Faithfully Fighting

It’s really good to talk to all of you again.  I’ve been spending time recouping from surgery and working from home.  Seems like the holidays are moving towards us at a rapid pace.  I feel a little disoriented, but I’m getting my feet back and hope you all are too.

Last Thursday, 11/13, I saw my oncologist for the first time since two weeks before the surgery.  It’s kind of sad that such a sweet fellow makes me so nervous.  I wasn’t sure what to expect, and as many of you know that makes me even more nervous.  Predictability is my friend, uncertainty is the fastest way to high blood pressure for me.  Anyway he made some suggestions about what he was thinking about doing.  A pill, similar to what the Herceptin drug does, called Laptinib and maybe a chemo pill called Xeloda.  Pills sounded good until he started talking about the side effects of the Xeloda, yuck.  About now is when I preceded to open my mouth.  I mentioned that I’d taken an unofficial survey of my online Advanced Breast Cancer Support Group and was waiting to see if he mentioned any of their treatments.  Of course at this time he wanted to know what they were.  I told him that only one of the ladies I talked to had liver mets and she was on Navelbine and Herceptin.  He tilted his head and had that curious “uh huh” look on his face.  He wanted to check the lymph node under my arm.  He measured it and said it had grown.  Then he goes into high gear.  I get scheduled for a CT scan the next day (He was kind enough to let me take the scan without that nasty CT contrast I had a reaction to).  Then I’m told I have to come back Thursday 11/21 for treatment.  Of course I don’t know what the treatment is until he gets the results of the CT.  If the cancer on the liver has grown, like he thinks the lymph node has, he will decided what he wants to do by how much it has grown.  The doctor gets this really serious and distracted look on his face when he’s thinking.  I hate that face.

So the CT went well, I guess, for a CT and by Tuesday I’m chomping at the bit to know the results.  If I’m lucky enough to have no growth maybe he’ll keep up the regular Herceptin until after the first of the year.  Anyway by lunch time I can’t stand it anymore and I called his nurse.  She called me back an hour or so later.  Good and bad news.  Two of the five cancer growths on my liver have grown, but only ½ cm.  For those of you like me, that can’t convert in your head that would be 0.2 inches.  Less than ¼ of an inch.  Pretty small growth.  Of course I just had my last chemo 3 months ago and the Herceptin I was on was supposed to keep the cancer from growing, maybe even shrink it.  Well it kept the other 3 mets from growing.  Should that be reassuring?  The nurse said that the doctor is starting me on Navelbine and Herceptin starting 11/21.  I have to have treatment every week.  Ok the little bit of me that was kind of not devastated because the growth was small and pretty confined was starting to fade quickly at this point.

Wednesday morning my devotion was from 2Kings 5:1-3, you know the story about Naaman the big powerful military guy with leprosy who gets mad because God’s prophet tells him to do the simple task of washing in the river and leprosy was gone.  Most of the time I hear this story it’s about Naaman’s having to humble himself, but this devotion wasn’t about that.  It was about the servant girl who sent him to Samaria.  It’s about a young girl who has been taken from the only home she knows and now is a slave in a foreign land.  Did she get bitter, or feel sorry for herself?  No, she spent her time trying to help the very person who made her a captive.  She wasn’t happy her captor had leprosy.  No one would have blamed her if she had thought it was what he deserved.  She saw it as an opportunity to show him God’s prophet, and by his healing to hear about the one true God.    We often pray for God to send us a sign on what to do, to tell us right now.  We get all discouraged when we don’t know what to do.  Then there it is, right in front of you, like this devotion for me, it kind of hits you.  Serve God and point others to Him.  One step at a time as opportunity presents itself.

This is where I should have a great story about God using me as a witness, but I really don’t.  I just tried to become more aware.  When I sat at work on Weds (and yes I went in for a few hours) and a co-worker said I was an inspiration I just answered that I was truly blessed and that the Lord was leading my path.  That was a small thing. 

Thursday I went for my chemo and Herceptin.  It’s Friday night and I’m doing pretty well.  We’ll see how the rest of the week goes, but I think the nurse was right that this chemo isn’t as harsh as the Taxotere was.  Next Weds I go back to Charlottesville for my check up.  It’ll probably be my last trip and then Thanksgiving on Thurs (Mom’s doing all the work this year) and then treatment again on Friday.  This every week thing might get old, but we’ll just take it one day at a time.

Thanks for all the prayers and keep up the good work.

Lynn

P.S. I posted some new pictures on the Album link to the right.  Just click on the download called pictures.  There's a good one of the girls, Zack and Ella I really like.

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