"A" day in the life...

Today I began waking early as I tossed and turned in bed: I was not just hot, but burning up, followed quickly by not just cold but freezing, followed by general uncomfortableness..  By 6 a.m. I was in my comfy chair, with heating pads in place and a cup of tea beside me.  After resting and praying, I turned on the light long enough to have my quiet reading time. I read Psalm 87:

On the holy mount stands the city he founded;
   the Lord loves the gates of Zion
    more than all the dwelling places of Jacob. 
  Glorious things of you are spoken,
    O city of God. Selah (vs. 1-3)

 And I read Spurgeon as he commented on 1 Samuel 13:20:

Most of our tools want sharpening; we need quickness of perception, tact, energy, promptness, in a word, complete adaptation for the Lord's work. Practical common sense is a very scarce thing among the conductors of Christian enterprises. We might learn from our enemies if we would, and so make the Philistines sharpen our weapons. This morning let us note enough to sharpen our zeal during this day by the aid of the Holy Spirit.

And from Richard Baxter's Directions for a Peaceful Death, I read:

Direction XVII. If it may be, get some able, faithful guide and comforter to be with you in your sickness, to counsel you, and resolve your doubts, and pray with you, and discourse of heavenly things, when you are disabled by weakness for such exercises yourselves. Let not carnal persons disturb you with their vain babblings. Though the difference between good company and bad, be very great in the time of health, yet now in sickness it will be more discernible. And though a faithful friend and spiritual pastor be always a great mercy, yet now especially in your last necessity. Therefore make use of them as far as your pain and weakness will permit.

Then, I called my faithful husband, asked him to pray with me, and turned off my light and dozed again as I prayed for a view of God's city and for the discipline and wisdom to sharpen my God-given weapons against the day.

Then the attacks of Satan began: I ran into annoyance with the dear folks I live with-- jut annoyance, not problems, and no one's sin but my own.  And I began getting a migraine headache (that kind of headache a doctor assured me 20 years ago would leave me once I entered menopause, and the absence of which I had been counting as a side-benefit of medical menopause.)  I have now had a string of three migraines this week, and it feels like insult to injury somehow.  And then it was time to do what I have been dreading: start my new normonal treatment for fighting breast cancer: Arimidex.

Arimidex is a fairly "safe" cancer drug, really.  But I am sobered by reading the list of side effects, and have had an almost irrational fear of starting this drug. But after talking to a new oncologist this week, I am further convinced of its necessity.  So, today is "A" day- the day I started Arimidex. So far, so good.  My prayer is that it does the job of keeping this weary body from creating new breast cancers.

Thanks for your continued prayers, Gentle Readers.  Each day is better, but still a battle in some ways. Fatigue and lack of hormones take their emotional toll. And in the next week I need to decide how much teaching activity to pick up this spring, and how much to let go until next fall.  I want to follow the Lord's leading in that decision, and would appreciate your prayers for it!