Every Good and Perfect Gift...

I'm a very lucky lady. Or maybe blessed is a better term. Luck implies randomness and I think that the gift of Sam in my life was anything but random.

This year has been insane. How it is that I've already travelled 8 months on this cancer journey? What is it that has kept me going through it all? Well - many things actually! The support and prayer of so many friends and family, help with meals, coffee dates, random life giving outings, and the smiles from my kids. But there is one that tops all the others and that is Sam.

He has been at almost every appointment I've had. From surgery to chemo and all the doctors appointments in between. I remember the first chemotherapy cycle. About 2 hours after being home I crashed and burned and he stepped right in to pick up all the pieces. He kept me hydrated and out of the hospital that weekend. Plying me with drinks of all sorts while I threw up and laid on the couch for hours at a time barely able to form a coherent thought.

I also remember one morning feeling miserable but unable to sleep. I took up my spot on the couch and listened to him clean the kitchen, sweep and wash the floor, tidy up all around me while doing loads of laundry. It was that comfortable bustle of activity - when you know you are being looked after, someone's got ahold of it all and you don't have to worry, you can just relax. He knew what I needed to feel most at peace and comfortable and he just did it.

Since that day Sam has done many more loads of laundry, many meals, a lot of driving back and forth to school, house cleaning, bed making, and many many outings with the kids. He shaved my head for me, ran out to the drugstore early in the morning or late at night, made sure I had clean sheets every other day during the days I felt the worst, lysol'd the house over and over, did every kid bedtime and breakfast by himself and spent many evenings alone while I was in bed by 7pm. Every chemo cycle he hands me a card filled with words of support and love - reminders that we are walking the road together. Those things have meant so much to me and I am so thankful.

I can't imagine having gone through this without him and I'm so glad we're a team. A team in decision making and treatment and whatever comes next. So today I am Thankful. Thankful that God chose Sam to be my husband.

Season of Change

With Number 7 just around the bend I'm starting to feel as if the end is in sight. The end of chemo anyway. I met today with a 2nd Radiation Oncologist and will start radiation about 4 weeks after my last chemo. This decision was hard for us to make. A lot of back and forth, a lot of questions to different doctors, friends and family, and a lot of waiting on God for his wisdom and discernment. But we are moving forward, putting all our concerns and fears into the waiting hands of Jesus. And I feel at peace.

This month has also been filled with a lot of normal life things which is a relief after months of focusing on cancer. I feel as if I'm participating in my life once more, not just letting my health consume me (although sometimes it still does). Instead I spend my time dreaming of the future, embracing autumn - the season of change (and my personal favourite), and intentionally doing things that I forgot I loved to do (cooking new recipe's, fallifying the house) while trying out some new things (green smoothies, veggie only meals).

Of course these good days are interspersed with the freak out ones too. Who doesn't have those right? But I feel that those kind of days are slowly being replaced by good ones, ones of contentment, peace and reliance on Jesus. Trusting is hard but when you practice it, it gets easier.

Life

Death by cancer is all around us. It always has been, but now, within the reality of my own cancer I think I see it more. Or maybe I think about it with greater awareness. And I often wonder what it is exactly I should be feeling about this.

A cousin of mine was recently taken by cancer. Just this past week we were all confronted with the death of Mr. Layton and more recently in my own city I heard about a woman who died of breast cancer just a mere month and a bit after her diagnosis. Yesterday I found out that David Serven-Schreiber author of the book Anti-Cancer: A new way of Life (a great book about living an anti-cancer life), passed away this summer after a 3rd recurrence of cancer.

Should I feel fear? This same disease that killed these people and countless others was in my body (and may be again) and will always and forever be on my radar. But mercifully fear is not the first thing I feel. After the sadness, the sorrow for family left behind and for a life shortened, I feel anger. Anger that cancer has the power to take life.

And immediately I feel like living. I think I've always been a bit contrary. If you think I should walk I'll decide to run, no I do not want a smaller piece of pie, yes I do want seconds of thai food, yes I can walk for an hour, not just half even though I just had chemo yesterday. (I think I may get this from my dad - but trust me he's way worse :-)

So lately I've been thinking about life. About living. What it means for me now, what I'll do with it. This week when I learned of these unfortunate, devastating deaths I wanted to walk. Up hill. Fast. So I did - maybe not as fast as usual but my heart pumped, my legs burned, and my lungs laboured. My pared down walks a few times around the duck pond without a hill in site are done. I want to Live and I will Walk!

Sam was sharing a few thoughts with me out of Jeremiah 29 the other day and I thought I'd post them here since they speak to Life. The Isrealites are in exile in Babylon and Jeremiah decides to send them a letter. A word from the Lord to the exiles.

I love what he says to them in vs 5. "Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there and do not decrease." and then in vs. 10: For thus says the Lord: When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place.

After which is the famous verses about plans for a hope and a future - a promise that won't come to fruition for 70 years!! This is what I get from these verses. When you are in exile (for 70 years) - LIVE. When you feel like you can't go on - LIVE. When you are missing your family and feel like everything is going against you - LIVE. Keep living. And enjoy it - build your house, eat your food, have a big family and enjoy them.

Okay - that turned into a mini sermon but you get my point. Yes in the back of my mind I worry about recurrence of cancer, leaving my family too soon and all that stuff that fear brings but for today I am alive and I will Live.

power vs. Power

I had this idea that cancer would be a year out of my life and then I'd go back on my merry way doing everything I used to, being exactly who I used to be. I'm starting to realize this may not be the case. When I said that exact thing to Sam the other day he said - you will go on with life, it just may be in a new way, a way you're just learning to navigate.

To be honest, I don't like that, not one bit. I feel like cancer has robbed me of some things I liked about myself. Mainly - a healthy body. Yes - when this is done I hope to be healthy again, healthier then I ever was, but there will be changes that I will have to work with or around. Like my left arm, where I had lymph nodes removed. I could always have problems with it, or my heart which shows a slight decrease in the pumping action after my first round of chemo.

In contrast to cancer these things are minor, they can be monitored and I can live with them a long time. But somehow, that doesn't make it easier to bear. And it makes me angry that cancer has power to change my life in ways I did not want.

Then I remember that Jesus is bigger then that. His Power is bigger then that of cancer, or death, or my suddenly narrowed view of life. When I feel like I can't see past the next 24 hours it is some comfort to know that he can see forever.

"I lift my eyes up to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth. ...The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore." Psalm 121: 1 and 8

And for a brief update: I received cycle 5 of chemo on Thursday and Friday and am happy to report that I'm not totally incapacitated by it like I was the first 4. I haven't spent the weekend in bed nor have I been sick. I do have pain in my legs and joints which I'm hoping will soon fade. It feels good to have completed 5 chemo cycles and have 3 left. And as I am nearing the end of chemo we've been talking with doctors about radiation benefits vs. risks and will decide soon our next treatment plan. So please keep praying for us as we make yet more decisions.

And time moves on

I can hardly believe I'm half way through chemo. I finished my fourth treatment on the 21st of July and after a week of feeling bleck I am finally feeling well. AND I have another week before the second round. I feel like I'm on a vacation from chemo - a very good feeling and one I'm trying not to mar with thoughts of what the next round will be like.

Treatment 3 was a low point for me. I was discouraged, fearful, anxious and felt as if it would never end (hence the lack of any blog posting after that). Fear is such an irrational thing. Suddenly I couldn't lay down without thinking of what could go wrong. Every heartbeat was analyzed, every pain, every nauseous moment revisited. And yet through it all my rational mind was saying - don't worry, think of something else, trust in Jesus.

And that's the crux of it isn't it? Trusting in Jesus is easy when your mind is clear and fear is held easily at bay. I had to get back to the basics. Remembering why it was I didn't fear the word cancer way back in March when it was new to me. Because I knew that Jesus was my doctor. That he had my back. I had to remember that he still is the one in charge of my treatment. He alone decides whether the chemo works or doesn't. He protects my heart and body from extra damage.

"Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God." Ps 20: 7.

Psalm 20 has been my staple these past few weeks. I will trust in Jesus, not in chemo or surgery or any other treatment that will come my way in the next months. And I will enjoy this gift of reprieve and the completion of what should have been the "worst of it" (according to my Oncologist who is lovely but very optimistic :-).

A Sweet Fragrance

So here's what I look like now. I've tried hats and scarves and really like the scarves. They are light and cool, help me feel good and comfortable in my skin now that I'm mostly bald.

Today is the perfect sort of day. Quiet, summery, not too hot or cool. I don't need help today - I can make lunch and dinner and take care of everyone, which is a good feeling after a week of everyone taking care of me.

And speaking of everyone taking care of me - this last time was marginally better in that I threw up less. But I was still pretty sick all weekend and then weak and shaky for a couple days. It takes about 8 days to start feeling more normal and then a few after that to feel great and then it's time to start it all over again.

I think one of the harder things for me (besides the really sick days) is my sense of smell. Everything smells off and yucky to me. My house and bedroom smell musty and sick, food smells gross, water tastes yucky, smells really set me off, especially the first week after treatment. I was reading a devotional the other day that had Psalm 46:1 written at the end. "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble." I was thinking about what sort of 'present help' I needed to get me through this and then thought that if God's presence was with me in a smell, a fresh, outdoorsy type of smell, in the chemo room, when I got home and through the hardest days - that would be a very real help.

So that's what I'm praying for. God's presence in a smell. You can pray that along with me if you're wondering for something specific to pray for. That and of course continued protection from infection and sickness, and continued sun!

Dear God and Dad

It's Sam again, chiming in.

Anastasia (on left) ever the thoughtful one, came out of her room tonight after being in bed for a while with a note. She wanted to contribute to her mom's blog seeing as Heidi is not feeling up to it these days. After chemo round #2 on Thursday, both our kids sort of knew what to expect, but in reality were quite sobered again at the immediate effects of the drugs on Heidi. Another little memory was made as we shaved her head...transition to bald complete (well more like patchy thinning army buzz stage to be more accurate). I happen to think it's cute.

Here's what Anastasia wrote, short and sweet - it made me cry, not sure if it is fair for me to post, but it was her wish. It's part prayer and part note to me (her dad) - she even has a message for all of you :)

In this I see her mom's strength, resolve and knack for the written word. Perhaps you will too.
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Dear God and Dad,

OK well the first week my mom started kemo it was very scary. The very scary part is over now but unforchunitly there's still a bit more to come. Now here's my prayer.

Dear God, I pray that you would heel all this sickniss in mommy and that even though this is hard to go throe God is holding her hand the hole way throe. And i know you are leading all of us who care about her throe, oh one more thing if you can go throe this I can amen.

And all of you that care should be thankful that you guys have such a fantastic friend or relativ of course. But anyways you're lucky just like I am. Love Ana. Mom you are a great mom, even beter than great, you're fantastic.
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If you choose to comment, why don't you send Anastasia a note this time round. I know Heidi would be encouraged vicariously.

We feel carried and blessed by so many.