Three Rounds into the Fight

Way back in my high school days I boxed with the local Golden Gloves club.  A three-minute round would race by when getting the better of an opponent, but would stretch on forever when on the receiving end of the pummelling.  And how the tide could turn between rounds!  In Golden Gloves you learn well that past performance is no guarantee of future results. 

After being down for the eight count like Glass-Jaw Joe with side-effects in my second round of chemotherapies last month, the current round (after dropping one chemotherapy and adjusting the dosage of another) is going very well for me, side-effect-wise.  The intestinal troubles are pretty much gone, and while I still have the neuropathy, the functioning of my hands continues to improve.  I’m back to typing with all my fingers (not just two), and it seems as though feeling is slowly coming back.  After that horrific second round, this third one has been a vast, vast improvement, and I start my week off of all chemotherapies tomorrow.  Yay!

Before we started these three-week rounds, the doc said I would be rescanned before the fourth round to get the best read on our progress in fighting the cancer itself.  I plan on contacting him to see if that’s still the plan, even though we lost about three weeks worth of chemotherapy of any kind while I was trying to recover from that awful second round.  I haven’t been scheduled for such a scan yet, and the fourth round should start May 15, only a week away. 

So it’s a great praise and answer to your prayers and mine that the current round has been so much better.  And while I still welcome your prayers for a knock-out healing, I also welcome your prayers that the present adjusted chemo-combination will prove sufficient to be effective against the cancer, and that if such is the case I’ll be able to stay on this regimen for a long time. 

Thank you so much for your prayers and the love and care that motivates them.  Thanks also, and again, to those who have given money to help with copays and other expenses not covered by insurance.  Just a week or so ago, we had a couple of bills totaling over $1,000.  The Lord has supplied that need and others through our fellow believers, and we’re thankful to Him and to those who have given.  And while I’ve mentioned this before, how thankful I am that just six months before my diagnosis the Lord provided Robin with a job with health care benefits far superior to the “catastrophe insurance” I had been carrying beforehand. 

Thanks again for praying.