Tag: cancer

Fear, Thanks, and Deliverance

I have been considering thankfulness a lot this week.  Specifically, how I could possibly be thankful in a season filled with things that I wish weren’t happening.  I have found myself praying “God, I know that I’m supposed to be thankful for everything, yet how can I possibly be thankful for cancer?”  This awful disease provokes zero gratitude…rather, pain, hopelessness, and often fear.  In the face of heartache, how can I be thankful?

My answer is found in the knowledge that I have been already delivered from this fear:

“I sought the Lord, and he answered me and delivered me from all my fears.” Psalm 34:4

This is how I can thank God for the cancer: as I am blessedly pushed to greater dependence on Him in the midst of this season, I seek him more, and as I seek him more the fear is gone, and God’s indescribable grace becomes both how I am and what I am most thankful for in this season.

Preparing for discharge…in time for Thanksgiving!

Blessed beyond blessed with so much to be thankful for in this moment by moment life…

Happy Thanksgiving

Day Two

Radiation day #2 started at the radiation building, and then due to a fever, moved to the outpatient oncology office, and then to the local ER, and then to an inpatient room, and then discharged from the local hospital to the special transport team, and finally, taken “sirens and lights” to Chase’s hospital.

Waiting in the oncology office after radiation

My apologies for the run-on sentence.  It was a run-on day.  Because of the fever, radiation is currently suspended.

Posing with some members of his spectacular transport team …headed for “his hospital”

Stay tuned for Day #3…

Moment by moment.

Day One: A Reflection

With his backpack and IV bag preparing to leave in the early morning…

One day down, twenty-nine more to go…

I’ve mentioned before how very much I hate separating from Chase before a procedure and today was no exception.  I left my unconscious child in a full body mold in the middle of a huge radiation machine, turned my back, and walked away.  With this heavy on me, I cried the whole way back down the hall (much to the chagrin of the nurse escorting me, I’m sure…).

Snug on the ride home; sleeping off the anesthesia

This entire radiation decision feels like a step down the path of destruction.  The doctors (and we with them) must tear and ravage his body with everything there is in the hope of once and for all eradicating this terrible thing that is greater still than the near deathly salvation they’ll put him through.

And yet…

I thought again today about the words of Psalm 139 and realized, no, this is not a road to destruction, but to perfection!

I thought I had a healthy and perfect baby boy one December afternoon.  I still remember the first pink tinge of life effusing his skin as they laid him in my arms.  How beautiful he was.

And yet…

My mind cannot fully grasp this, yet my heart cries out that it is true: that December afternoon was but the beginning of a journey to perfection.  Chase is only now becoming who his loving Heavenly Father desires him to be!

We don’t know now.  But one day we will.

So we will endure that we may be complete.  Lacking in nothing. (James 1:2-4)

Moment by moment.

Rubbing lotion on his head and back to protect against burns

In The Dawn Once Again

It’s Monday morning and we are in the dawn once again.

Today, Chase begins radiation.

Though I cannot find the words to adequately describe how I feel about this, I know that God has been with us every step of the way and will not leave us now.

Chase, we’ll again see you on the other side.

From the first step on a new path…

Moment by moment.