DRAWING DOWN OF CHEMO TROOPS

THIS WEEK...VERY ROUGH, even though I expected as much.  Yesterday and today, DEFINITE upswing.  Praise the Lord!  Having had my final chemo last Thursday (can I hear a "whoop-whoop"?) the toxicity levels in my body have been at their all time highest this week causing the aches and pains of various kinds to stretch my resolve.  Before yesterday, most of my days were spent sleeping in, taking my meds, then holding down the couch or recliner.  Is it possible to watch every single Food Network and/or Cooking Channel program there is straight in a row?  I THINK IT IS!  I even watched some British chick named Nijela(?) who gave all her measurements in grams.  Now tell me how is that of use to us lazy Americans who refused to learn the metric system?  I flipped back to Paula Deen.  "One stick of butta, ya'll".  Now THAT I can understand.

MORNINGS WERE HARD, but night time had seemed to be the worst and I would dread it.  I would lay there with my heating pad and propping pillows, as my pain seemed to thumb its nose at my long digested strong pain pills.  As I've probably mentioned before, I've grown a renewed appreciation for those who suffer in chronic pain, and I'm sure mine doesn't touch the surface of what many deal with.  I'd find myself praying in those long hours in the dark room waiting for sleep to overtake me.  Praying for myself, obviously.  "There is power in the name of Jesus, there is healing in the name of Jesus, there is strength in the name of Jesus"  over and over.  Then would find myself instantaneously praying for someone else's pain, pleading the Lord to have mercy and give relief to many of you even.  I take no credit for this, but see the whole thing as such a God thing.  If he took all our pains away immediately, we'd probably jump up, brush ourselves off, and go back to our busy selfish lives, not giving much thought to others.  God's ways are not our ways.

NO MATTER WHAT YOUR OPINION MIGHT BE ON CHOOSING TO TAKE CHEMO, no one will argue that as we often say, "the treatment is as bad as the disease".  I have my different opinions on chemo for different situations, but I obviously embraced this life-saving arsenal and accepted its good and its bad.  The chemo drugs are like our troops going to war (within my body) to search out and find the bad guys - the "Al qaeda cancer" living within and threatening my very existence.  With any war, its not neat and tidy.  There are many innocent casualties of this chemo war, like my fingernails, aching bones and joints, taste buds, hair, eyebrows and lashes, chest, arms and physical strength, to name a few.  And let's not forget my brave breasts who were sacrificed on the front lines early on in this war on breast cancer.  They deserve the purple heart for sure.  And even now that this part of the war is declared over, I realize that the "drawing down of troops" does not happen overnight, and so it is with my body.  It will take time and I'm trying to be patient.

BEING MEMORIAL DAY WEEK, we had the privilege of riding one evening through the National Veterans cemetery a few miles from our home.  I encourage any of you who can, take the day sometime, make the trip and drive through especially with your child or your teenager.  We have to be reminded that its so much more than a steak or slab of ribs on the grill on Memorial Day or a suntan day at the beach.  Nothing will do that more than visiting this sacred and beautifully hard place.  The lush green perfectly manicured grounds and waving line of flags pointing the way to those endless white and gray head stones that seem to go on forever in perfect military alignment over quiet rolling green hills.  As we stopped and walked through to find Kenny's granddaddy Hall's stone, he spoke such words of truth, that "every one of these has a story".  Driving through with the windows down I found myself really proud for the first time to be from little Bushnell - the recipient of such an honorable and important place to so many military families who sacrificed so much.

My troubles....minimal.