But we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us... (Romans 5: 3-5)
Hope is an amazing thing.
It's been a hard road, these past few days, hating food, feeling sick, wondering how I was going to do this all over again. Plus, yesterday I was worried about going back in for my scheduled Hercepton infusion, worried that I would feel even sicker with the reminders of this place. With people praying, and the support of my sister, Cindy, I felt quite calm as I drove to the hospital. Because I was only supposed to be there for about an hour, they put me in a chair in a tiny room with another patient getting his infusions. Poor Cindy was stuck in a chair in a corner.
My sister Cindy
The worst thing, though, was this other couple was having lunch, and talked about the food, and I heard them eating and smelled the soup, and it was making me feel sicker. So I looked at Cindy and said, "We have to talk about something fun." So we talked about books and books on tape and books about England and I can't remember what, but it helped me get through the hard part. The reason we were waiting was I needed medicine to clear away clots that were preventing my port from working. The medicine would take an hour to work. So we waited.
Because this was going to take longer than expected, I was worried about getting Becca to her riding lesson on time. I called my friend Pam to see if she might be available to take her. I told her I could check back in an hour to see if we would be able to make it or not, but she told me not to worry, she had it handled. She would just take Becca whether I made it back or not. I got off the phone and cried. It's the kindness of people that reach the depth of my heart, people willing to drop whatever they had planned to help me out during this time. What an undescribable blessing!
Then my doctor came in and we talked about my nausea and diarrhea. I told her I kept thinking I was going to be better and wouldn't take the anti-nausea meds until it got pretty bad. It's part of my makeup, that I hate being dependent on medicine or fear taking too much, I guess. Anyway, she thinks it's the Taxotere that is causing me the nausea, and I should take the anti-nausea medicine twice a day, just to stay on top of it, through the rest of this weekend, at least. When the nausea gets bad, take the second medicine on top of it. In other words, it's okay to use the medicine! Then she talked about a game plan for next time, to add another, more powerful anti-nausea med and be more proactive with the ones I have. She kept saying, "It will be better."
I can't tell you how much those words meant. It will be better. This isn't all there is. Hope is an amazing thing, to pull you out of despair or weariness. To know that God is still there, that my suffering isn't going unnoticed. She also said that I had lost 12 pounds in a week...too much. So, she gave me some recipes for some protein shakes, and she said she'd have the nutritionist call me with some recipe ideas. Having Cindy here has been amazing in so many ways. She has some good ideas on how to pack some nutrition into something I can tolerate. She put together a banana, yogurt, chocolate (she sacrificed some of her dark chocolate I gave her for her birthday) almond butter smoothy that tasted pretty good (which was better than most things have tasted lately.) Then this morning she had an idea for a tropical smoothy with fresh pineapple, kiwi, whey protein... not sure what she put in it but it was delicious.
Today, fueled by hope and kindness (and anti-nausea meds and smoothies), I feel better than I've felt in a long time. I wish the sun was shining because I feel like taking a long walk today.
We also had a visit from Walt's Aunt Yolanda and Uncle Ricardo and his son, Raoul, on Wednesday night. Yolanda is about 2 1/2 years after her stage 4 breast cancer diagnosis and is from El Salvador. She had it on her heart to come up and encourage me, since they were in Corvallis, OR for Raoul's graduation from OSU. Walt came back early from a conference he was attending to see them, and Cindy happened to have planned a visit starting that day, so she helped me clean and get things ready for them. I know they wouldn't have minded coming into to a messy house, but I would feel better if it wasn't. So Cindy and the kids and I, with whatever energy I could muster,cleaned and prepped. My brother once nicknamed Cindy "the Mad Scrub Woman," and she lived up to her calling. My brother's stepdaughter, Nicole, had planned to come over to dinner prior to our unexpected company. She said she had a roasted chicken and rice and lots of veggies...and adding things from my fridge, Cindy and Nico put together an amazing meal. It was wonderful how it all came together. Because of feeling so nauseous and tired, I couldn't enjoy their visit as I would have preferred, but it was nice to see everyone and the day was infused in kindnesses by so many people involved.
Kindness and Hope. Two amazing words to help fuel my journey.
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