"They are lonely sentinels on the ruins of ancient cities' gigantic stones erected by a past civilization, their purpose and message lost to history. They provide a glimpse into a custom that lies behind several significant stories in the Bible, and they are the foundation of modern practices in a Western world 6,000 miles and 3,000 years away. They are "standing stones."
The most impressive collection is in the high place at Gezer, where ten stones, some over 20 feet tall, stand in silent tribute to a long-forgotten event. Their size is probably evidence of the importance of what they represented. How they got there is uncertain, although clearly they came from some distance away.

Long before the Israelites arrived on the scene, pagans in the Middle East erected sacred stones to their gods. If one of their gods (or so they believed) caused an important event or provided a significant benefit, a stone was erected as a testimony to the action of the god. If a covenant or treaty was signed between cities or individuals, stones were erected to declare the agreement and to invoke the witness of the gods. Travelers who saw the standing stones would ask, "What happened here?" and the people who knew the story would give testimony to their gods.

To this Middle Eastern culture, God revealed himself so that he could accomplish the great work of restoring a lost world to himself. His people worshiped him and memorialized his acts of deliverance as their custom dictated: by erecting stones."

I want to be a standing stone.  I am the most imperfect, sinful person some days.  And yet, God has chosen to do a work in me, and therefore, I want to be a standing stone to Him.  

I pray for "clear margins" and "no cancer cells" to show up on that pathology report after my surgery - but I have no guarantees.   And these last months having listened to the ones that He loved struggle over and over and over again in the scripture, makes me realize all the more that I have no guarantees. 

But I have a God.  A Savior.  A Redeemer.  And a Healer. 

Quoting Ray Vanderlaan again:

"No massebah or stele mentioned in the Bible has been found, though it is possible that someday that may occur. Nevertheless, we must find ways to remind ourselves of God's presence in human history and to lead others to him. In a sense, we must become standing stones ourselves, living testimonies to the power and love of God, pointing beyond ourselves to the God who is at work in our world as he was in the world of the Israelites."

I want to be a standing stone, pointing beyond myself what God has worked in me on my journey. 

He has taught me some things on a deeper level than I ever dreamed imaginable. I have sat in His classroom as He taught me all alone what it is He wanted me to know to this date on my God-journey with Him.  He has shown me His mighty wings.  His angels.  His words in a wordless situation. 

I have a God that is alive and acts on the behalf of His people.  

All this. 

What He wanted me to remember. 

And I pray I never forget.  





http://www.followtherabbi.com/uploads/assets/audio/standing-stones-c.mp3

http://www.followtherabbi.com/guide/detail/standing-stones

http://followtherabbi.com/journey/israel/standing-at-the-crossroads

Mooses and Otters

We had the most adorable lunch invitation today.

It started with an early morning "skype" with Millie and Addy.  They looked so gloriously "summer" - Addy was in her summer jammies with a light blanket around her, holding Little Bear tight in the big rocking chair that she was sharing with her mom and sister. 

The sun was shining in their window to their side.  Addy looked so relaxed.  Her eyes looked a little like she had gone swimming the day before and she just had the luxurious "I'm on summer vacation, and I'm loving it" look.

She kept stretching, then snuggling back into her sun-kissed blanket.  

Her three year old sister on the other hand, leaned a little bit more towards "ricochet-rabbit", complete with warm, footed, winter jammies and bouncing feet.  She kept chirping like a bird and bouncing, bouncing ready to get the day started.

We were chatting along, talking about Melvin the Moose and Louie the Otter, informing Millie that if Louie the Otter  knocked on our door the next time she stayed over, not to leave the house with that fun-loving Louie the Otter!!  he was swimming in the middle of the lake now which is thirty feet deep!! 

She was going along with the story, thinking and talking and jumping up and down making her blond hair bounce straight up and down - which was mostly all we could see of her as she thought and talked and chirped and bounced - but she was adding in her own parts.  She smiled and nodding knowingly, saying "we need to watch out for that Louie the Otter!!"

Addy thought Melvin might come along also, and he always makes such a huge food mess in the house -- and we discussed the magical Cinnamon Lake characters who coincidentally have rather big character flaws but are loving and kind and good and helpful as all get out. 

Then out of the blue clear sky Millie said "Want to go to lunch with me, Bob?"  

We didn't catch it at first, so she said it again.  Then her mom translated what we thought we had heard, and it was what we thought we heard....

"Want to go to lunch with me, Bob?"

We said, "Sure, Joe".

It was such a great picture, the three blond heads sitting in the over-sized, over-stuffed rocking chair that has rocked those wee ones when they were babies, the sun shining in, summer-time-speed on full slow, and it was glorious to talk with them and watch them think and smile and give hugs and kisses over the computer.

We can catch the kisses. 

Millie says she misses me and "needs to come see me".  I agree.  It melts my heart every time she says that.  I told her the doctor was giving me a FOUR WEEK VACATION SOON and that we needed to make some plans.  Addy, ever thinking, started planning. 

We've been through these plans before so many times, I think she is afraid now they are not going to happen.  We talked about them on the warm days in January.  We chatted about them the first day she was outside in her barefeet in March. 

She knows them by heart, and they need to happen soon.   

We are having a camp out, and a fire with marshmallows and then we have to be sure to have enough marshmallows for Babou the Bear, because he always comes and begs as he loves marshmallows so much.  We need to make a tent, then have a treasure map and go into the Magical woods and find some GOLD!!

Anyone wanting to donate to the "gold" digging, leave us a map please.

Actually, we are looking for some plastic Easter eggs to fill with tiny lizards and dinosaurs, to be found in old, rotting logs.  We think if they find those, it might just go into imagination-over-drive and the day will take care of itself.

We have told their parents from day one that this time around we are no longer responsible for explaining the "cycle of life" to young ones.  Bears eat children in real life, but not here.  If they want to bury porcelain ducks, their parents have to sort through that tangled web and tie it up with neat endings.

I'm just trying to decide my theological stance on porcelain ducks in heaven.  

If we find baby dinosaurs hatching out of plastic eggs, that will need constant care and possibly fresh plants and live bugs for food, they will have to figure out the dynamics on growth and what not.

Life has to have some magic in it.

Scott and I were talking last night that it was just last summer that Addy and her mum were catching fireflies over the meadow, and filled up a jar with the magical bugs.  Addy looked and looked at the lit up grass meadow and woods behind our house and was awed.

It wasn't such a far leap into the land of the magical after all.  

If we could, and we wanted to so badly, but if we could, 'Bob' would be in Westerville picking up his surprised lunch date about right now.....

*******

They looked so safe and happy and imaginative - I just want them to stay in that warm cocoon forever.  I don't want anyone to hurt them.  I don't want them to go to school and be swatted down by peers that feel nasty.  I don't want them to feel shame and ache and deal with a world that seems to be awry and off-kilter most days.

I want them to smile if they remember these stories one day about how kind and good Melvin and Louie were and how much fun those imaginary friends had accomplishing that good.  

I want them to grow up wanting to do "the right thing" as much as Melvin and Louie do in our stories.  I want them to be the hero of their lives, just like they are many times the hero of our sagas.  I want them to champion others and stand up for good, just like they now do in the magical woods at Cinnamon Lake.  

So if we can have conversations about imaginary characters that are good and friendly and giving and fun - then I say let the world go by while we discuss Melvin the Moose's penchant for giving rides on his huge antlers.  In the middle of the lake.

Where the water is thirty feet deep.

And never worry - Melvin does make them put on their life vests.  We are learning how to be safe as well as kind and caring and helpful.

There are real bears out in the world after all......

comedies and simple tragedies

The nurses tell me that as I am getting my injectable Benadryl, along with the other injectable pre-meds, that I get pretty funny.  Especially, if they give my steroids nice and slow so they don't overshadow all else for the next 48 hours.  They say when I wake up from my Benadryl induced nap, that I am downright tipsy acting - like I've had a couple of cocktails.  And even funnier.

Yeah, I know - me - a regular comedienne....... 

I can feel the Benadryl hit me as they still have their thumb on the plunger of the syringe pushing it into the IV port.  My tongue gets very slow, and my brain suddenly and  immediately feels the *freedom* to  pump out incredibly crazy funny stories that I would never tell otherwise.

It's the best thing about getting chemo.  You get funny, you get a nap, and all is well for a couple of hours. 

They again said that Wednesday, because as they were going over my online chart as I was getting ready to leave, they asked me if I were still taking my Ro pills three times a week.  I said a long, slow-tongue,  "yeah,,,,," then added unexpectedly even to me "I'm a Ro-Ho" and smiled really big.

It just kind of fell out of my mouth. 

I've thought it a couple of times as I am pimping my body out to science and the Ro Study and all, but never said it out loud to them of all people, and in their hospital of all places.....

That kind of brought down the house. 

*******

And then there's this.....

When Kristi was a little girl, and then when she was older as well, she would have very vivid dreams and then spent most of the morning telling me all - repeat all - about them.   We joke about it now, but I could hem two pairs of pants and have three loads of laundry done by the time we talked and got them all worked out usually.

So today, she sent me this in a note.  As your parlay into this, I should tell you that she worked as a "teacher/counselor" at Marysville State Prison for a few years. 

"so, how are you feeling today?  are Thursdays still "good days" or not?  TWO MORE TREATMENTS LEFT!!!  i had a dream last night that you were in prison and i kept trying to call your case manager to see when you were getting out, but then i finally just went to the prison to talk to someone about it.  they brought you out and handed you a cupcake (I'm not lying about this! it was dripping with all the frosting) and told you that you had been paroled."

I cannot make some things up, but after getting into treatment Wednesday, I was indeed "paroled".  So she may be a prophet after all.

*******

And that was all Wednesday night....... smile.  Today, Friday morning, I am trying to remember how many years ago it was that Heidi gave me this wonderful red fuzzy warm robe with a much needed hood on it of all things, that is a little bit ratty and worn but oh so wonderful for mornings such as these - these carbo mornings that hit hard.  Now, I am upright and walking a bit, snuggling down in a robe, taking my drugs, trying to get this fire out of my abdomen.  

Two more treatments, and maybe more after surgery, but two more treatments for now.  Maybe this is not a marathon so much as a triathlon - and I am nearing the end of the first phase.

***

That was all that I had for Friday ...... and now, continuing tonight - Saturday night.  I am stepping down from the carbo-hurt some at last.  My last carbo treatment four weeks ago was spent pinching myself as I was all prepared for the slam-down, but it wasn't so bad.  I had the tiniest bit of hope that maybe this one would sneak by as well, but it didn't.

Friday morning it started it's cruel march through my system, and the road it carves with it's hateful fire ball through my abdomen is a lasting memory each time.   I am willing to bet that I was the only woman in Ashland County covered with two down comforters and an extra blanket on top of those, chilling in bed the last 48 hours.  There were a few hours I was up, and even outside a little thinking I was done, maybe even thinking I had cheated it a little, then that nasty taskmaster slashed his whip again my way, and I was back in bed for long stretches of time just trying to warm up and keep my innards in place. 

Now, except for some *repairs* the next few days, it's over I think.  Well, at least until it's final good-bye kiss fourteen days out - when my hemoglobin tanks every time.....

But right now, I can hear the birds outside, I can see all the gardening work Scott has done and appreciate the beauty of it all, and it is peaceful.  And I don't think I want to ever meet carbo again.  If I am needing chemo after surgery, carbo is not one of the choices, and I am ever so grateful. 

*******




Chloe and Zoe were down this week and we all came to the realization that the porcelain ducks on the deck that have been their best springtime friends here for five years, need to be thrown out.  Chloe and Zoe played with them when they themselves were little babies.  They have mothered them, loved them, held them and even on cold days when they could not go out, adored them through the window.   

Now, they're broken and breaking and getting "veery dangerous" to handle.   So we agreed it was time to get rid of them before they hurt one of the younger, smaller granddaughters.   They refer to their two younger cousins as "little", since they are five years of age now, and so much older.

And, they reminded me, that since they are older, they need to "watch out for them" - those "little" ones, and they do so diligently.

Beginning with pieces of broken porcelain off of their favorite deck objects.  Because they might cut open Baby Evelyn's foot or something, so all of a sudden, while they are mourning the loss and remembering all of their years together, they are super diligent to get rid of the hazard. 

I told them to bring them to me and we would say good-bye and put them in the garbage bag.

Big mis-step on Grandmum's part.

Zoe looked at me doggedly and said "you mean so we can bury them?"

Bury them?  Porcelain ducks?

We have a week to pick out a proper spot while they are on vacation.  Scott was somewhat surprised as well, then laughed hilariously and then conceded to a portion of his garden being used........

I plan to make a stick cross to put over their graves.

And then be somewhat ready to answer the 649 questions about ducks, nay porcelain ducks, going to heaven.

*******

So goes a week at Cinnamon Lake here folks......

Last of the Carbo dance!!

Let's dance.  

And a drum roll please!!!  I am hoping, hoping, hoping that I have said my last farewell to the horrible foe-of-a-friend Carbo as I got in for my chemo treatment yesterday.  That marks the start of Cycle 6 which is the *last* cycle.  It always starts with lots of appointments, lots of hope and encouragement from the doctors nurses and staff,  and then for extra measure on the first day of each cycle, they add the carbo in for sweet remembrances.  (call me tomorrow and Saturday - I'm sure I will not be quite so flippant about it all then....)

Actually, the first four months of treatment, round about Saturday morning while trying to master the pretty horrible carbo side effects I would tell Scott sourly, "they are trying to kill me" and I honestly half way deep inside my exploding brain believed it.  My other bodily organs seemed to confirm the whole idea.

Then again Sunday night as it would start to climb down, I would tell him again, "honestly, they are going to kill me"...... only half joking this time.

So we are not sorry to see it go. 

I feel like I should have a ticker tape parade going on here or something.  And yes, my injectable steroid is still 'carrying' me until this afternoon, and I do have my 14 blankets layered on my bed ready for my three hour steroid-withdrawal time later on, but right now, it's celebration time!!

And I am - right now I am drinking a good level of alkaline *lucious* two banana - orange juice smoothie.  (Remember, the one nurse that told me that steroids make you "happy, energetic and fat!!"?  Well as much as I hate the steroids and they hate me, and as much as I wanted to hurt her then for saying that, I do have a window of 12 hours it appears each week that her mantra is true - especially since they stepped them down quite a bit.  They give me a fake 12 hour window of "feel-good".) 

As tired as I have been this past week, I wasn't sure I would get in but my blood work looked even better this week than it did last week so we attribute that to a few things:

1. God's finger moved
2. Prayers of the saints
3. Zantac healing up some chemo-ulcers
4. Change of diet to alkaline to help heal up chemo-ulcers
5. God's finger moved
6. Prayers of the saints

I am trying to do a balance of 80% alkaline food and 20% acid food which is a good way to help those nasty chemo-ulcers according to Lance Armstrong's "Live Strong" website.   Scott tells me I am costing him a fortune at the grocery store, but he is also very glad that my stomach is no longer smelling like it just curled up and died some days. 

And you will never guess what fruit they said is like the #2 thing to do this with:  WATERMELON!!  If I could have a food that I would take along to heaven with me, it would be watermelon.  And come to find out even though watermelon has had a bad rap of being "high glycemic", it is like all wonderful in the alkaline world and helps also with vein strength and expansion as well. (read headaches).  Who knew??

So I scrub them over three times with hand sanitizer, use a different knife to cut it open, then a different one to scoop it out, and then we have happy land for a while.  It . has . tasted . so . good. 

So there are some things still playing around in the back of my mind that want to bring me back to earth today, but a friend of mine that has gone through chemo a year earlier than I, told me to really celebrate those chemo cycles.  So those other things we can talk about next week, but today we celebrate finally breaking into Cycle 6!!!!! 

This friend is also suddenly back in the hospital with some pretty severe stuff, so if you could lift her up in prayer, that would be awesome.  I'm not sure how much she is public yet with this, so I will leave it at that, but she has become so dear to me these past six months with answering crazy questions and telling me about my hair, and just stuff you can't really talk about with anyone unless they have gone through it.  So I am grieving her troubles, but she says God is surrounding her.  

That's also kind of the problem of meeting different ones with cancer and getting to know them and closely disclosing facts you don't usually talk about to anyone else, and then they have relapse just when you least expect it and it hits hard.

When I was 20, I read the Foxe's Book of Martyrs.  (I think it belonged to good friends Doug and Denise Neer and I never returned it..... blush, blush)  So I guess I am finding out that you get strength from the ones that have gone through the fire.  They kind of tell it like it is, know how hard it is and don't "fancy" any of it up.  And then they give you a big hug and tell you it's gonna be ok, no matter what, it's gonna be ok.  God is near.

And they give you some loving faith lessons through it all that help tremendously.  If it were coming from someone who was insincere or in denial of true consequences or  just falsely "giddy because they are getting to serve the Lord this way" - I would want to hurt them too, because that's just doesn't seem to be what I get from the Bible.  But the real-life-real-faith-folks, both ancient then and here in the now - they are pretty awesome. 

I have a couple that have surrounded me with the best words, and I cannot ever repay them or thank them enough.  God is "surrounding" us, even on those days we don't feel it so much. 

But reading that book that Foxe penned so long ago is both a sobering, but a *wondering* experience.  How ever they continually faced the rack, or other such tortures, trying to get them to recant and deny their faith, I cannot fathom, but it helps me put my feet on the pavement in the parking lot and walk up to the waiting room knowing that. 

And the latter day fellow "tortureds" are so awesome to me as well.

God is surrounding us, no matter what. 

Coffee and Shawnees

One would think that after six months - count them s-i-x m-o-n-t-h-s - without caffeine, that I would have kicked the habit and been well on my "recovery" road.....

Not quite.

I have had two sips of coffee in those six months and they were pretty glorious.  I think about them a lot.  I follow Scott around in the morning for aroma therapy.  If I cannot drink it, then I must at least smell it.   

I look longingly at any Starbucks sign within a ten mile radius. 

You have no idea my level of covetousness and outright screaming jealousy when watching the other chemo-women (imagine my voice going three octaves higher here) *not obviously in my study* stop at the free coffee machine in the waiting room, and order a latte. 

I usually look at Scott and say like eleven times - "how did I get the cancer that removes caffeine from my life??"  He says "I'm sorry sweets" and shakes his newspaper and sinks down lower in his chair.  He knows it's going to be a long wait if we are not called in soon. 

"I swear, that's her second latte!!" I hiss between my teeth.  "I know, sweets", and he sinks lower. 

If Scott is the first one off of the elevator, he makes a bee-line for the chairs farthest away from the coffee machine - the chairs with two large tv pillars and sixty seats between us and the free lobby coffee machine.

It doesn't matter - you can still smell it.  And for me these last months, the aroma has been enough.  I haven't felt like it would hit my stomach all that peaceably anyways if I were to drink it.  But put me in a room with 40 other cancer patients, of which 38 are drinking free coffee, and I suddenly feel like I am in fourth grade and the only one that did not get a birthday treat left on my desk. 

I am all undone. I am righteously indignant, but too old to act like it.  I am too old to whine about it, but want to so desperately. 

So I sulk a little bit. 

Scott tries to divert my attention with watching the two busy roads outside the large windows. I cannot take  my eyes away - we will have enough time later in the day to study the traffic flow patterns.  Now, I study the coffee machine.  

Some women with obvious hats or wigs on get three - three - of the small cups of machine lattes.  I just whimper..... 

Sometimes when I can't watch any longer, and since I do not want to be seen obtaining and holding the illegal coffee contraband when called for my appointment, I ask Scott to please go get one so I can at least sit and smell it, and he refuses.  "Just because it's free, doesn't mean you should waste it"....... I'm not sure when he became the door keeper of the local landfill..... 

Coffee and I had a relationship.  It ranked as one of my top five pleasures in life.  Both my son and his wife and my daughter and her husband knew the best way to get Grandmum in the door for a day of "baby-duty" - put on a big pot of Starbucks.  The aroma of that brewing at seven in the morning is still a direct connection in my brain with sweet babies and fun days.  

They used to want to play and race and have fun, but I would point to my cup and say "coffee-time".  They knew they had to sit out that first cup and wait.  It is a sacred moment to me only behind prayer and Bible time.  

I woke up the other night with a horrid thought - what if I can never have this again?  What if I am 'just supposing' that after chemo is done the ban will be lifted and I can go right back at it - and I can't??? 

Right now, this is the third scariest question on my list for Wednesday -- Question #3:  Can I have coffee again after chemo is over??? 

It occurred to me the other day, that maybe that is not fact, but just something I had "supposed" - like "when chemo is done, I can have six cups of coffee again".  Or three large, extra espresso lattes.  Just like I know everything else I get back - like a hair brush.  Like a meal that I can taste.  Like eating leafy green vegetables again.  Like going a whole week without feeling bone blistering tired.  

But, now I wonder. 

Maybe it's because I associate the feeling of "tired" with needing a "vente-latte-extra-foam-extra-shot-of-espresso"...... um yeah, vente means large.  The big cup. 

I had it bad.  They would look up and see me in the line at Starbucks and say "the usual?" And I would nod my head and they had it ready for me by the time I got to the counter.  That's what I ordered on the way to Columbus, before that coffee pot was even turned on...... Maybe it's because some smells are coming back to me and it just smells so good, that my stomach is sure it could take it. 

I can still remember my very first latte ever -- my boss Fred brought it in and sat it down on my desk and said "here, I thought you might need this today".... I forget what crisis was happening, I just remember the thought, the gift and the latte.   It was just how I like them to this day - straight up, no flavor, a little pinch of sugar and lots of nice foam.  It was "lean back in your chair, and take a little brain break" good.  It was "this could get me through the rest of the day" good.  It was smooth and creamy but not sickening sweet.  Ohhhhh...... Dr. Drew get me a room.   

I can remember that point of first taste, first addiction, and thinking on that makes me want one right now.  A pure latte can cure a lot of things - and they have over my lifetime.  I was on  a first name basis with the early morning Starbucks crew in the Cleveland Clinic for several months.  Three minutes from Heidi's house in Columbus is a luxury I can only dream of - a drive through Starbucks.  Heck, you can get to five - FIVE Starbucks within five minutes of her house - that is like Christmas every other month of the year!!  I like their park systems.  I like their rec center.  I like their well kept streets. 

But the best thing about Westerville is it's proximity to good, fast coffee. 

I would run two-year-old Addy to an appointment and pull in for a quick fix.  We had a song we sang to assuage her anxiety of the waiting time - a Starbucks-waiting only song.  She almost gave me away a few times when Heidi would offer to stop and get me something - Addy would start singing our Starbucks song.

I think that means I was hiding my addiction a little.

'They' don't want me to have it because 'they' say it does something to your enzymes that 'they' do not want to happen.  I could probably explain it better if I could hear it better, but when the subject comes up, my ears go deaf, and I just push the words away from my fragile brain.  It's too much.  

And what if my enzymes can never take this again and it is never to be again? 

*******

I can get through a lot of things, but the thought of not having my lattes or coffee any longer does indeed give me pause.  Long pauses. 

There is probably not enough anti-anxiety medication in the world to balance out those scales.  

And I'm sorry folks, but I have been just really fighting off depression the last few weeks, and coffee is about the safest thing to blog about.  (and I know you don't put "have been just really" together in a chain of words, but I just really did.) 

I have never run a marathon, not even a 5k race, but I kind of imagine this is what it must feel like towards the end -- your body is spent, you are really tired to where you can barely force yourself to keep going, and you really think about stepping off the path.  

They told me the end would be like this, that Taxal would take a big toll at the end of the *chemo-race*, but I didn't think it would be like this.  I'm good for a while, act somewhat normal and everything, then I just fall asleep.  Or my body just slows to a crawl and I lay down and rest.  Again. 

Or as my nurse told me a couple of weeks ago before inserting the two bags of blood being transfused into my body:  "you know you are feeling really bad when the best day of the week for you is the lowest hemoglobin count you've ever had".

I guess so.  

And I cannot get past the idea that I will end up in chemo again - *probably* - after surgery.  It's not so much the idea of chemo again, it's the idea that this cancer doesn't react so well to chemo the longer you treat it.

Everyone is upbeat, positive and ok with all of this except me.  And maybe Scott if he were deep down honest. 

We have been so blessed and I keep trying to concentrate on that, and it's only 3 more treatments for right now and I try to concentrate on that, but I do not even have the gumption for my daily walk here today.....

I could blame it on my gut pain and subtracting more and more foods from my diet.  I could blame it on my energy level and just not being able to do anything right now.  I could blame it on my blood counts, my cellular health or lack thereof, or any other long list of side effects.  I could blame it on chemo brain, and lack of concentration skills and lack of interest in most things now.  I could blame it on solitude and isolation for so long. 

Whatever it is, I just feel beat, and kind of have ever since I asked about the surgery results of the first five women. 

Which, coincidentally was the same week I started up chemo again. 

Not such a great one - two punch combination apparently.  

*******

I have a great fascination with Ohio history.  The Shawnee tribes that lived here and finally gave up Ohio had a long history of making folks think twice about crossing them the least little bit.  Some of the whites moving into the area were equally brutal, but reading what the Shawnees did to captives is morbidly fascinating. 

Upon drawing close to a village after a raid, the whole tribe would greet the returning warriors and make two lines that the captives would have to run through, called "The Gauntlet".  They were pretty intense about this - they used clubs and handfuls of thorny sticks and threw sand in the eyes to blind the "participants" - making getting to the end mostly impossible.

One such captive, Simon Kenton ran four such gauntlets in his lifetime.  While most captives could not complete the first one, he was captured and ran four.  Facing one of those horrid runs, he crouched at the end, made a decisive plan choosing the weakest point in the line and jumped over the line, then ran forever outrunning the braves chasing him down for a good while.

That's not such an easy thing.

I wonder when reading those stories how he walked up to "Gauntlet #2".  Then "Gauntlet #3".  How did he ever decide to keep on when he was being subject to some of the Shawnees favorite tortures?

I thought about that a lot this past week.  To some, the end of June means the first month of summer has flown by too fast.  To me, I am hoping that it means I limp across the 'chemo-finish' line finally.  That I can get these last three treatments in.  That I can look at that gauntlet line, and choose to run. 

And again if I have to.

Most amazing of all, is that Simon Kenton achieved such feats without friends nearby, without support from others of his kind, without coffee. 

I have to plug into his mindset.   

*******

And to quote Hebrews 12:1: 

Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

....Therefore, strengthen the hands that are weak and the knees that are feeble, and make straight paths for your feet, so that the limb which is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed.

I am leaning on these words this week -- "laying aside every encumbrance", "run with endurance", "fixing my eyes on Jesus".  Especially the "running with endurance" part........ 

It's hard to be honest on here, but I know that there are others that are reading and "enduring" a similar path, and I cannot make this sound like a picnic, or a stroll in the park some days.  It's not - especially "some days". 

Some days, some weeks, some long stretches of time are simple warfare like I have never faced and evil that I have not had to look square in the eye before. 

And I cannot just step out now.  I have to finish.  There's no choice, even if I don't feel it in me to keep methodically stepping until I step over that finish line just now. 

I could use a cup of coffee today.........