Oncologist and Radiologist--and Jesus Before and Behind

 I don't think I've updated this blog about my situation since my last visits with the oncologist and radiologist. Because cancer cells build up resistance to whatever drug is used against them, my oncologist decided to put me on a new medication rather than the same drugs I was on last year and early this year. She said it's a fairly new drug that has actually had such good results that it's now considered second choice for my kind of cancer. She said I should expect hair loss again--a bitter pill to swallow. I've been so happy to see curly hair framing my face and giving me a more cheerful appearance than baldness!! 

But she would not start me on the drug until I had passed an echocardiogram test--which I passed with flying colors last Friday, the same day I was to see the radiologist. 

"We were surprised they got you in Friday," the nurse marveled, but God is amazing! I felt it was a little miracle from His hand. I have been in pain especially at night, losing a lot of sleep three nights in a row. But the radiologist reminded me that I could safely take a good deal more ibuprofen and/or Tylenol, which I've been doing successfully. At the end of the New Years Eve time together at church, I was in so much pain that I asked for prayer, and the people there, visitors included, gathered to pray for me. For a moment, the pain lifted, and later that night, the ibuprofen I took kicked in and I was able to sleep the rest of the night. 

The radiologist, whom I saw several days later, is putting me on hold until we see how the cancer responds to the chemo, and radiation may or may not be necessary. 

On both days, as we stopped at Walmart, we discovered sparrows near where we parked. They were not somewhere far across the parking lot, but right near us, as if they had been sent. 

As if they were waiting for us to remind us, "If God watches over each of us sparrows, doesn't He care for you, O you of little faith?" 

In the dreariness and bitter cold of that day, the little sparrows, all fluffed up, were a token to me that God is still watching over His little brown sparrow. 

I think of Christmas Sunday when I sang for our church the words I'd written, "O Wings of God," and when I saw the picture Jonathan had taken of me, I noticed the picture of Jesus on the wall behind me, and the creche with baby Jesus in front of me. 

Christ has been faithful in the past; He will be faithful in the future. 

"Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me, Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ on my right, Christ on my left, Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down, Christ when I arise, Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me, Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me, Christ in every eye that sees me, Christ in every ear that hears me." Attributed to Saint Patrick