This Spring

I know it has been a while since I’ve posted. The last few scans have been stable, and other than an upset stomach we passed around and around at home (between Jason and me and our 4 little germ factories). I ended up losing some weight, but that has stopped for now. It really scared me to lose the weight. I’ve kept some extra weight on during the last 10 years of having babies, but it is gone now. I don’t know what I should weigh, but my weight is at about my early-marriage weight. I discussed this with my naturopath and he said he doesn’t really worry about my weight for health, but my strength. He suggested doing daily exercises (I chose girl pushups and standing lunges) and slowly increasing the quantity to see if my body can keep it up. I love these kinds of challenges! It has been 6 weeks, and I got up to 30 girl pushups and 30 lunges on each leg, once or twice a day. I saw him again last week and I asked what to do next and he suggested switching to regular pushups hand weights with the lunges. So I’m back to 10 pushups and 20 lunges each day, but they are harder now. Sickness issues have slowed down (although 1 child is struggling this weekend) now that it is summer and we are outside more.

I have a brain MRI this week and a chest/abdomen/pelvic CT scan next week. I will post updates to that when I have some quiet time. It’s amazing how little of that comes around these days. Good heavens, boys are something else. Having little experience living with them, it has been overwhelming to adapt to them now. I love them, just don’t know very well how to show it.

Since I was diagnosed, I have said many times that I’d give up all these lessons if it meant I could give up having cancer. I have come to realize lately that I don’t feel that way anymore. I’m thankful for all that we are learning as a couple and a family. Of course I wish we could learn it an easier way, but it’s really not up to me to plan my path. In this season, God has overwhelmingly given us gifts these last few months. There are people who share their brokenness with me and my boys. Long-term relationships that I have had opportunities to reconcile. Last week I ran into a person who was very pivotal in our marriage, changing its trajectory for the better with a conversation with me and an email to Jason 4 years ago. That interaction with him 4 years ago was like lighting a match, it launched us on a path to work on some ugly patterns that we had developed in our lives and relationship. I couldn’t define what was wrong at the time, but he gently walked me through what I should say to Jason, and a counselor to start seeing. I hadn’t seen him since that conversation, but it was such a gift to see him in person and thank him for the words he said (and didn’t say!) that changed Jason and me.

I’ve reconnected with people from the past, once annoying younger boys who are grown men that now flourish as adults, showing me (and probably others!) love and compassion through their words, hugs and prayers. I got to meet with a friend (and her husband) that I lived with in Israel post-high school. It was a really great few days to spend with her, telling old jokes and being reminded of being loved (as an 18 year old) by a Dutch girl despite some annoying American ways I brought to Israel. And to see that love and acceptance continue from 2000. Jason and I had a chance to chat with my parents’ good friends, who went through some really tough times with my parents. It was incredibly healing to hear their side of the story and experience with them the emotions of those days when I was a teenager.

All of these instances have been a reminder that God is in control, He ordains the people I meet and conversations I have, and He is not done sanctifying and giving to me. He DEFINITELY still loves me, even though he allowed me to get cancer. He will finish the work He began in me, however long I have before dying. Just because I have cancer and I think my last day on earth might come sooner than age 85, it doesn’t mean it will be so. And it really doesn’t change much for me, God is showing me much more of how much He loves me than I allowed Him to show me in my self-sustaining pre-cancer self. If cancer is what it took for me to see Him clearer for who He is, I’d choose cancer again.

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Disease Progression and the Start of a New Therapy

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Goodbye to Another Friend