Little did I know that while Hannah was gone and I was busy keeping the home fires burning, or shall I say, the home fans blowing in this hot weather, that sweet little strawberries were ripening in the patch inside Hannah's flower garden!
While Jonathan and l were gone to Sioux Falls for medical appointments, Hannah arrived home and discovered them! And when we came home, we all tasted one or two apiece of those delectable berries.
Each morning Hannah picks a few more berries--before the ants and birds and fawn eat them--because the fawn likes to nap in the corner of the flower garden, and if he ever gets a taste for strawberries, that will be the end of our homegrown treat!
I was so grateful to get to eat a strawberry that did not immediately create a mouth lesion. For years I haven't been able to eat strawberries from the store without almost instant mouth ulcers breaking out, thanks to pesticides, etc.
God gave us more cheer yesterday after Jonathan's third PSA test and my PET scan results came back. The local doctor did not believe any of Jonathan's muscle pain and PSA test results were related to the spider bite, but we went to a doctor in Sioux Falls who had a second and opposite opinion and who was willing to order a 3rd PSA test as well as prescribe something to bring down the inflammation and help with the pain. Yesterday, to our utter amazement, (before even starting any of the medication) not only had the numbers come down, but they had come down by almost half of the number it had been a few weeks ago! This new number was lower than the original number two months ago!
We were both astounded.
Jonathan had hit his situation with nearly everything we had ever learned about, (including the kitchen sink, he joked) to try to bring the numbers down and get rid of the concerning lesion. He had done a 48-hour fast a couple months ago, and a 72-hour fast a few weeks ago, even though it meant sacrificing a last meal with our children in Colorado before we left that day. He thought fasting while traveling was easier than fasting at home where he prowls hungry around the kitchen.
(For the record, the last 24 hours of the 72 hour fast he ate small amounts of protein only, no carbs. The idea is to bring his body into ketosis so that it will "eat" up the rogue cells. When a person is starving, his body will first eat up bad cells before breaking down the healthy, good cells. It's amazing how God has made our bodies.
And he has been keeping close to a keto diet most of the time, (with a few exceptions) enjoying fish such as this short-nosed gar.
(Though when Danny discovered the name of this fish, I thought, if this is a short-nosed gar, what would a long-nosed one be like?)
Jonathan has been taking all manner of supplements for prostate support and inflammation issues, such as turmeric. I've been making essiac tea from genuineessiac.com, and he's been drinking 3 oz. or more three times a day--at least when he can remember in the middle of his work days.
(Meanwhile, pictures of a very dear strawberry girl come to my phone, cheering our days!)
Well, moving on from PSA test results to PET scan results, I was amazed to see that results that usually don't come in for at least a day or two or sometimes more were already posted about two hours after my scan. I was traveling home with Hannah at the wheel because I was so exhausted, hungry, and just down, that I thought I might faint. Before a PET scan, you are only allowed high protein, low carb, and I didn't think to take a snack or electrolytes in with me. Did I ever pay for it!
However, the good news is that anything that was formerly cancer is showing "resolved," no cancer, but a very small nodule in my left lung is showing activity measuring .9 SUV, or less than 1. That is a very low number that is typically not indicative of cancer, as I understand, but it is concerning because it hasn't been there before and the number and size can of course, increase.
(Rose and baby with cousin Charity whose music group from Penn View sang at Faith Covenant Bible Church in Colorado Springs last Sunday.)
I don't know what my oncologist will do with these numbers and news from the scan. I am to see her tomorrow, after one day break from traveling. We traveled all the way to Sioux Falls Monday, then Hannah and I went to Rapid City the other direction yesterday, and tomorrow back to Rapid City for scheduled chemo (unless my oncologist decides differently).
On our way home from Sioux Falls medical appointments, Jonathan picked up items for the business or mission at Menards in Sioux Falls, then windows at a window shop in Mitchell. (He also chose some discounted windows for the mission fellowship hall addition which the store manager, upon learning what they were for, told him were free for the mission!) Then at Menards again in Mitchell he had to pick up these four 10-ft ridge caps that someone called to say they needed on the job.
I was beyond nervous about the sharp edges of the ridge cap between us, stretching from the back of the Honda to the windshield.
"Any emergency and we could have our heads sliced off," I told Jonathan as the metal things slid by my neck clear up to the windshield where they stopped.
Then my growing up years stepped up to my rescue. My dad could fix nearly any problem with duct tape and plastic, it seemed (though what the thing looked like in the end is beside the point).
I suggested taping the edges of the four ridge caps to hold them together and dull the edges so if we came to a sudden stop or jerked sideways, they wouldn't immediately decapitate us.
Jonathan went back into the store while I sat in the hot sun, and he bought duct tape which we applied to the sharp edges.
I even took a turn driving on the way home that day--praying that the crazy things will end up well that we have to do in this third world situation where we have to travel so far to pick up any materials for the business and mission.
And so, until next post!
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