Game on! We're ready to beat this thing!

The past 2 days have felt like a blur.  Yesterday morning I saw the Oncologist.  He explained the details of what my treatment would entail.  I had to clarify that I heard him right when he said 8 doses of chemo--one dose every other week.  Well, I am not a math wiz, but when I did some quick multiplication, I was horrified!  16 weeks of chemotherapy = 4 months!  That was not at all what I was planning on.

Anyone that knows me very well, knows that it will be super hard for me to slow down and step away from my work and my activities for that length of time.  I'm pretty controlling when it comes to schedules and calendars...and this is so not my plan, and it is so out of my control.

The doctor was excellent about explaining what the medications are, what they do, what studies have shown about the frequency and the duration of the administration of chemotherapy, the risks, the complications, and the success rate.  Fortunately, my wonderful friend, Vicki, was with me because she absorbed everything that I was missing because I was still in shock about the four months of chemotherapy.

In this blog, my desire is to give God glory for every praise, for every victory and for ultimate healing.  He is the Great Physician, and He is the one that put it on my heart to share this journey with anyone who would like to travel it with me.  I also desire to be real and honest about the emotions that try to take us for a ride during the storms in our lives. I experience those emotions, but I want to be careful not to let them keep me down. We have an adversary, an enemy who will jump on those emotions to get us discouraged as a "thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy", John 10:10a.

Over the last 7 weeks, I have felt like I was kicked in the stomach more than once.  It seems like I would just get used to one new reality, and I would get hit with another.  Yesterday the blow I received was the fact that I had misunderstood what the duration of the chemo would be--not 4-6 weeks as I had thought, but 16 weeks!  Then mastectomy, and then 6 weeks of radiation. Oh my goodness!  I knew that I was being told to take a pause in my life as I know it, but I did not understand that it would be a 6-7 month pause.

I felt down and frustrated for a while yesterday.  Thank God for my friends, thank God for my family, thank God for my church, thank God for the people who love me, hang out with me, encourage me, and pray for me.  By the end of the day, I am standing up strong again knowing that I serve a God who is more powerful than any stinking cancer cells.

Today, I had an appointment at the oncologist's office for "Chemo Education".  My husband had to work, but my daughter, Tami, and my daughter-in-law, Amy, went with me.  That was great because, again, it is way too much information to understand by myself.  In my mind, I was going to start chemo next week.  Well...once again, I learned that my plans are not His plans.  Chemo will start TODAY (Friday) at 9:30 am.

So my life is filling up with things that I had never imagined doing--Blood draw at 6am Friday; Chemo at 9:30.  I will be going into the Oncology office every day for 10 days after each chemo treatment for an injection of  "Neuprogen", which is a medication that stimulates the production of white blood cells.  In the meantime, I will be getting a Cardiac Echo to make sure that my heart intake and output ratio is functioning correctly.  On Monday, March 12, I will have the Portacath installed for the future doses of chemo.

Will you please stand beside me in prayer and praise--Praise reports:  God has given me and my family an amazing support system; I am loving the time I am spending with my family; The cancer has not spread to any other parts of my body!  Prayer requests:  Chemo will go smoothly, my body will respond well and not have negative reaction; The cancer will be completely GONE; My family will have peace as we go through this process.

I want to finish this post with what Jesus says in the rest of John 10:10, "I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full."