October Gold--and Rich in Hope!

"In the face of uncertainty, there is nothing wrong with hope." 

This is a quote I found in an old photo I had taken of a page of a book written by a doctor who learned to always give his patients hope. 

This is what my oncologist did for me in Rapid City this week.

Different than the oncologist in Colorado who assumed the worst and was only going to treat me with maintenance doses, this oncologist has a whole different attitude.

"I brought your case to my whole team," she said. "And since we do not have proof that the cancer is metastatic at this point, we are treating it as a locally advanced cancer. 

The treatment is harsh," she admitted. But it is for a purpose, and prescribed with hope.

Basically all the side effects I told her I was experiencing were to be expected. 

When she asked how I was, I did not tell her fine. 

I told her I was feeling awful. 

Because I figured I should be honest rather than polite when it comes to this cancer. 

The night before, Jonathan and I had taken an autumn drive toward Spearfish before staying overnight at friends. The aspen in a few places were as golden as they are in Colorado!

It was a gorgeous evening!

I just felt anything but gorgeous. I was in too much pain and feeling too weak and yucky to do much walking, but at least we could drive and get out a couple places for pictures. 

Someday maybe we can do the hike that goes down below these Spearfish Falls. At least we got to see it from the top.

The next morning before the doctor visit,  I went for my blood labs, which she said all looked great--even if I felt simply awful.

Secretly I wished something would have been wacko with my blood labs so I wouldn't have to have more chemo.

Instead, those particular blood tests are saying I'm fine.     

I decided I should be thankful.  

So I was.  

But it didn't help me feel better. I was having a lot of kidney pain. The doctor said it was actually probably musculo-skeletal pain from the drug I was injected with that stimulates white blood cells, but I decided to disagree. Just later. To myself.

Stabbing waves of pain across both kidneys I can't imagine is musculo-skeletal.

But who is to say?

Oncologists know things I don't.

Drugs do weird things.

After the doctor visit, Jonathan decided before driving home to take me first to see more autumn beauty at Sheridan Lake, about half an hour from Rapid City. As we started up the very long, steep climb out of Rapid City toward Keystone and Custer, I started remembering the identical climb fifty years ago.

Exactly 50 years ago to the month, my original Morley family was moving out here to South Dakota so we could home school. All nine of us (Joella and Kezia had not been born yet) were squeezed inside a station wagon pulling a heavy little U-Haul trailer with our only belongings in it. My dad didn't think we were going to make it up the hill out of Rapid City toward Custer but somehow we made it. 

We lived in Keystone one year and in Custer three years before moving on to Florida and then Pennsylvania again where it was finally legal to home school. 

Fifty years later, I am a missionary wife fighting chemo side effects, zooming easily along in our little Honda SUV.

Feeling a little nauseated (like morning sickness! :) and realizing I needed something to eat, we pulled over at the side of the road so I could pull something out of the cooler. The road where we pulled off happened to be named Busted Five Road. My dad had set up a business right there about 46 years ago, our last summer living in Custer, SD. We took old fashioned photos of people and Dad carved redwood name signs. That was a very busy but challenging and happy summer.

It was the summer I gave my heart to Jesus.

 I have mostly happy memories of living in South Dakota as a child, especially of exploring back behind our little house in the rocky hills and pines and aspen. We never had much money to our name, but we never went hungry. 

And now 50 years later, God is still faithful.

The day before I went to the doctor I had gone to a lymphatic therapist for a treatment to drain my struggling lymphs. 

My skin was tight and swollen and leathery and angry red. 

It seemed that the chemo had kicked cancer pain back only for a night, and then the pain and everything just had come back. The next few days I wondered if I had any hope at all except for worsening pain until I died. 

But then there was the lymph treatment.

In a matter of an hour, lymph had loosened from being stuck to my rib cage. 

By the next morning, the angry red color was lightening, and the pain was less. The improvement was palpable and visible both. 

And that treatment only cost us $85 versus the $30,000 bill estimate we were sent a couple weeks ago for a single day of chemos.

God had provided a little clinic with a doctor who knows something about helping women with breast cancer and helping them with lymph drainage so they can heal. 

After the doctor visit, despite the weakness and pain, I stood looking at the aspen leaves glowing with millions of golden coins and knew that with God in our lives, we are rich.

We have  hope.

"In the face of uncertainty, there is nothing wrong with hope."