Thursday, April 30, 2015
Biopsy Results....
I'm not sure I really prepared for this outcome - I'm not sure any of us did - it's too weird to think of when you're weighing expected outcomes. But I can tell you that when I lay on that table Tuesday waiting for the doctor to come in to do the biopsy, I couldn't help thinking how much the table and laying on it makes you feel like a sacrifice. The verses in my devo had been talking about "offering oneself up as a living sacrifice...." and that's what I began to do as I lay there. I prayed that God would use this for His glory, no matter what happened. I told Him that if I need to sacrifice my desires and dreams and hopes, I was doing that right then. And that hasn't changed. While I have many desires and dreams that I hope to carry out in many years to come, I am willing to let them all go if that is His will. So my prayer continues to be, "Please God, let me live....but not my will, but Yours."
I failed to say earlier that other than the stomach bug, I feel really good, and that's another praise.
Thanks again for all your prayers, kind words, and thoughts - you guys are fantastic supports!
Sherri
Thursday's Partial Update
In meeting with the doc, she measured the lump. It was 6 cm x 5 cm before we started treatment (that is much bigger than when I initially found it). Today when she measured, it had shrunk to 3 cm x 4 cm. I had told her that it seemed to have shrunk up quite a bit, and as she did the exam, she kept saying, "Oh my, that is much smaller --- MUCH smaller!" She was visibly excited, and was particularly pleased that it has shrunk this much this quickly. She said this bodes very well for my treatment. - the tumor is responding very, very well to the chemo!!!
A couple of other things: on Tuesday when I had the biopsy, they told us that sometimes when the result comes back negative, the doc will choose to re-do the biopsy to be sure, particularly since the lymph nodes are so hard to find. So, we asked her about what direction would be taken depending on what was found with this biopsy (negative result or positive result), she told us:
- If we receive a negative result, she will not redo the biopsy - she said that particularly given how well the tumor has responded to the chemo, she believes that even if the nodes were cancerous at the time of the PET scan, we can trust that the chemo is doing its job since the biopsy should have found them to still be so if that were the case. She said if it comes back negative, she feels good about letting that stand (I did tell her that I had been taking more than usual allergy meds when the PET scan was done because the pollen count was so high then). She said that those nodes do tend to fire when allergies are involved, so again, she is fine with letting a negative result stand.
- If we receive a positive result, there are two different trains of thought on how to handle my care, and she would contact experts in the field before proceeding. She said that when it happens like mine has, where the cancer has gone beyond the area, but is still in the vicinity, there is quite a controversy. One group says that you treat all those in Stage 4 the same - making them as comfortable as possible for as long as possible, containing the cancer as much as possible. The other group says that you hit it as hard as you can, just as if it was still Stage 3.
Wednesday, April 29, 2015
The In Between
Other than being tired, and still working through a few things with what we think has been that stomach bug, I'm doing well today. I am learning that I have to take smaller bites, smaller meals, smaller steps. I am also finding that I have to go more slowly and rest more often. That's not always easy for "the Energizer Bunny" way I usually work. I am still hopeful that I'll get back to school Friday, but we'll see....
Resting, figuratively and literally,
Sherri
Monday, April 27, 2015
Since last I wrote....
Now- one other piece of information I need to make you aware of, which has made all that's gone before easy. On Thursday afternoon, my medical oncologist (the one who oversees the chemo) called to tell me that in re-evaluating the PET scan results with the radiation oncologist, they feel there are lymph nodes in my jaw - higher than what she'd first told me about - that look suspicious. She said that they may only be reactive, that lymph nodes in that area tend to fire when you have a cold or allergies, that if I didn't have cancer, they wouldn't be anything to worry about. But I do have cancer....and they are something we have to look at.
She has scheduled a biopsy of the lymph nodes in my neck/jaw for tomorrow afternoon. We have an appt. with her Thursday, when we hope to get the results of said biopsy. She has told us that if these nodes are cancerous, that puts me in Stage 4.
This news, given on Thursday before the physical stuff on Friday, at first made me think that what I was experiencing was simply delayed shock. But the fact that Steve also got it has made me realize that wasn't the case. That wasn't exactly "good news," but it has made me hopeful that I won't have to deal with this in my next round of chemo.
I have spent the past several days thinking a lot about what this news means - or could mean. The only tiny bit of good news I had, besides the fact that some of this could be a stomach bug (you are really desperate when "you have a stomach bug" is good news) was the fact that, as stated by the doctors, I have been able to see that the tumor has shrunk (truly - it's obviously smaller) and that I know I was having a hard time with my allergies when I went in for the PET scan. But those tiny pieces of news were just that - tiny. In my state of distress, I couldn't get my mind out of "the Pit" - and it's really, really dark down there. I thought about David, who said in the Psalms 22:14, "I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint; my heart is like wax; it is melted within me." Oh, yeah, David, right there with ya', Dude. I thought about Habakkuk, who begins his book with, "How long, O Lord, will I call for help, and You will not hear? I cry out to You, 'Violence!' yet You do not save." (1:2) Been there, Friend Habakkuk. I thought about Job, who lost everything - read that again - *everything* - with no response from heaven or the God he served as to why. In fact, for Job, every time one tragedy was laid at his feet, another came literally rushing in the door. And when (I am sure) he thought it couldn't get any worse, God allowed Satan to take his health. At that point, his wife, soul of virtue that she was, said, "Do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God and die!" (Job 2:9) There's a woman we all want in our corner in the midst of adversity, eh?
Each of these individuals hit upon some pretty rough stuff. David was pursued by Saul because Saul was a crazy man. And although David knew God intended to make him king one day, and trusted God to make that happen in His own time, the running got old after awhile. David has many passages where he gets honest with God, like: "Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am in distress; my eye is wasted away from grief, my soul and my body also. For my life is spent with sorrow and my years with sighing; my strength has failed because of my iniquity, and my body has wasted away." (Psalm 31:9-10) One Psalm I found fit almost exactly what I was feeling. It begins: "O Lord, the God of my salvation, I have cried out by day and in the night before You. Let my prayer come before You; incline Your ear to my cry! For my soul has had enough troubles, and my life has drawn near to Sheol. I am reckoned among those who go down to the pit; I have become like a man without strength..." (Psalm 88:1-4). This one had 14 more verses that run in a similar vein, and I resonated with every one. In multiple passages in multiple Psalms, David says, "Why are you in despair, O my soul? And why have you become disturbed within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him, the help of my countenance and my God." Gut honesty, here, but also a reminder to himself - and us - that "bleak" is not the "new black" with God.
Friend Habakkuk went on in the book named after him to rage against God in the first chapter, listen to God's response in the second, then respond himself in the third. Habakkuk knew that God was going to use the Babylonians, something decidedly bad, to bring about judgement and transformation, something decidedly good, in the hard hearts of His people. Did that make it easier for Habakkuk, knowing that in the end it was for good? Let me allow Habakkuk to answer that in his own words: "I heard and my inward parts trembled, at the sound my lips quivered. Decay enters my bones, and in my place I tremble. Because I must wait quietly for the day of distress, for the people to arise who will invade us. Though the fig tree should not blossom and there be no fruit on the vines, though the yield of the olive should fail and the fields produce no food, though the flock should be cut off from the fold and there be no cattle in the stalls, yet I will exult [rejoice] in the Lord, I will rejoice in the God of my salvation. The Lord is my strength, and He has made my feet like hinds' feet, and makes me walk on my high places." (3:16-19) Wow - once again, gut honesty, and even some yelling at God (see chapter 1), but in the end, another statement of faith. Another one whose relationship with God the Father gave him the opportunity to say what was hard, what was on his heart and mind, yet still conclude with a statement of trust and praise.
Now Job. Boy, Job is a tough one. Everyone seems to think that because his first response, after he lost his stock, crops, and children but before he lost his health, was "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I shall return there. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord," that somehow he was above grief in all of this. But if you keep reading, you find out differently. After Job's wife, ahem, "encourages" him, and his friends come to call, we read this: "Then they [his friends] sat down on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights with no one speaking a word to him, for they saw that his pain was very great." (Job 2:13) The previous verse says these friends didn't even recognize Job he was so changed. Job himself spends the following chapter in a lament that encapsulates the pain he is in, cursing the day he was born (literally - that day), the joy his family had upon his birth, wishing he had died at birth. He completes the chapter with a most poignant statement of how he feels: "Why is light given to him who suffers, and life to the bitter of soul, who long for death, but there is none, and dig for it more than for hidden treasures, who rejoice greatly and exult when they find the grave? Why is light given to a man whose way is hidden, and whom God has hedged in? For my groaning comes at the sight of my food, and my cries pour out like water. For what I fear comes upon me, and what I dread befalls me. I am not at ease, nor am I quiet, and I am not at rest, but turmoil comes." (Job 3:20-26) Boy, could I relate. But even Job doesn't stop there - in Job 19:25-26, he says, "As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last He will take His stand on the earth. Even after my skin is destroyed, yet from my flesh I shall see God..." Once again, even with all the laments, he chooses to declare his faith in His God, even if it means that God chooses to take his life.
I've spent a good bit of the past few days doing exactly what you hear David, Habakkuk, and Job doing - feeling as if my bones were water and my heart melting wax, raging against God, and even wishing to die (at that moment, not in a few months time). Everything, as Job so well states, seemed useless and pointless; like Habakkuk, I knew that I must "wait for the day of distress," and it made my "inward parts tremble [and] my lips [quiver]." Like David, there were times when my words did not carry any praise (Psalm 88 doesn't). But then.....
Then I re-read the latter part of Job, the part after all his friends' words and his continued laments and defense of himself. Beginning in chapter 38, God begins a most eloquent reminder of Who He is and of His sovereignty, reminding Job and his friends of how little they truly know. These passages are among some of the most poetically beautiful anywhere in the Bible, and I have always loved them for their use of imagery and how God shows Himself to be omnipotent in each one. Over and over, God bombards Job and his friends with how He is in control, how He knows what He is doing, how He holds all things together, how nothing that is or has been...is or has been...without Him. And like Job at the end of his book, I was left wonderstruck and speechless. "Behold, I am insignificant; what can I reply to You? I lay my hand on my mouth." (Job 40:4)
I don't have any idea what God has planned in the months ahead. I don't know if those lymph nodes were simply reactive the day of the PET scan or not. I don't know if God will choose to physically heal me if they are cancerous - because I do know that Stage 4 cancer is one that only God can heal physically. But I do know that, like David, Habakkuk, and Job, I will choose to remember in the midst of this Whose I am, Who holds my hand, Who holds my life, and Who has numbered my days. If it is our Father's will, I will live through this disease. But either way, I want my life to count for Him, however many days He has given me.
Waiting, expectantly, "more than the watchmen for the the morning,"Sherri
Tuesday, April 21, 2015
Haircut!
Afterward, here's the "radical" look:
That's my hairdresser, Katy, in the mirror as she takes a pic of the back before I leave. The front?
I took a couple of selfies - the first is "unfloofed" the second is more "floofed." Not too radical in the end - unless you consider that fact that it's been over 20 years since I had my hair cut this short! The last time was when we moved to Mississippi, and Lotti was almost 2!! We cut it so that it would allow the curl to come through or I can blow-dry it like normal for a "more polished" look. It looks better in person than in the selfies, but I like it, and Steve says it is cute. I'll probably get used to it just about the time it begins to fall out :D Katy says she'll work with me as we go through the next year to make sure it's shaved when the time comes, then styled repeatedly again as it comes back in. We had a great talk today, and she's an awesome stylist!!
Delays
Just so you know....the blog often seems to have a several hour delay between when I post and when the email is sent. I signed up myself for the emails on a different email just so I'd know what to tell you guys to expect. I don't know the reason for the delay....just that it exists.
From one of my morning devos
I am working through the "Psalms of Ascent" in one of my devotions right now. Here's a part of what today's writer had to say:
"...walking through these hard seasons is often the best thing [that] could ever happen. Because it is there that we find Him. It is there that we learn that the strength of our bootstraps [the ones we use to pull ourselves up by] will fail, but the joy of the Lord won't. It is there that we learn that we don't need to put on a brave face, we simply need to seek His. And ultimately, it is there that we learn that He knows our suffering, because He suffered too. For me. For you. Maybe you and I will never be to the point in our faith walk where we're able to say, "Okay, Lord, trials? Bring 'em on!" But we can pray for each other to get to a point where we trust that we're just seeing a few brush strokes on the gigantic masterpiece He's painting.
Where we don't fear what's ahead, because we know it's already happened in the eyes of our Master Planner. Where we acknowledge that He shares in our sufferings, but He also shares in our comfort. Where we can remember that He's rescued us before and that He'll do it again, as many times as we need rescuing. (2 Corinthians 9-10, MSG)
And for that we can say thank you, even when nothing seems peachy keen. Because there is no pit we're in that is deeper than His love.
Let's give thanks that He is on our side. Today and every day."
Amen. This was "a good word aptly spoken" this morning. Some of my food may taste off, but these "apples of gold in settings of silver" are as sweet as ever. If you are interested in tasting those golden apples of goodness, check out Psalm 124 and 2 Corinthians 1:7-11. I am specifically mentioned in verse 9 of Corinthians, and you are all mentioned specifically in verse 11 of that same chapter. Really! Don't believe me? Read it for yourself! :)
Thankful for His Everlasting Presence, His Omniscient knowledge of all I am going through, that He is willing to climb down into the Pit with me before attempting to pull me out, and that He has given me you all to join in helping me,
Sherri



