A Spring of Joy

(BEWARE: Tedious health update ahead)

There’s no pretty way to write this post, so I’m just going to lay out the facts of where we are now with everything with me… prepare to be bored, or just skip this post if you like. But if you skip it, please still pray for us. There’s lots coming up for us. Lots I wasn’t expecting, and I am discouraged.

My mind and heart race back to the question I have struggled with throughout this whole, painful process. Do I truly believe that God is sovereign even when life is hard? Or do I just take the good in my life and curse Him for the bad? There is no other answer than to say, like Lynn Eib in her book, “When God And Cancer Meet”:

Let God simply be God. Let Him be the unfalteringly faithful God, willing to strengthen us for any and every circumstance. Let him be the incredibly sovereign God, wise enough to know how and when to answer any and every prayer. Let Him be the mighty awesome God that He is, powerful enough to heal us at any and every level–powerful enough to heal… body, mind and spirit.

He is God and I am not.

–Monday brought another appointment with my oncologist, and I am still struggling with iron-deficiency anemia, so she decided to give me an iron infusion… right then and there. They hooked me up to my port (Bri loves to talk about my Matrix plug-in), and infused iron straight into my bloodstream. I had a lovely little nap in the chair, then headed home and suffered one of the worst headaches I’ve had in months. This left me pretty weak and fatigued for Tuesday. But now I’m up and around like normal. Or like whatever normal is for me now. Hopefully, this will help me turn the corner on fatigue, too.

–However. Don’t you just LOVE howevers? The doc is concerned that there is blood loss somewhere because of the anemia, so I get to go see a gastroenterologist in a few weeks so he can check out my stomach and colon to be sure everything is okay there. Joys.

–My next heart scan is in a week and a half, and already I am having nightmares about the search for veins that will accompany it. Last night I woke up shaking so badly I thought I was having convulsions. So, let’s just add panic attacks to the list.

–Once that heart scan comes back, the doc and I will decide whether to continue my treatment or not. She is not against discontinuing treatment from this point on, because there is no medical data to determine whether 10 months of Herceptin is any worse than 12 months. If my heart hasn’t regulated, then I will definitely be done with the Herceptin treatment.

–Now… let’s step back in time 10 years. When I had thyroid cancer. I had my thyroid completely removed and went to UVA to the 4th top endocrinologist in the nation (he has since retired). They did some follow-up and then began maintenance of my thyroid levels, etc. They determined that no other treatment was necessary because they couldn’t see any remaining thyroid; it had been completely removed. So I had one follow-up scan, no further treatment, and went on my merry way. However, what they failed to tell me was that the cancer was in two of my lymph nodes. As my mother-in-law so eloquently put it, “WHAT CRACK THE SIZE OF THE GRAND CANYON DID THAT FALL THROUGH?!”

Okay, I think I’m done ranting about that now.

–I am seeing an endocrinologist at another hospital now. First visit with her was a month ago. And my levels are all off. My meds got messed up at the cancer center. Add to that she found evidence of remaining thyroid tissue, so I am now facing an ultrasound of my neck along with a scan (that requires THREE, let me repeat that, THREE injections that can’t be done through my port. Translate… they’ll have to search for veins.) Once the scan is done I may also have to undergo radioactive iodine treatment. I am still processing all this, so feel free to send me questions, but I may not have answers.

–All my doctors tell me they aren’t concerned. But I am. “Don’t be concerned,” were the words I heard one week before I received the worst news of my life.

The battle is not done. Please pray for my heart. That I would choose to look at God instead of my circumstances. That while fear (and pain) is very real, it would not overcome. That I would truly believe that God is unfalteringly faithful, incredibly sovereign, and the mighty awesome God that He is.