Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Hanging in there

Recovering from radiation was a much longer process than I expected. I continued to struggle for several weeks with nausea and vomiting and my head feeling hot all the time. It is now a month later and I'm back to wearing a wig (yeah!) and the nausea is 99% gone. Praise the Lord! That part was hard.

After throwing up my oral chemo pills, I decided to stop taking them. The doctor is talking about starting a new (to me) chemo IV regimen but can't really do it until we return from our trip to the Philippines in a month. There are times when I just want to stop taking ANYTHING. I'm not really giving up as much as just tired of the constant barrage of treatments. It wearies me at times to be in a daily battle for my life.

The radiation oncologist told us that statistically speaking my prognosis is about a year. He hurriedly went on to say that people don't always follow the statistics and there are many other factors to consider. Still, it's a sobering thought.

On a more positive note, I'm learning so much about praying - especially for healing. Several dear friends in our town have been giving their time to pray with me in person on an almost daily basis. This has encouraged me a lot. There are many times when I feel like Moses during a crucial battle where he was instructed to keep his hands lifted in the air in order to win. When he could no longer keep them lifted by himself, others came along and held them up for him. That's what these friends (and many others) do for me.