Being on interferon (anti-cancer drugs) has given me some level of insomnia, not to mention pain, discomfort, nausea, and a host of other fun side effects. My appetite has been poor which led me to getting my liver function tested today, and fortunately my liver enzymes weren't too high but flagged as elevated. They are keeping me on the drug for now, and secretly I really wish they'd take me off of it for a while for the sake of comfort. The fatigue has worsened, I know, how bad can fatigue be though? The best way I can describe it is like this: If you took half a bottle of Nyquil, had 3 hours of sleep the night before, worked out for 2 hours, drank a glass of wine, have the flu, and your extremities feel like they weigh 500 lbs each....that's kind of the fatigue I'm talking about. All. The. Time.
I don't want to go on a complaining fest, so I'll bring you up to speed on the other tests: My biopsy came back benign!! There was a suspicious spot on the back of my right leg, so the doctor removed a chunk of my right leg (ugh, no fun!) as a biopsy. Thankfully no further action is needed, but now the spot needs to heal. It gets kind of uncomfortable from time to time, but hopefully it will heal up soon. I also had my CT scan last week where I got to drink 2 liters of this gross orange flavored barium chalk before going in to get scanned. The tech/nurse who gave me the CT wasn't very careful trying to put the IV in my arm, and long story short, it went bad pretty quickly. She tried shoving it in several times (which hurt!) then left it alone to start a new IV, that one worked long enough to put the contrast in and then I got scanned. When she slid me out, I looked down and my arm had bled everywhere....all over the floor, the table, and my arm. I looked like a gun shot victim! She apologized and wiped my arm down, then let me go. The CT scan came back clear, so praise the Lord for that! I get another one in three months....I think I may bring my own nurse this time, ha!
I could fill up this blog with loads of random thoughts, prayers (which feel like the Psalms most days), hospital stories, cancer humor (I could probably do an entire entry on the humor that occurs when living with cancer), and just the challenges of adjustment. However, in the midst of my insomnia, my roommate lent me a book which I've nearly finished reading called "Passion & Purity" by Elisabeth Elliot. Elisabeth Elliot is a twice widowed follower of Jesus Christ, losing her first husband as he was martyred by the Acua indian tribe in Ecuador where they served as missionaries - then losing her second husband to cancer. It's been a wonderful book for me to read in this season of life, and very encouraging. I'm convinced that if Jim Elliot, Elisabeth's first husband, went to my church, I'm pretty sure the elders would give him a good talking to though! He was incredibly devoted to Christ, but seemed like such a confused young guy at times when it came to being decisive about his relationship with Elisabeth (and what girl doesn't love to read a good missions love story!). It's helped me see that we are indeed ALL flawed human beings in desperate need of God for His wisdom and grace. I can't do the book justice, so here is an excerpt from the last chapter:
By Elisabeth Elliot -
I know a young man - I'll call him Philpott - who over the past five or six years seems to have made a career of falling in and out of love. He's a very attractive man and seems able to pick and choose from an eager group of attractive and eminently available women. He wrote to me recently to say that he'd done it again. Fallen out of love with a girl we'll call Cheryl. "Darn it all," he said, "here I thought I'd found my dream girl but 'it didn't work out.' Just couldn't maintain the feelings." Here's my reply:
About this business of falling out of love. Everybody does it, you know. Sometimes before they get married, but always afterwards. Modern folks simply bug out of the marriage then, if they feel no obligation to keep vows - vows made foolishly, they believe.
There is something to be said for making an adult choice and sticking with it. "Being in love," wrote C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity, "is a good thing, but it is not the best thing. There are many things below it, but there are also things above it. You cannot make it the basis of a whole life. It is a noble feeling, but it is still a feeling. Now now feeling can be relied on to last in its full intensity, or even to last at all....In fact, the state of being in love usually does not last.....But of course ceasing to be 'in love' need not mean ceasing to love. Love.....is a deep unity, maintained by the will and deliberately strengthened by habit; reinforced by the grace which both partners ask and receive from God.... They can retain this love even when each would easily, if they allowed themselves, be 'in love' with someone else. 'Being in love' first moved them to promise fidelity: this quieter love enables them to keep their promise. It is on this love that the engine of marriage is run: being in love was the explosion that started it."
So, Philpott, one of these days you need to take a cool, clear look at a good Christian woman. Assess her potentials as a good Christian wife. Is she the kind you'd want as a hostess at your table? Is she what you want for a mother for your children? Is she womanly? Godly? Sensible? Modest? Companionable? Do you think she's "worth" your love? Are you worth hers? (If you think you are, you're probably wrong. Each is to esteem the other better than himself.) Is it God's time for you to get married? Then make up your mind and ask God's help to love her as she ought to be loved.
You said, "One never knows which way the Lord will lead," and that's true. He just might be telling you to "be not as the horse, or as the mule, which have no understanding...." (Psalm 32:9) and get with it.
Don't get me wrong. I have no idea that Cheryl is The Woman. Don't know a thing about her except that you said she's gorgeous. That isn't enough. But if you're looking for some kind of feeling that will be consistent day in and day out, forget it. The kind of love that sustains a marriage is God given, but it is also a daily choice. For the rest of your life. Never forget that.
You have to choose the woman, with all the brains and good sense you've got, plus all the other methods of knowing what God wants of you (you've read my little book, A Slow and Certain Light, about guidance, haven't you?) and then make your move. You have my prayers.
I don't know about you, but reading this from the pen of an 86 year old woman who has survived being twice widowed and married a third time to her now husband - gives me so much encouragement, and also gives me the courage to trust God not just with my heart, but to trust Him with my life. I can trust God to know that somehow, ALL of this is for His good. He wants me to learn and grow, to be more like Christ in this season. What a wise lady!
Anyhow, I've been back at work this week, which has been great! I've mostly been working half days in the office, and half the day at home while working from home the days after my injections. The injections are rough, but it isn't forever. I really don't want to be defeated by these drugs, which is tough to convince myself of it half the time....but I'm thankful for those around me who have been so very understanding of my condition as I weather this storm. I heard a quote recently that I loved - "You can't stop the waves but you can learn to surf." I believe this is so true...and to know that Jesus is the one who calms our waves gives me even more comfort. I can't understand God, my mind is far too small to understand the Creator of the universe, but I can trust that since He created it, there is something far greater at work than I can see. Something with a purpose.
For I am the Lord your God, who churns up the sea so that its waves roar - the Lord Almighty is his name. - Isaiah 51:15, NIV
Oh, and PS - Elisabeth Elliot was a blond! :-) I just loved that!
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