From the Hospital Room and Beyond
As I begin writing this from an unexpected hospital room, I can’t help but reflect on the past few days. Monday, Rachel wrote an update intended to be our blog post for the week. Unfortunately, life threw us for a loop and we didn’t get that post up in time before it was already out dated and incomplete. Before we get into all that, here’s what Rachel wrote:
An Update From Rachel (written 1/28):
Next Monday (2/4) is the last week of chemo!!! I was blessed with an abnormally symptom free week and even if this week and next week’s recovery is harder than this last week was I’m hopeful and encouraged to finish strong, because of my strong village of support. My tribe is faithful to be the hands and feet of Christ and actively love on me and my family.
We met with Dr Chen today and my favorite nurse practitioner Krystyna and got our game plan in place for the next three months! I need another scan and you can only do a pet/CT scan every three months and my last one was December 4th, so we’re going to aim for March 4th for my next one, if it reads clear -still no more cancer - reattachment surgery the second week in March (happy birthday to me, haha). We figured out which meds I’ll be stopping and when and talked about an oral chemo pill that I’ll need to take daily, but the side effects should be pretty minimal which is nice.
Dan and Malyna were able to come to Seattle with us this week which was awesome! Distractions do me good, and I’m pretty sure no one is happier then Dan and his perfect son Toby. (Amen!)
The emotional ups and downs have subsided somewhat, it’s an interesting battle of the mind, what I choose to think about when everything’s quiet.
Lately I’ve been tempted to fear.
I’m exchanging that fear with trust in my Gods character, who I know HE IS.
He’s teaching me to drive away the fear I sometimes feel for my future, with truth in the absolute trust of His Goodness and Holiness.
He’s woven my heart to His and intertwined the truth of the Bible into who I am, my “identity”, which is, servant of Christ, daughter of the king. His chosen.
I wouldn’t trade this trial for anything because of this.
An hour after she wrote those words, the pain started again. It always starts subtle, mild discomfort with a bit of cramping. It got worse rapidly and we decided to call an ambulance this time instead of waiting in the ER. We were rushed to the hospital, where we ran tests that didn’t show anything abnormal. They decided to admit us for observation because the pain had not totally resolved by 2am that morning. By Tuesday morning, we thought we were out of the woods as an episode had never lasted more than a few hours. By the mid-morning, the pain was back, and this time with nausea and vomiting too. That meant another night in the hospital just in case. We came home Wednesday afternoon, a little rough around the edges.
Now our goal is to make it through the five weeks before surgery without another episode. We are meeting with Ostomy specialists and our surgeon to develop a plan for avoiding whatever is happening. Please pray that Rachel has relief from these episodes and that we have a quiet five weeks before surgery.
Update 2/4 (Because I procrastinated and didn’t get this posted earlier)
We are in Seattle today for Chemo and have been snowed into our apartment. Plus, the Cancer Center is closed due to weather so we are going to hunker down until they reopen. Pray that happens soon!