The cross I’m bearing wasn’t my choice, but in relative terms isn’t too heavy. My first round of chemo is processing. So far I’ve avoided most of the potentially nasty side effects. No nausea, etc. yet, just a bit of tingling fingers when I touch something cold. I’m occasionally light headed or have a bit of a headache, kind of like being hung over. Mostly I’m tired and sleep a lot. Given the battle going on in my body, I’m doing OK. At Kaiser they dripped three bags of stuff into me via the port, one was some type of calcium to keep the chemo from frying my organs. The big one is Oxalipatin which took about 4 hours. Then they connected an infusion pump which is a little pack on a 4 ft hose that squirts Fluorouracil into me at 2.2 mL/hour, (once pulse every 80 seconds for 46 hours) and sent us home. I wear it in a fanny pack. We go back Saturday to have everything disconnected. Two weeks from Thursday we do it all again. I’m told I can go to Easter service if I feel up to it; planning to be there.
My chemo nurse and the rest of the staff are awesome. My first “chemo buddy” was a woman in for her forth series, battling leukemia since 2007. Turned out she had worked for Hillsboro School district and knew people Judy knows, and my nurse’s kids went to Mooberry where Judy once worked too. Small world indeed. In the most unsuspected event of the day, just as they called my name to begin my appointment, a woman appeared saying she had a delivery for me. The brain took a few moments to recognize her as Valerie, my angel barber I wrote about here. She presented me a marvelous basket with balloons, a Timbers blanket, devotional books, games, snacks (including my favorite peanut M & Ms), and more. A hug and she was gone, as they took me away to the chemo room. Tears flowed as the staff and others in the lounge learned of my basket benefactor.
The love continues to shower over us, your messages, gifts and prayers mean so much. Thank you.
Mark, You already know you have many loved ones praying for you and you already know God is with you and your family. Just know there might be times when things seem heavy, Know those will be the times when God will hold you tighter in his arms to get you through the tough days. God bless you all real good!!
Hi Mark… I heard the song 10000 Reasons on the radio today (fun fact: Matt Redman led worship on occasion at the Vineyard church I attended while I was in college outside of Chicago). Think of you every time I hear that song now, it serves as a great reminder to pray for you and your family. Your “take home” pump is a familiar sight to me, I spent a fair amount of time sitting with a dear friend during her chemo sessions a couple of years ago. Lots of hugs to your family.
This is so true. On this “journey” I met so many incredible people with their unique stories. I regret that I am not a writer and can’t share them with the world.
That juicing website is FitLife.tv.