Well, this is an update on what has been happening in my life since the last time I posted on this blog. It's been a couple of weeks, I think, and last Monday, my husband and I went to see the Oncologist for the first time, to hear the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
It turns out that the truth is very hard to hear! The spots of cancer are not only in my lungs and in the scar tissue from when I had another abdominal operation, but they found cancer spots on my lungs when they did the last chest CT scan while I was in Hospital. That scan was never mentioned while I was in hospital, and that made me a bit suspicious! I had an inkling that what the oncologist would say was the worst news, but when you actually hear the words, that they can only prolong your life, and can't make any promises to cure your cancer, and that this cancer will be the thing that will get you in the end, it's not an easy thing to take in, or to hear!
You see a picture of you on your death bed... You jump to your ultimate future, and it's just so scary! Even when you are offered a slight ray of hope, it doesn't seem like enough...you will never be off the hook... Your family who love you, have to come to terms with this news that is too much for anyone to bear at any time, but somehow they have to, and all the time, you are waiting. Waiting for treatment to start, waiting for the nightmare to be over, waiting for the time when you can have another painkiller to make you sleepy so you can sleep and not think, waiting for the night to be over where you think too much about everything, but at the same time, hoping that when you wake up, you'll not be living this nightmare!
It takes time to process all this information, and while time is ticking, I've been healing from my operation, getting used to eating more food, even though the reality and the thinking has left me feeling sick and not that interested in food.
We've all read the clinical trial papers that has been offered to me, we've cried a lot and talked a lot about it all, talked about the pros and cons, the benefits of prolonging my life (even though early on, I found it hard to think why I would want to go through any of this more than once!) I decided that in all of this Doctor talk, there was no God in any of it! There was no talk of God's plan for my life, the fact that He is the only one who knows when it is time for me to go, and He already knows how much I can bare, He is my good shepherd who makes me lie down in green pastures, he is with me as I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, and he will guide me through. I will fear no evil, He will comfort me and give me hope. He will be my strength! I can talk to Him whenever I am afraid or when I feel weak, and I know that He is also with my family, helping them through their own journey, preparing the way, step by step.
I am to have a long line put in tomorrow, and then on Wednesday, I will start my first chemo session, which will take 5 to 6 hours to infuse, then I will have a special bottle attached with another chemo drug which I take home and that infuses over 2 days, then on Friday, that bottle is disconnected, and it goes in two week cycles. It's all happening very quickly, no time to think, that's how I know that God is in control, He knows me well!
I feel a bit numb! Nervous, but ready to give it a go. I sound braver than I think I am, but maybe I am that brave after all, I just don't know it yet.
Send me a line,
Liz Taylor
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