Healing Waters

Thank you again for your prayers and concern for me. I am sorry to be so long in updating you in this fast-paced adventure. I am recovering well from surgery. Unlike the majority of cancer patients that I see and meet, I have youth and a strong body on my side. I am bouncing back quickly; feeling stronger and more like myself every day. Jeremy and the kids are doing an amazing job caring for me. Papaya is managing the kitchen and dishes for me; Banana has done the laundry; The Boy likes to bring me food, and then asks if he can share it; Fez likes me to send him on small missions where he can quickly accomplish small things for me. Jeremy is very attune to my needs. He wants to help and even anticipate anything that may cause me stress and preemptively take it off my plate.  That leaves him spinning many oddly shaped and patterned and mismatched plates himself.  I hope to be well enough soon to take back some of the extra he has taken on.  I'm looking forward to returning to the world of driving adults this weekend. Our wonderful community of family and friends has supplied us with meals, kid-care, rides and gift cards that make day to day life easier to manage for a lame mom. I'm pretty sure the kids ate better last week while I was in the hospital than they usually do. And it is such a treat for them to get to spend extra time with Grandparents and friends.  I am truely grateful for the care of the Father that is manifest in so many who surround us in this trial.

Things are moving along quickly in the cancer world as well. I saw the surgeon yesterday who removed all bandages, stitches and that horrible drain. I promise that thing was causing me more discomfort that the incisions. I am feeling so much better now that I am free from all that excess; I'm even off all the pain meds.  The pathology from the hospital said there were 4 nodes affected by the cancer this time, the largest of which, the one I felt, was 4.2cm. Quite large to have grown in just a little over a month. One of the nodes was on top of a part of a nerve to my shoulder. He cut out a part of that nerve. Time will tell how the movement in my left arm will return.  I can already lift my elbow to shoulder height and touch my head.  I can live with that. But he is not optimistic, rather realistic, saying this is an aggressive cancer and the prognosis is not good.  But we already knew that. I know it is a part of his job to give us the facts so we thank him kindly and go on trusting that Jesus holds all things in his hands...no cancer is more powerful than He.

They are recommending that I do a few weeks of radiation therapy this time as soon as I am healed enough.  I will meet the radiologist on Tuesday to see what he recommends and find out more about what this new treatment entails. After that there will be another drug therapy of sorts that they are working on getting me signed up for.  I believe it is another clinical trial.  They are hopeful.

Before surgery, everything was so rushed. The shock of finding out it had some back so quickly, getting to this place and that, waiting impatiently for results and anxious to get this cancer cut out of me, praying for miracle after miracle.  Now, I feel very relaxed.  I still want to move things along at a high speed (I would begin radiation this week if they would let me, and Jeremy will not let them dilly-dally), but I feel content, peaceful.  Because surgery requires rest to achieve intended health and healing, I am allowing myself more time to sit, reflect, worship and pray.  Every time I pray I see this image of Jesus smiling at me.  And there is overwhelming joy that I cannot contain.  Smiles in the midst of tears. I think he is telling me again and again that he is pleased with me and that we are right where he wants us to be.  He has not forgotten us. I am overwhelmed with his presence, getting small glimpses of his eternal perspective of my life and this trial. It's all I can do to just smile, cry and immerse myself in the deep waters of his healing love.  It is so calming and hopeful. I am blessed to have the time to wade around and soak up all of the goodness. An old hymn I used to sing in my parent's church as a kid and recently heard again has been rolling my mind today.  I leave it with you as a picture of His love and how I am drowning in it with joy.

"O the deep, deep love of Jesus, vast, unmeasured, boundless, free!
Rolling as a mighty ocean in its fullness over me!
Underneath me, all around me, is the current of Thy love
Leading onward, leading homeward to Thy glorious rest above!"