Praise report

I have to say that February has been a month filled with a variety of praises. Our year started much like last year, filled with trials and unknowns and in my baby-like faith, I was trying to trust in God rather than question the circumstances. I have been clinging to God's word and waiting to see how everything was going to come together...some things have come together so beautifully that it's got God's handwriting all over it! Some of you know that Mark had been pulled out of the school he has been at and split between two other schools, this was the second time they had moved him THIS YEAR. It was very troubling and the future was looking uncertain, BUT we have since learned that what appeared on the surface to be crazy and disorganized is actually a huge blessing. This is not only a better circumstance for the remainder of the year but has set him up for a good situation next year too. This has been a huge answer to prayer for us!
I had been having trouble getting shifts as the hospital had changed their entire scheduling system. Basically, the best way to get shifts now is by the relationships that you have with a department. In talking with the administration of ICU, I was told that there wasn't a need in their department at this time. I was very disappointed as one of my biggest goals throughout treatment was to get back to working in ICU, I had really missed it. I figured God was closing a door and seemed to be opening another in oncology so I went with it. It was at that point that ICU started calling me and there is a huge need in ICU all of a sudden. :) Again, the way this has unfolded has God's hand writing all over it. I'm still amazed that whenever I let go, God does His best work and all for my good. We still have some uncertainties and continue to wait on God as I'm absolutely confident that He is in complete control.

Emotional turmoil

I know I've talked about my struggle working in oncology but it doesn't seem to be getting easier or better with time. Each time I work there I have at least one young patient and it's just way too close to home. This last time I had a young 40 something that was dying from breast cancer that had metastasized to basically everywhere. Her family, and quite honestly, she herself was not ready to accept the fact that she was dying and there is not much else that medicine can do for her at this point. On the one hand, I tried to make her as comfortable as possible and really tried to incorporate her family in the whole process. Their anger at her situation was palpable, I understood the anger which in turn helped me not take anything they said personally. On the other hand, her situation scared me as my future is still a bit uncertain. I thought a lot that shift about what I would want my last days to look like, how I would want things to unfold. I handled my assignment fine throughout the day, it was after the shift was over that I had a hard time processing everything. I had my cancer support group the next afternoon and found that too to be a difficult time. Many of the women in my group are stage 4 and have less than 20% chance of beating their cancer, those are hard odds to face daily. I'm trying to keep my fears in check as I walk through this transitional time, it's not easy. I think throughout treatment I was very guarded and tried not to get my hopes up too much that this would work. I didn't want (and still don't) to ever experience such disappointment like I did when I found out the type of cancer I have. To find that the ONE thing I had been thankful for (and that was not easy to find) was suddenly gone, left me with an emptiness I don't ever want to experience again. The further I get out from treatment, I find that I'm dropping a bit of that guard and starting to hope for a cancer free future. It's scary to hope for something that I have very little control over. In my situation, we are in some uncharted territory as no one knows the significance of the CA-125 blood test. I'm not sure I want to go through check-ups every three to four months, go through the emotional turmoil when we aren't sure if these tests will be helpful or not. I'll do my check up in March, but I'm going to talk with Dr P about maybe just doing scans twice a year. The reality is that if I can make it to the two year mark and remain cancer free, I have a very good chance of beating this. If I don't....we did the most aggressive treatment available and Mark and I will have a lot of decisions to make about how we want the future to unfold. People can live a long time and simply manage their cancer but you have to be willing to accept a different type of quality of life....and I'm not sure I'm there. I'm living in a strange place mentally and emotionally right now, trying to find a balance. Here's my dilemma, if I knew for certain that treatment didn't work, I would certainly live differently. I'd probably be more selfish, do the things I want to do rather than the things I feel I should be doing, spend way more time with family, and eat whatever I wanted whenever I wanted. :) Because I'm living in this unknown time period I'm trying to find a balance between both worlds. I guess this is something that everyone battles as no one knows the exact date of their last breath, it's just on my mind a lot more these days. I don't want a lot of regrets at the end. I'm not sure that working in oncology is a good thing for me right now. I find it interesting that whether I'm working in oncology or ICU, I ALWAYS have a patient with cancer. I wonder if God is trying to help me continually face my fears....I'm sure there is a reason that even in ICU, I'm getting cancer patients.

Leaves

Read a devotional that I thought I would share by Marybeth Whalen:

Mark 8:35
"For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it."

When my daughter asked me one day why the leaves change color, I scanned the recesses of my brain for this most basic of elementary science fact. But there was nothing there. I patted my daughter and assured her, yet again, we would learn this answer together. We read a book together on why leaves change color. The leaves are slowly dying, they hold onto the tree loosening a bit more every day. The more they detach, the more a substance within them called chlorophyll dissipates. Chlorophyll is green in color, which causes the whole leaf to appear green. But when the chlorophyll is gone, other colors have a chance to surface. The red, gold, and orange colors were within the leaf along-they were just overshadowed by the presence of the green chlorophyll. It took the process of dying for their glorious colors to be displayed. We are in the process of dying every day just like those leaves. When we choose to follow Christ, He asks us to take up our cross and follow Him, engaging in a daily process of giving up our rights, our pride, ourselves in the name of service, giving and submitting. It is the painful work of death, yet in it we find colors we didn't know were there emerging. Once our sense of self and entitlement overshadowed us, coloring us an eternal-yet common-green. In the dying process, we find that God designed us to be more brilliant and colorful as we surrender our lives to Him. People are drawn to this colorful display. They want to know how they too can break out of their same old green-colored lives and live within this kind of brilliance. In our humanness, we want to cling to the security of the tree- the security of money, family, or the comfort zones of our routines. But God asks us to let go, to trust Him, to die a little more each day. We must trust the dying process and encourage others to do the same, displaying our colors so that people far from Him are drawn to Him, just as He intended.

Hope you are encouraged today!

Aftermath update

This coming week I get to do a trial of only wearing the compression stocking when I'm working or working out. I'm VERY excited but also a bit nervous as I hope the lymphedema doesn't flare up again. My leg is still half an inch bigger than the other but it no longer hurts and that's most important to me. I don't know that my right leg will ever be the same size as my left leg, I'm accepting that for the most part.
Sleep is still a big issue, I continue to battle hot flashes at night. I don't think doctors really know how to manage all my menopause symptoms as I'm not the typical case. I've come off the clonidine (bp med) and tried a mini trial without my sleeping pill, it seems I can go a night without the sleeping med but that's it. My hot flashes seem to be more noticeable without the clonidine but here's the deal, I'm not adding the effexor to all my other pills! Either the effexor will decrease my hot flashes or it won't and if it doesn't, I'm going on estrogen. So, I've increased the effexor to the normal dose (I was taking half of a normal dose) and giving it another month. I would like to make it to the one year mark before taking estrogen but again, quality of life will dictate things.

We have got to take a picture of my hair so I can post it. I'm in that wild stage where it pretty much has a mind of its own (my hair always has!) and I look like I have a mohawk most of the time. There's not much I can do with it but I'm using mousse to simply try and have it not stick up. My hair color came back much darker than Mark or I am used to so we decided to try and color it back to my original color, light ash blonde. Lets just say it didn't work, it's definitely lighter but it's not light ash blonde. I'm going to go a bit lighter next time and see what happens. The great thing about starting over after chemo is that my hair now has some curl to it and I love that as my hair used to be stick straight! :) The other thing I'm finding is that I lose eyebrow and eyelashes all at the same time, so sometimes I have more than other times. Usually these hairs are on a different life cycle but because I lost mine all at the same time, they are all on the same cycle. Not sure I really enjoy that, when I start losing them I feel like I'm back on chemo....temporarily.

My follow-up appointment with Dr P is a month away and I have days where I'm a bit nervous. The further I get away from treatment, the more I want to be cancer free!

Surgery Anniversary

It's hard to believe that a year ago today, I had the hysterectomy. I went into the surgery ready to do it and relieved that it was time as we knew I had been failing treatment. God graciously allowed me to get to the point where emotionally I was ready to let go of my uterus and some of my dreams. I worked up until the surgery and found it such a comfort that each time I worked, I took care of a woman who had a similar type of surgery. I watched them bounce back so quickly that it really helped lower my fear levels. What I didn't think about is the fact that none of those women had cancer and so there surgery wasn't quite as involved or intrusive, and that set me up for some unrealistic expectations. The first time I woke up after surgery I was a bit stunned as to how much pain I was in, it literally took my breath away. It took quite awhile to get my pain under control but once it was better, I started asking questions about the outcome of the surgery. I could tell by my families responses that something was wrong, that my cancer had spread. I was prepared to hear that bit of news because of the pain and bleeding leading up to the surgery, I was prepared to hear it spread to an ovary. Mark and my family had decided they would let Dr P give me the results the next morning, but I started asking specific questions because I could tell that something was wrong and I wanted to know right then! I remember my sister was the one to tell me that the results came back as papillary serous. She didn't think I would know what that meant because it was a rare type of cancer and not talked about all that often. I remember everything started to cave in on me and the tears began to flow, this simply couldn't be happening!! I think by now you all know I'm not a pill person but I remember feeling like I could use some valium or ativan at that moment (I didn't). :) My nurse came in my room around that time and asked if I wanted the chaplain to visit and I did! I had been SO angry at the fact that I had cancer, but the one thing I had been thankful for is that I didn't have a papillary type of cancer as they are nasty and sometimes not responsive to treatment. To find that small bit of hope crushed felt like my last bit of light at the end of the tunnel was gone. Everyone tried to be very reassuring that I would get through this and yet their fears were somewhat palpable. It was a scary time and there were so many unanswered questions. When Dr P came out to speak to my family and appeared visibly shaken (so I'm told), sat down (it's never good news when the MD sits), and explained to them he didn't know how this could happen. This was the first time we all knew that chemo would be required, next would be waiting for the full pathology report. I have to say that Mark made it very clear to me that whatever we faced next, we would face as a team. He simply wanted me to live. I had never been pro-chemo but seeing just how much he loved me, how could I not give it a try? Hard to believe it's been a year, it feels like a lifetime ago! Sometimes I'm thankful God doesn't give us all the details to our future.

Not of this world

It seems like so many people I know are going through some incredibly difficult times. Personally, Mark and I have yet to get out of this difficult season of life and I am SO ready for a season of rest. Some days, I am beyond frustrated with our circumstances and wonder what in the world is God doing? I will say that I'm depending on God with my full weight like never before these last couple of years and that's not a bad thing. I find it interesting that when I'm freaking out about our circumstances, Mark is not and vice versa. We truly balance each other out in our faith walk most times. God continues to teach me things through my dogs, go figure! I spent most of the Superbowl at the animal emergency room as Jackson had a fairly deep laceration on his nose of all places. They glued it closed and then a few hours later he burst through the doggy door and it separated. Fortunately, I was able to stop the bleeding so that we could wait to see our vet the following day. You can imagine the bill for an animal ER visit! Took him to our vet on Monday and she re-glued his nose, once we got home it separated yet again. By this time I called my mom in tears, she let me vent all my frustrations, joined me in tears, and prayed for me. Thank God for moms!! The reason I tell this story is because Jackson is clearly Mark's dog. After we brought Jackson home, Mark stayed home with him for a week while I was working and they formed a special bond. I've been somewhat jealous at how Jackson perks up anytime Mark is around. However, through this whole ordeal with Jackson, I'm starting to form a bond with him in a whole new way too. I will probably never have what Mark has with him, but I'm seeing how his trial is bringing us closer together. I feel as though God is saying to me, "See, that's what I'm doing with you too." Unfortunately, we don't grow closer to God in the calm periods of life, we grow closer to Him in the storms. This gives me hope because it means that there is a purpose to my trials and my tears, nothing is wasted. While I would love a calm period, I'm choosing to trust that what God is doing is best...whether it makes sense to me or not. It's a daily choice, sometimes it's minute by minute. The other thing that brings me hope is that earth isn't my true home, the time here will be a vapor in comparison to heaven. I used to be afraid that God would come back before I got married, had kids etc., and now I look back and think how silly and foolish. My life isn't my own and I don't control much. Anytime God wants to come back, I'll gladly welcome my new and perfect home!

James 1:12
"Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him."