Oh No...CHEMO

Today we went to a local appointment to see an oncologist. We arrived the 30 minutes early to fill out paperwork. The office had an interesting tv program on that teaches about wellbeing during cancer treatment. There were recipes for kale and ways to care for yourself. So the wait wasn't so long.

We met with a medical assistant who took my weight, blood pressure and such. Then a nurse practitioner and the doctor took a look at my lumpectomy incisions/scars. They said I'm healing well. So the pathology report for the lumpectomy hadn't been forwarded to the oncologist and they explained that it's difficult to talk about treatment without knowing the results of the pathology report. My hubby pulled out our medical chart that we put together. We are keeping copies of everything. He handed her the chart, as he felt led to by the holy spirit. He said later, "I wanted to just hand her the pathology report but I felt led to just give her our chart." The nurse practitioner found what she needed and made a copy. When she closed our chart she smiled and pointed to words I written on the front of the chart, "Let there be light," Gen. 1:3. She spoke briefly with us about being a believer and that the doctor is a believer as well.

Then the doctor walked in and looked so familiar. It turned out that she had been in a group with us at church last year. I looked at these two godly women and felt the Lord with us. I wanted to laugh and to cry. So we asked many questions and talked about what was best for my type of cancer. The doctor said she didn't usually recommend it but in my case she said I had two choices. One was Cytoxan and Taxol which is three months of chemo. They said quite plainly I'll lose my hair. Let's go down a short rabbit trail...Yes, I'm vain enough to cry. We were handed tissues and the nurse practitioner patted my leg. My hubby held back tears and said,"She's an author will she get chemo brain?" Aw, he was worried more about my ability to put together words and work on my mission of the White Stone Chronicles books -than about my appearance. Gosh I love that guy! End of rabbit trail...

The second choice was Adriamycin and then Cytoxan and Taxol. She said it's red and has been called, "red devil" because it's a very aggressive type of chemotherapy drug. This choice would last for five months. She made it clear that it's my decision and didn't want to sway me in either direction. She said that with my health and 'young age' (uh does she know I'm almost 50?) that I could tolerate either well.  But here's the catch, so do I fear some red medicine called 'red devil' -uh btw gross name. Or do I listen carefully to someone God has prepared in her mission field of cancer treatment that she was touched to suggest it to me -to lengthen my life -in essence lengthen my mission. As I write this it's obvious which chemotherapy to choose. At the time I told them that we needed to pray and we'd let them know when we meet next week.

So apparently, 48 is considered young because I have many years ahead of me and we have children (medical field explanation of 'young'). This means that it's important to kill every single little IDC TNBC cell that's taking float trips around my blood stream. I picture the little cells as inner tubes drifting along the lazy river on my veins looking for a good place to set up a little city. She told me that a CT Scan can only pick up a mass of cells that is about 1cm in diameter and that would be over a million cells! What?! Relative size means that would be like having the population of Phoenix moving in. My tumor by the way was the relative size of Chicago.

While I had two more people touch and look at my breast area -it felt like they were sisters encouraging my healing and cheering me on to make a good choice. So I won't count them in my stats for all who've been medically examining me. They get a godly-girl pass.

Now I have an appointment with for a CT Scan, a local surgeon to get a port put into my chest (I have got to stop thinking of Star Trek and the Borg -totally not a good picture for this experience) and an appointment for education to prepare for chemotherapy.

It turns out the wicked witch wasn't wicked or a witch at all -and she wasn't a stranger! There are no poison apples and I can do all things through Christ -even if it is chasing down the little inner tubers in my lazy river blood stream. It turns out  -duh-- God knew all along -even when we first met how we'd meet again. They are my sisters in Christ! We serve an awesome God!