Day 5: Old Barns

I'm a dork! If you've known me very long this won't surprise you, but as evidence I've spent the last couple of hours watching a DIY show called Barnwood Builders, where they tear down old barns and repurpose the wood.¹ The show includes a lot of the history of the barn, the techniques used to build it and the community that it was in. If you know anything about my love of history, I'm sure you wouldn't be surprised to hear that I was hooked. Right now, they're taking apart a barn in New Hampshire, which even combines my love of New England!

Overall, I'm feeling slightly better again. I'm eating more without intense nausea. I did however take a three hour nap in the middle of the day, thanks to a early morning as my mother was leaving for her flight back to Maine. I'd hoped to either make it to church or watch my parents' church service online before she left at 10:30.

I woke up about 7:30, so I'd have the opportunity to do either one, before Mom had to leave. Those plans turned out to be too ambitious, as my body reminded me that it hadn't fully recovered from the treatment. It made the point in a way that neither of us will soon forget, but I will spare the rest of you the details. Needless to say, it made me a bit more hesitant to head back to work tomorrow, until I'm sure that I have recovered completely. 

Please pray that God will continue to heal my body, and give me wisdom about when to return to work. I'm not sure how I will know when it's the right time to return. This morning showed that the risks are pretty steep.

However, I do trust that God will watch over me, guiding me, and sustaining me during whatever trials I must face. When I waver in that trust and faith, I appreciate the outpouring of prayers and encouragement that have come from so many of you. It's like those barns built to last hundreds of years. They were not built solely by the family that would use it, but by the entire community working together. Your encouragement, prayers and willingness to help is invaluable to me. They help me keep my mind focused on the Master Builder, and on the Watchman who protects me from dangers that might seek to overwhelm me.

             Psalm 127 (ESV)
   A song of Ascents. Of Solomon.

1 Unless the Lord builds the house,
      those who build it labor in vain.
   Unless the Lord watches over the city,
      the watchman stays awake in vain.
2 It is in vain that you rise up early
      and go late to rest,
   eating the bread of anxious toil;
      for he gives to his beloved sleep.

---

1 I've also spent about an hour learning how to format text using html code, including how to make footnotes. Yes, I'm a dork! Especially, because I'm not even sure that this is going to work.^↩

Day 4:

I'm feeling a little better today. I've been able to eat small amounts of food, without getting sick. I'm pretty tired, and still feel nauseated at times, I think the trend is finally upward. 

Thank you for the prayers and encouraging comments. God used them to help me stay focused on today, and not worrying about tomorrow, or next week. The reminders came from so many people and in so many different ways that it was hard to miss. I'd love to say that I turned my attitude around immediately, or that I felt miraculously better, but it was more something that has bee happening throughout the day. I'm not even really 100% there yet, but I appreciate all of you coming along side me and holding me up, when I feel like giving up.

My cousin, Kim, sent me this scripture passage, which along with many others captures the trust in God that will help me make it through this.

Psalm 18:35: "You make your saving help my shield, and your right hand sustains me; your help has made me great."

Day 3

This was a very long day. The nausea and vomiting that began Thursday evening, continued as soon as I woke up Friday morning. In addition, I started to develop some other side effects and a fever of 100.6. By the time I went to get the pump taken off, I was really worn out. They gave me some fluids and an anti-nausea med through my port.

I felt slightly better after that. We tried some of the foods that they suggested I might be able to tolerate. I didn't eat much, but I was able to hold it down. However, I'm still not feeling great.

Hopefully, things will start to turn around this weekend. Please pray that these side effects will lessen and that I will be able to get my strength back. I also need prayer for perseverance. It's hard for me to even think past tonight, never mind the fact that I get to go through this again in less than 2 weeks.

Day 2

I woke up still not feeling too great, with waves of nausea coming at different times. However, by lunch I felt a little better and was able to eat a small lunch. Then, I took a long nap.

I'm doing okay at the moment, and about halfway to the end of this treatment. Tomorrow afternoon I will get this pump off. Sometimes that actually makes me feel worse, so it maybe Saturday or Sunday, before I really start feeling better.

Thank you for continuing to pray for me. I appreciate it very much.

Day 1: Home

The infusion went pretty well. I have a bit of nausea and the irinotecan appears to have caused me to sweat, even more than usual. However, the nurse noticed the sign of a reaction and gave me a second dose of medicine to help my body deal with it. I slept a lot during the five hours that I was there. 

I'm home, now. I have the 5-FU pump now for a couple of days. I'll get it taken off Friday afternoon. 

Mom's out getting some ginger ale and other groceries. I'll try to post an update at some point over the next couple of days. I'm thinking about go to some work meetings, to plan our new science curriculum, that I have scheduled for tomorrow. I'll have to see how the night goes and how I feel in the morning. I am feeling pretty tired at the moment, but a good night sleep might make a difference.

Thanks for all your prayers and thoughts.

Day 1: Thank you

Good morning everyone! Mom flew in last night and slept on my couch. She says my "couch is very comfortable!" She's a great mom, who always wanted to be on the missions field, so I guess that is part of why she can be satisfied with any bed.

We're headed over to the Delnor Cancer Center in Geneva at 10, for a blood draw and some appointments. Then, the infusion will start at 11 (CST). The drugs that they're giving me are called Folfiri. One of the drugs is aptly named 5-FU. I took this drug back in 2011. It's the one that I will be receiving over the next 48 hours, through a portable pump. The iri part of Folfiri is the new drug, irinotecan. I'll also be receiving Avastin, which is a newer drug that goes directly after the antigens of the cancer and prevents the development of blood vessels to the tumors. Last time, I did have an episode of coughing up large amounts of blood after my first treatment, so we stopped using it. However, I'd had a lung biopsy shortly before that and it's been long enough that my doctor thinks it is worth the risk to try it again.

Please pray that God will keep the side effects to a minimum and give me the strength to survive whatever side effects I do have. Also, please pray that I won't have any bleeding or other serious side effects from the Avastin.

Thank you all for your many notes conveying your thoughts and prayers for me. They mean a lot and God has used them to encourage me greatly. I am thankful for the way he has surrounded me with people who love and care for me. I know that many of you want to help in tangible ways; please know that you are already doing that. The biggest battle that I am facing is not the cancer, but the spiritual battle of trusting God, and having hope. You're helping me to fight that when you send me encouraging messages and pray for me. Please know that the Lord is honoring those actions, and that I need them desperately.

For example, here are some passages that my friend, Michelle, who has gone through some of these same struggles, sent me this morning. Like her, thank you all for the way you are supporting me in this next journey

                                  Psalm 94

17 

Unless the Lord had helped me,

    I would soon have settled in the silence of the grave.

18 

I cried out, “I am slipping!”

    but your unfailing love, O Lord, supported me.

19 

When doubts filled my mind,

    your comfort gave me renewed hope and cheer.

                                  Isaiah 43

But now, O Jacob, listen to the Lord who created you.

    O Israel, the one who formed you says,
“Do not be afraid, for I have ransomed you.
    I have called you by name; you are mine.

2 When you go through deep waters,
    I will be with you.
When you go through rivers of difficulty,
    you will not drown.
When you walk through the fire of oppression,
    you will not be burned up;
    the flames will not consume you.

5 “Do not be afraid, for I am with you.
    I will gather you and your children from east and west.
6 I will say to the north and south,
    ‘Bring my sons and daughters back to Israel
    from the distant corners of the earth.
7 Bring all who claim me as their God,
    for I have made them for my glory.
    It was I who created them.’”

8 Bring out the people who have eyes but are blind,
    who have ears but are deaf.
9 Gather the nations together!
    Assemble the peoples of the world!
Which of their idols has ever foretold such things?
    Which can predict what will happen tomorrow?
Where are the witnesses of such predictions?
    Who can verify that they spoke the truth?

10 “But you are my witnesses, O Israel!” says the Lord.
    “You are my servant.
You have been chosen to know me, believe in me,
    and understand that I alone am God.
There is no other God—
    there never has been, and there never will be.
11 I, yes I, am the Lord,
    and there is no other Savior.
12 First I predicted your rescue,
    then I saved you and proclaimed it to the world.
No foreign god has ever done this.
    You are witnesses that I am the only God,”
    says the Lord.
13 “From eternity to eternity I am God.
    No one can snatch anyone out of my hand.
    No one can undo what I have done.”

16 I am the Lord, who opened a way through the waters,
    making a dry path through the sea.
17 I called forth the mighty army of Egypt
    with all its chariots and horses.
I drew them beneath the waves, and they drowned,
    their lives snuffed out like a smoldering candlewick.

18 “But forget all that—
    it is nothing compared to what I am going to do.
19 For I am about to do something new.
    See, I have already begun! Do you not see it?
I will make a pathway through the wilderness.
    I will create rivers in the dry wasteland.

Evening Reading

Samuel 12

7 Now when the Philistines heard that the people of Israel had gathered at Mizpah, the lords of the Philistines went up against Israel. And when the people of Israel heard of it, they were afraid of the Philistines. 8 And the people of Israel said to Samuel, “Do not cease to cry out to the LORD our God for us, that he may save us from the hand of the Philistines.”

...12 Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen and called its name Ebenezer; for he said, “Till now the LORD has helped us.”

Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing

by Robert Robinson

Come, Thou Fount of every blessing,

Tune my heart to sing Thy grace;

Streams of mercy, never ceasing,

Call for songs of loudest praise.

Teach me some melodious sonnet,

Sung by flaming tongues above.

Praise the mount! I’m fixed upon it,

Mount of Thy redeeming love.

Sorrowing I shall be in spirit,

Till released from flesh and sin,

Yet from what I do inherit,

Here Thy praises I’ll begin;

Here I raise my Ebenezer;

Here by Thy great help I’ve come;

And I hope, by Thy good pleasure,

Safely to arrive at home.

Jesus sought me when a stranger,

Wandering from the fold of God;

He, to rescue me from danger,

Interposed His precious blood;

How His kindness yet pursues me

Mortal tongue can never tell,

Clothed in flesh, till death shall loose me

I cannot proclaim it well.

O to grace how great a debtor

Daily I’m constrained to be!

Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,

Bind my wandering heart to Thee.

Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,

Prone to leave the God I love;

Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,

Seal it for Thy courts above.

Morning Reading

I'm headed soon to have my new port installed. The Lord put this passage on my heart last night and it still seems appropriate this morning.

Hebrews 12 (ESV)

1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

3 Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. 4 In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. 5 And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons?

“My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord,
nor be weary when reproved by him.
6 For the Lord disciplines the one he loves,
and chastises every son whom he receives.”

7 It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? 8 If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. 9 Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? 10 For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. 11 For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

12 Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, 13 and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed. 14 Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord. 15 See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God; that no “root of bitterness” springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled; 16 that no one is sexually immoral or unholy like Esau, who sold his birthright for a single meal. 17 For you know that afterward, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no chance to repent, though he sought it with tears.

18 For you have not come to what may be touched, a blazing fire and darkness and gloom and a tempest 19 and the sound of a trumpet and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that no further messages be spoken to them. 20 For they could not endure the order that was given, “If even a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned.” 21 Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, “I tremble with fear.” 22 But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, 23 and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, 24 and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

25 See that you do not refuse him who is speaking. For if they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape if we reject him who warns from heaven. 26 At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, “Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.” 27 This phrase, “Yet once more,” indicates the removal of things that are shaken—that is, things that have been made—in order that the things that cannot be shaken may remain. 28 Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, 29 for our God is a consuming fire.

A New Beginning

There's really no way to ease into this blog post: I will starting chemotherapy treatments on Wednesday, January 27th. After a five hour infusion on Wednesday, I will wear a pump for 48 hours. I will be having treatments every two weeks.

My doctor has been following some very small spots on my lungs for a bit more than a year now. These spots have been small and have grown very slowly, so we've held off starting treatment. However, when I saw him in December, he recommended that we begin treatment soon.

The most recent scan showed the same slow growth in my lungs, and a spot in my pelvis near the sacral spine tumor that was treated twice with radiation (2013 and 2014). The concern is that while I am not having any serious symptoms from these tumors, if we wait too long I might start to have pain or trouble breathing.

God has blessed me by giving me these last two years without cancer treatments. During those two years, I made significant progress on my dissertation, took trips with my family, and worked hard at my job. I got to spend wonderful times with my niece, Lillian, and my nephews, Daniel and Oliver. It's been fun to see them grow up these last two years. I am very thankful for these blessings and these great times with the people I love, while I am feeling healthy.

God has also used trials and difficult times to bring about growth and new beginnings in my life. A couple of months after I finished my last proton therapy treatment in February 2014, I developed severe pain, neuropathy and weakness in my right leg. This pain was much worse than anything I'd felt from the spinal tumor, and the pain medication I had at the time didn't touch it.

For years, I had found excuses for not regularly attending church. Most of them were because I didn't want to confront the parts of my life that I had broken, but couldn't repair on my own. Rather than continuing to wait until I had solved all my own problems, God used the pain to draw me closer to Him, because I had no one else to rely on. He led me to Church of the Resurrection in Wheaton, where I am now a member.

I am sharing all of this, because it is the reason I am able to even consider facing more chemotherapy. My experience of chemotherapy in 2011 was hard physically, but even more so psychologically. During the final couple of treatments, my body would start to feel sick again days before the next treatment in anticipation, as if the real thing weren't bad enough.

Recently, I remembered that early on I did have some easier treatments. That gives me some hope for this time. However, if my treatments go poorly, and I am nauseated, tired, or if I have chemo brain so I can't finish my dissertation, or my hair falls out, I still trust His plan. I am confident that God will use it to make me into the person He created me to be. His plan, even if it involves all the terrible side effects that I fear, is better than anything I can imagine.

"And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose."

Romans 8:28 (ESV)

God is working all of this together for my good. I trust His promise and His will. I will try follow Jesus example in the Garden. I pray that my treatments would be bearable and the anti-nausea drugs would work well, but not my will, but God's be done. I pray that the other side effects of the drugs would not happen or not be too severe, but not my will, but His be done. I pray that I will have the energy and focus of mind to teach and to work on my dissertation, but not my will, but His be done. I believe that God will give me the strength I need for whatever challenges I face.

Thank you for reading all of this. I know I went kind of deep, and maybe too religious for some of you, but I felt like I had to be honest about where I am coming from as I approach this next trial. I would rather be on chemo in God's plan, than be healthy and outside His plan. All the things that might distract or scare me pale in comparison to Him. 

"What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written,

'For your sake we are being killed all the day long;
we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.'

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord."

Romans 8:31-39