A Spring of Joy

Just a brief update, because I’ve had a couple of you ask:

No. The stone has not passed. It’s just hanging out, occasionally causing pain but sometimes I forget that it’s there. Sometimes. The other times, it hurts. A lot.

I have an appointment the end of this month with the doctor. They will x-ray me again and then decide what to do. The stone is small enough that they don’t want to “blast it”. So I drink my lemon water faithfully (most days) and hope that this will disintegrate it.

I started chemo Sunday, so I am in the middle of treatment right now. The fatigue is hitting. Today is fever day (I get those sometimes) and I usually start my mornings throwing up in the kitchen sink (we still only have one bathroom right now and it’s too far away when I’m downstairs helping the children get ready for the day). But my counts are staying suppressed which means the cancer isn’t growing for now, so I tell myself every day that this is worth it. That I do this to stay alive.

Because of the stone, I had to go back on the medication they were weaning me off of (of which they were weaning me off? How do I write that with correct grammar?). Now I’m going through the weaning process again, and the anxiety, y’all, off. the. charts.

I realize this sounds like I’m complaining. I am asking God for strength not to be a complainer. I know of many who suffer–many who suffer far worse than me.

I relish the sounds of my children’s feet when they arrive home each day. I beam with pride when I watch my boy hike the ball from the shotgun position in football games and when my other boy runs miles in this heat and shaves minutes off his last meet time. I braid gorgeous red locks and slowly walk hand in hand with my girl to see the fairy gardens she’s built far back in the yard. I hear stories about their days, and I turn lights out in rooms where they’ve fallen fast asleep on the floor. I sit with my in-laws over a meal my mother-in-law made, and we drink good wine and laugh together and then cry when we say good-bye for months again. I cuddle with our pup and feel the warmth of his breath as he licks tears away. I see my parents weekly, and we share hearts and struggles and make lists for us to work on together, because we enjoy being together so much. I watch my Brian set off on much needed adventures with his guy friends and listen to the stories when he returns and ride with him to games and track meets and parents’ meetings that he came home (out of his way) to get me so we could be together and parent together, because he knows how much I want to be there.

I watch movies. And I read. Fiction and non-fiction. Sacred and secular. And I’m listening to sermons on Esther online and taking copious notes, because I need to know that when I don’t see God’s hand move, when the waiting feels like forever and nothing is changing, He’s still there, working in all the details of our lives, orchestrating circumstances for His glory and my good. And I beg God for eyes to see the gifts He’s given even in the darkness, and I weep when I can’t see them because the loneliness of pain is overwhelming and I don’t want to miss them–His good gifts.

And I tell myself the truth over and over and over again.

That if there were a better path for me, for us, God would have us on it.

He would.

Oh, I believe.

I think I do.

Help my unbelief.

And please, help this stupid stone to pass?