Year of Jubilee

It’s been more than two months since my last blog post. I’ve written sections of things here and there, but honestly, the writer's block was real. Getting my bloodwork back last night explained why! My thyroid is hypoactive, my progesterone is uncomfortably close to that of a pre-menopausal woman, and my calcium and vitamin D levels are struggling to stay above depressingly low (I need sunshine bro. Me and every Washingtonian everywhere.) All this combined and you have the perfect cocktail of low energy, fatigue, a little blue cloud over my head with a side of writer's block and we’re back! I am grateful all these things are relatively fixable, but I can’t help but struggle with disappointment in my body and its ability to... just be ok -for more than a minute.

Health Update

End of November/December I did Cyberknife (targeted radiation) on the last remaining liver tumor. At the end of December, we drew blood to check my tumor numbers, and they are slightly up from 7.3-7.6. Just a small increase, but my Oncologist is not worried about this, as it’s probably picking up the destroyed tumor DNA from radiation. For now, I’m continuing in maintenance treatment in Seattle every other week. We’ll check these numbers again in March/April.

I will say, I’d take a week of radiation over 12 weeks of chemo any day! This was my second time getting cyberknife and it wasn’t so hard, all things considered. Fatigue and nausea were the worst side effects, which we’ve become accustomed to managing over the last almost 5 years of cancer life. We won’t know the success of the treatment till we get an updated MRI and see if the radiation was able to break up the cancer party going on in my liver.

Learning about my bloodwork and the terrain my body is struggling with has been a relief in understanding the onslaught of symptoms we’ve been managing over the last month and a half. I see God’s grace in it still though, old Jamison and Rachel would have fallen into one of the dozens of opportunities for arguments and disagreements but through Gods word, counseling and effort we’re learning and growing! Where I might’ve put weight in negative thoughts and opinions before, I’m coming to ask myself “if I waited this current emotion out, is it still a big deal?” the answer to that question as of late has been “NO.” The phrase “it’s not you, it’s me” has been humbling and helpful. And the final of Rachel’s tips and tricks for coping with out-of-whack hormones and vitamin deficiencies, is “it’s okay to stop thinking about the problem”

I think it was two nights ago Jamison was trying to talk to me about something and I realized every response that came to my mind was either negative, or sarcastic. And I had to just tell him “I’m not thinking correctly right now, can we talk about this later?” He graciously understood, and we tabled the conversation.

This has been a different, difficult, dumb and any other derogatory ‘D’ word you can think of, type of season. Haha okay, not quite THAT bad, but you get it.

Year of jubilee

We don’t typically pick a word or theme for the new year, but this year Jamison has declared (yes, declared, very emphatically even lol) it a year of rest for the Dye household. I jokingly told him I would commit to building half as many balloon arches as I did last year. Between birthdays, baby and bridal showers, I think it was around 12 or more arches in 2022! It got to the point where Jamison would walk in the house from work and catch me red-handed tying off a balloon, surrounded by dozens of other balloons waiting to be strung together, we’d both pause in a wide-eyed stare off... “Another one? Are you serious?” “For the love of hosting, Babe. Sorry.” Balloon blisters are a thing, who knew.

So, rest is our word of the year. I’ve been pondering what it means to rest, intentionally, for a purpose. Not out of laziness, or lack of drive, but as a way of putting off striving. Rest for me is the opposite of discontentment. Which I’ve been known to dabble in. I am grateful though, that this is something Jamison is patient with me in and leading us through to grow in this area in the new year. You could pray for us, our family as we pursue Godly rest, and Lord willing, a season of healing. Thank you to all the prayer warriors out there who keep us covered, God has been faithfully answering, and we feel it. Please leave us a comment about ways that we can be praying for you!

-Jamison & Rachel