We're off...

Well, we are off to the wedding!! My primary care has confirmed that everything looks good (except my allergies, and he's prescribed some drugs for that), I am finishing the packing, and we are heading out tonight. We'll spend the night with my parents outside of Albuquerque, then fly to Chicago in the early morning, and drive over to Grand Rapids. There, we will be with our children, our families, and our dear friends, and see Tim and Nikki started on their marriage journey. We would appreciate prayers for the travel, for health, for rest, and for the newly weds-to-be! I doubt I will be posting while we're gone, so I will catch you all next week when we return!

Radiation is done!

Today I had my LAST radiation treatment for this course of treatments for my breast cancer. Hurrah! This feels pretty significant to me! My dearest Dave brought me the gorgeous roses you see pictured, and also made toffee bar cookies for me to take to the radiation therapists as a thank-you gift for their kind and professional service. When I left my treatment, the therapists had a bubble machine running, and played noise-makers, and gave me a flower to celebrate. And then I went with a friend to get a pedicure this afternoon to celebrate. God has been very good to me, and has answered prayer after prayer. Let's praise Him:
*for allowing me to complete the treatments before we left for the wedding, as we had prayed.
*for keeping my skin from burning badly and keeping other harmful side-effects from happening, as we had prayed.

And let's also ask Him:
*to help me to heal from this treatment quickly, and for my energy to return so I can enjoy the upcoming wedding and resume my teaching a few weeks afterwards.
*to make the treatments very effective against this cancer, that it will be beaten and not return.
*that my scans and other tests scheduled for the end of September and beginning of October would come back without any difficult findings.

Thank you for all of you who have prayed faithfully for me. I have been carried by those prayers!

Happy Birthday, Marilyn!

Happy 82nd birthday to the mother of my favorite man!

Ill-timed providences

I have, by God's grace, completed (or nearly so) two days free from any unwanted episodes of disorientation and inability to focus my eyes. Dave suggested that perhaps I was pushing a bit hard, and need to step back in my exercise and activity level a little, which I have attempted to do, and perhaps it is really helping! I spent most of the day yesterday trying to touch base with my oncologist for a follow-up, only to find that since there was nothing terrible happening in my brain, she would rather I see my primary care for follow-up on the blood pressure issues, and discuss what to do if I have any recurring episodes. I will see my wonderful primary care on Tuesday morning, just before we hit the road on Tuesday evening. Let's hope he is on board with not doing anything until we get back from the wedding!

I had an e-mail from a dear friend today. She said it seems that here, at the end of treatment, with the wedding trip upon us, these troubles seemed so ill-timed. She said it is so comforting that God is with us in the thick and thin of life, whether we understand what is going on or not. This is so true, and while I don't understand all the timing of things, I do trust God to be good in it, no matter what happens. And sometimes I think we get too wrapped up in understanding everything, and not wrapped up enough in the character of God: who He is, and how worthy of praise He is.

I remember hearing a prayer attributed to Luther once, which I thought was simple, but profound. He prayed for the grace not to try to understand, or desire to know, those things that belong only to God. There was a similar passage in Spurgeon last night:

My Lord, I leave the infinite to Thee, and pray Thee to put far from me such a love for the tree of knowledge as might keep me from the tree of life.
~C. H. Spurgeon, Evening by Evening, Sept. 5

These are profound thoughts. I can get carried away with some esoteric point of theology, and loose sight of the big picture. Or I can demand to know why God is doing what He is doing in my life. Either way, I am grasping at being God, instead of humbling myself beneath His hand.

So tonight, I praise God for His mercies to me, and end my day asking Him to give me the grace to love Him without understanding everything He is doing, to trust Him when I can't exactly see what is happening, and magnify His name in my life and this world.

The crook in today's lot

Well, today took a few unexpected turns. Though no less providential than yesterday's turns, they were a bit more exhausting.

Really, the turns started yesterday afternoon, as I drove myself home from my radiation treatments in Santa Fe. I suddenly realized that I could no longer focus my eyes, and felt a bit disoriented. I was able to pull quickly off on the shoulder, and by the time I stopped the car, it was over. Weird. Then this morning, as I took my morning walk, something similar happened: I couldn't focus my eyes, and started feeling a little dizzy, and looked down at the sidewalk to find I was already disoriented and off the sidewalk. I sat on the curb, and by the time i sat down, it was over, so I walked home. But since this was so strange and had happened twice, I decided I should probably ask someone about it.

The radiation techs thought it was a question for my oncologist or primary care. I left a message for my primary care, and talked to my oncologist's nurse on the way to radiation (thankfully, I was being driven by my friend Mary Ann!) On the way home from radiation, my primary care's nurse called, and told me I should make an appointment to see the on-call doc tomorrow. And my oncologists' nurse called to say she wanted me to come in at 2:15 for a brain MRI, and then still keep my ugly test appointment at 4:00. OK. Then I got home, and the primary care nurse called back and had made the appointment for me for tomorrow. And then the oncologist called and asked me to just get a ride straight to the emergency room. Her concern was that the tamoxifen I am taking can cause blood clot problems, and she wanted me thoroughly checked. She would cancel my 4:00 appointment and talk to the ER before I got there. So, Marilyn drove me to the emergency room, where I mostly waited. I did a short neurological run-down with the doc, had blood work done, and had a brain MRI, and also had rather high blood pressure reading (which was very uncharacteristic, and I wonder if it wasn't just White Coat Syndrome...). Marilyn walked over and canceled the appointment with my primary care, since they were giving me a pretty thorough going-over in ER, and Dave joined me for the duration (bless his heart!) All of the tests basically came back normal with no weird spots or problems, and they discovered I DO have a brain after all. I was turned out of the emergency room after about four hours with nothing but mounting bills for my time. I am supposed to "follow-up with my doctor", but it was already too late to do so today, so I will try to talk to her tomorrow. And I think I will stay out from behind the wheel of a car for a while, until I am sure these episodes are not becoming a regular thing.

So tonight I am exhausted. My dreaded test has been postponed until some time in the future. And I am just pooped. But God had purpose somewhere in today, and I am trusting Him for it, even though I don't see it at the moment.

Please pray:
* for rest and recovery as I complete my last two radiation treatments, Lord willing, tomorrow and Monday
*for no more eye/disorientation episodes
*for continued mild side-effects in the treatment area
*for wisdom when I talk to the doc tomorrow- both for my questions and her answers
*for no adverse side-effects from the tamoxifen (like blood clots)
*that the treatments I am receiving would be very effective against this cancer
*that I would be grateful for the care I am receiving and the grace God is extending me
*for a good night's sleep

Sing a new song

Today was one of those tender, vulnerable days right from the start. I am not sure why exactly. But I knew from the time I woke up that I would be on the edge all day, emotionally speaking. It likely had something to do with me doing too much yesterday, and not getting enough rest. Add to that the fact that Dave was headed out of the house early (for prayer with the other elders of our church, as they do every Wednesday morning), and then out of town, while I would head to radiation treatments and have an unpleasant test tomorrow afternoon. I was just feeling the loss of Dave's support keenly, and the weariness of my current journey. I cried when we prayed together this morning. I cried when Dave left. My strain must have showed as I walked and worked out with dear friends, who love me enough to tell me when my tone of voice is too much, and I cried in the bathroom at Curves. Then I cried part of the way down to Santa Fe. *Sigh* I kept asking the Lord to be sufficient for me, to lift my countenance. But it was just one of those days.

Then Tim called. He and Nikki have decided to take the job offer in Tucson, and there is great rejoicing over that decision being made. This was a little ray of encouragement! I called Dave to tell him, and he asked, "Would you like me to make the rest of your day?"
"Of course," I replied. He then explained to me that the two people who were to give presentations at the meeting he was organizing had both had to cancel due to last-minute health problems, so he was busy canceling his meeting, and he was staying home after all.

And then I really cried! But this wasn't a "sorry-for-myself" cry, or even a "weary-beyond-belief" cry. It was the tears of joy that the Redeemed of the Lord cry when He cares for them in their need, and exceeds all of their expectations. God, in His awesome providence, said, "I love you and here is your husband to be my hands and arms to you these next couple of days." It doesn't seem to matter to Him that most of my earlier crying was exactly the "sorry-for-myself" and "weary-beyond-belief" kind, with a big dose of dramatic self-pity mixed in for good measure. He delighted in me enough to meet my puny, selfish need of support. That's the kind of God He is.

This all brought me in mind of Isaiah 42, especially the first 16 verses:

1Behold my servant, whom I uphold,
my chosen,in whom my soul delights;
I have put my Spirit upon him;
he will bring forth justice to the nations.
2He will not cry aloud or lift up his voice,
or make it heard in the street;
3a bruised reed he will not break,
and a faintly burning wick he will not quench;
he will faithfully bring forth justice.
4He will not grow faint or be discouraged
till he has established justice in the earth;
and the coastlands wait for his law.

5Thus says God, the LORD,
who created the heavens and stretched them out,
who spread out the earth and what comes from it,
who gives breath to the people on it
and spirit to those who walk in it:
6"I am the LORD;I have called you in righteousness;
I will take you by the hand and keep you;
I will give you as a covenant for the people,
a light for the nations,

7to open the eyes that are blind,
to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon,
from the prison those who sit in darkness.
8I am the LORD; that is my name;
my glory I give to no other,
nor my praise to carved idols.
9Behold, the former things have come to pass,
and new things I now declare;
before they spring forth
I tell you of them."
10Sing to the LORD a new song,
his praise from the end of the earth,
you who go down to the sea, and all that fills it,
the coastlands and their inhabitants.
11Let the desert and its cities lift up their voice,
the villages that Kedar inhabits;
let the habitants of Sela sing for joy,
let them shout from the top of the mountains.
12Let them give glory to the LORD,
and declare his praise in the coastlands.
13The LORD goes out like a mighty man,
like a man of war he stirs up his zeal;
he cries out, he shouts aloud,
he shows himself mighty against his foes.

14For a long time I have held my peace;
I have kept still and restrained myself;
now I will cry out like a woman in labor;
I will gasp and pant.
15I will lay waste mountains and hills,
and dry up all their vegetation;
I will turn the rivers into islands,
and dry up the pools.
16 And I will lead the blind
in a way that they do not know,
in paths that they have not known
I will guide them.
I will turn the darkness before them into light,
the rough places into level ground.
These are the things I do,
and I do not forsake them.

I am not much of a theologian, but this seems to me to clearly and beautifully point out who God is, and who we are. I was one bruised reed today, and He saw to it that I was not crushed. He takes me by the hand, and makes darkness light before me. And He is the bringer of justice, the Maker of covenants, He who will not forsake His people.

So, on the tender and vulnerable days, I can trust such a God. I can trust Him to providentially intervene on the days I need Him to, and to strengthen and lift me on the days when He doesn't intervene, but lets me walk without such a visible reminder of his care for and delight in me. This is indeed reason to sing a new song of praise to our God!

Lists

Fall is in the air, with the aroma of roasting chile (which I believe you had to be born in New Mexico to actually enjoy...), the crisp morning air, the heavy clouds over the mountains, and the beginning of fall allergy season as the chamisa begins to bloom. Today on my way to Santa Fe I saw my first cottonwood tree sporting all yellow leaves! I guess it's true- September is here! I have only 4 more radiation treatments left, my composition class begins on Thursday without me (to their joy and my disappointment), and we leave for Tim's wedding in just about a week.

I want to say that the summer has flown by. But really, it seems like there wasn't really a summer at all this year. The routines of appointments and surgeries and treatment and testing have sucked up the whole summer. And yet, here I am to the fall, preparing to attend my son's wedding, and finishing my radiation treatments with no skin problems! I can easily feel sorry for myself and

I have been spending the last two days working on lists for the wedding: things I need to do, places we need to be, things to remember to pack, people to remember to pick up or drop off at airports... and it seems to me I had better be sure to make a list of the things I am grateful for. So here are a few, in no particular order:

*For my Savior, who redeemed me when I hated Him, and loves me even when I am rebellious
*For minimal side-effects from the radiation with only 4 treatments left
*For two lovely daughters-in-law who love the Lord and love my sons (though, strictly speaking, Nikki won't be one until a week from Saturday!)
*For the physical ability and financial wherewithal to attend this wedding in Michigan in a week.
*For the many friends and family members coming from hither and yon to celebrate with us in Michigan at the wedding
*For my wonderful and supportive husband and best friend, Dave
*For my terrific sons, Ben and Tim, and the joy of watching them follow the Lord and figure out His call on their lives
*For my helpful mother-in-law, Marilyn, who is going out of her way to be helpful to me
*For my supportive parents and siblings
*For wonderful friends who have been and continue to pick up my slack and allow things like composition to get started before I can
*For all of you who have and continue to pray for me. I am blessed beyond measure.