It didn't help to be told that the chemo I am getting tomorrow is called "Red Devil" chemo, considered one of the strongest chemo drugs, and named so with a reason.
(I just did some research on it, that's how I know. Maybe I should have just not researched it.)
The nurse went over the approximate protocol of what is happening tomorrow, while I sat there in my chair, hooked up to morning IVs, already weak.
Another chemo was going to be used, but there is a shortage of chemo in the US right now, so this one is being substituted.
To make the chemo more effective and with fewer side effects, I have been supposed to fast from breakfast today, through tomorrow morning until after the chemo administration.
My blood sugar is supposed to be down, and then put further down with insulin, until it's at a place where the cancer cells are not just starving for glucose but opening up like a flower hoping to get sugar,
and will instead get chemo.
Having my blood sugar down will help the chemo target more of the cancer cells and fewer of the healthy cells, as I understand things.
After everything was done today, Jonathan and I went for a bit of a drive. I was already beat, and didn't know how much I could do at home without any meals most of the day, (although I did have the energy to change sheets on both beds, because we bought our own sheets to put on, due to all the salve, cream, iodine, and all sorts of other possible stains and accidents that could happen on these lovely beds that don't belong to us.)
We drove on down the highway till we reached Saguaro Lake.
And when we got back home, there were three families of quail out again, scuttling around in their respective lawns.
A day or two ago, we'd come home to find quail in our front yard, and three of them flew up on the garage roof.
Often there are other ugly little blackish birds, but today, (just like God) there were sparrows.
I didn't get a picture of them, but they were there.
Most of the time here there have been everything but sparrows.
But tonight, there were sparrows.
God must have known His little brown sparrow was weak and shaky and would be scared, almost terrified, after researching the chemo going into my system tomorrow. One comfort is that the dose is only a fraction of the typical doses.
But as another patient shared with us, as she recounted going through her own Metronomic chemo treatments (IPT)here,
she hadn't been completely satisfied with thinking thoughts like, "I am just trusting the Lord."
She said, "It felt like there was too much emphasis on the I.
I am just trusting the Lord.
What was the most comforting thing to me," she went on, "was remembering that 'underneath are the everlasting arms.'
And when I thought about that, I could feel His presence!"
She was there as a scared patient to be shared with herself,
to be comforted,
to be strengthened by one more angel
on her way to a sort of Gethsemane.
The last thing I ever wanted to do with my cancer was treat it with chemo.
And here I am.
After being told about chemo tomorrow, I went out to the counter where a hot water pitcher is kept heated, and poured myself a cup of hot water. But the words to a song came to me, as I broke into tears,
"And sanctify to me my deepest distress."
For a few moments, I rolled my IV stand out with me into the hot Arizona outdoors.
I stood under the veranda by the door, looking up into the blue, blue sky.
"Oh God," my heart whispered.
"Sanctify to me this distress."
And I wonder, here as the dark settles down, is it possible that what looks like a lion,
a bear,
and a Red Devil,
might possibly, by God's grace, become a tame little chipmunk, like the one I caught scuttling on our patio bricks this evening, quite harmless to a little scared brown sparrow?
I wonder.
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