Have I Hit a Stride?

A new three-week round of treatment began yesterday, and so far I feel just fine.  I do find myself extra-worn out on days when I have evening activities, usually Wednesdays and Sundays, but being in my mid-sixties, I may have found that to be the case with or without cancer or its treatment.  It feels like I’ve hit something of a stride, treatment-wise.  Since the adjustments in therapies and dosages, I have been able to live life pretty much normally. 

I have continued to regain weight, to the point where I think I should definitely be “done” with that before I severely overdo it.  The improvement in the neuropathy has leveled off, but I am able to write and type almost as before.  The arterial claudication in the right leg is almost always present, but the level of pain varies.  Sometimes I can walk a pretty long way without much discomfort at all (like yesterday evening walking all over Costco), and sometimes just 50 yards or so is all I can handle without resting to let the blood to the leg replenish. 

It is a wonderful thing that we’ve struck upon a regimen of therapies my body can handle.  I am truly thankful to the Lord for that, and also that the cancer itself has been so responsive even though we cut so far back on the chemotherapies. 

I am also humbled by the fact that so many people are praying for me, and even more by the fact that God has blessed me so well through those prayers.  My church family, immediate and extended family members and their churches, missionaries Robin and I know, people we know from FBF in the past and the churches they now attend, Free Churches in the Southeast District, friends in the neighborhood, friends from the past getting in touch – all of them praying for me.  I’ve even had a few emails from people I have never met, but heard of my situation and wrote to me to encourage me and tell me they’re praying, too.  What a marvelous thing it is to have been made a part of Christ’s body!  Makes me tear up to think about it, and I don’t cry easily. 

Even with all of that humbling, I still have the nerve to ask you to continue to pray.  I still have the cancer, and the battle is still new.  I still want to live and minister, and the refining test of faith continues.  So thank you for your continued prayers.