Day 58 – Saturday (10/20/18)
Next blog update will be posted by Saturday, October 27th, at midnight.
Hello again everyone. Another week is in the books. 2 down, 16 to go. Important service bulletin: I still have my hair! (Correction: I woke up this morning (Sunday, 10/21) and I was scratching my beard and pieces started falling off. Beard still intact at the moment… but it appears this may be the beginning of the end for my hair. Update next week!) This week was a much better week than last week. I feel like my overall health is already improving from just this first cycle. My resting heart rate, according to my fitbit, has gone from a high of 92 (before the first chemo), to 70 today. At night, it is running about 60, which is where it was prior to this whole ordeal starting. I hesitate to mention this next item, but I will. I have this gut feeling that my body is responding to the chemo quicker than “the standard”. We are supposed to do another PET scan at the end of the second cycle, which should put it somewhere around the week before Thanksgiving. I have this hunch that the PET scan is going to show that blobby is already dead. If so, maybe I only need… say 4 cycles (12 weeks)… instead of the full 18. I don’t know why I have such a strong feeling about this. Maybe it is just optimism… maybe it is God giving me some insight. The reason I hesitate to mention this is that I don’t want fellow blog readers to think that if my hunch turns out to be wrong that God has let me down. HE HAS NOT! Not at all! God has been working mightily in my situation, and I could not ask for any better results from just the first chemo cycle. If I still have to go the full 6 cycles, that is okay, because I know that God will continue to be with me. My next 8 hour chemo session is this coming Thursday, Oct. 25th.
Dear heavenly Father, I again praise You for how You help all of us in times of need. You never put a burden on us that is too much for us to bear. You are always willing to walk beside us through our storms if we let You. I have felt Your presence with me all week (and since the start of this), and it has been very comforting. There have been many prayer requests that have come through our prayer chain lately of people dealing with health issues. At the risk of forgetting a name as I write this blog, I simply pray for all of them. You know who they are and what they need. Please provide them the same comfort and optimism that You have given me. I continue to pray for the lost, Lord. I know it is Your desire that all will come to repentance. If there is anyone that I can reach (for You) with my testimony, please put them in my path. You have given me this testimony for a purpose. Thank You Lord for all that You do, amen.