One. More. Week. (week eleven)
One. More. Week. (Maybe)
We have one more week scheduled. One more week of chemo, of Rachel feeling awful, of our kids missing us. One more week. At least that’s what we pray for. We met with Dr. Chen today and decided that we will have a PET scan in the next two weeks to determine the metabolic activity that remains in her liver. After that, we will decide together if we are done with Chemo.
In talking with Chen, we have decided to continue with a specific immunotherapy drug called Avastin for at least 9 more months (total of a year), every three weeks. This was sobering news for us as that is the drug that makes the colon reattachment surgery too high-risk as long as it’s in her system. Alas, our hopes of surgery in January have been…modified. I hear September is a wonderful month for a hospital stay? Anyways, this is a difficult truth for Rachel in particular but we still understand that if we can stay cancer free, the rest is worth it.
Please pray for the results of the PET scan, for complete healing, and peace no matter what the next steps are.
Thoughts from Rachel:
I was talking to my sister Laura about the side effects I’ve had since starting chemo, and she advised me to write them all down because we both know how bad my mom/chemo brain is, and I don’t want to forget (see the picture below). People often ask me how I’m doing and how my side effects are and I have a hard time remembering all of them because they vary from week to week. I thought I’d share them with you, absolutely not because I want sympathy, because I want to encourage you in whatever struggles you’re going through today, whether it’s diligence, parenting, attitude, physical or something else completely, that God is there, He is faithful.
I find myself wishing that I had been more thankful for the day-to-day things I considered “struggles”, pre-diagnosis.
Writing my thoughts out during this trial has been a helpful way for me to process and remember all the details and all the feels, so I write this to remind my future self to be thankful for the little trials ahead, when I’m cancer free and I’m tempted to make little trials or the daily struggle of being a wife, mom and homemaker a bigger deal than they are to God.
Don’t lose perspective, keep doing what’s right. READ THE BIBLE EVERY DAY. Be transformed by the renewing of your mind (Eph. 4:17-32)!
Give thanks in all things FOR all things.
Ephesians 4:17-32
17 Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. 18 They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. 19 They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. 20 But that is not the way you learned Christ!— 21 assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, 22 to put off your old self,[a] which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires,23 and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, 24 and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.
25 Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. 26 Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, 27 and give no opportunity to the devil. 28 Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need. 29 Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. 30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. 31 Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. 32 Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.