It's a Roller Coaster

I haven't written a whole lot in the past two weeks because I just haven't felt up to it.  In addition to the nausea, I've been more tired than before.  The fatigue that comes along with chemo is a cumulative side effect, unlike the nausea, which goes away after about a week.  Because of the fatigue and feeling terrible in general, I worked all last week and half of this week from my couch.  Thank God that I have a job that I can primarily do from my couch and that I have a boss and coworkers who are understanding and accommodating.

Tomorrow I go for the first of four treatments with a new drug, Taxol.  I was initially excited about Taxol, because I heard that it has a lower risk for nausea.  But then I learned at my last treatment that Taxol carries a risk of severe allergic reaction.  Because of this, my treatment will be given from a hospital bed and I'll be continuously monitored by two nurses.  They'll load me up with Benadryl and start the drug slowly, checking to make sure I don't start having difficulty breathing.  I have to say, this really freaks me out.  Maybe the nurse who told me all this was trying to reassure me that I'd be in good hands, but instead it just scared me.  I'd really appreciate prayer for tomorrow.

I was reading Ann Voskamp's blog post today and found some thoughts that speak to these fears I've been having:

Faith is this unwavering trust in the heart of God in the hurt of here. Unwavering trust all the time though I don’t understand all the time.
God is always good and we are always loved.
Loved enough to be shaped into goodness of Christ Himself.

God’s purposes are not for me to understand His plans: His plan is for me to understand Who He is.

What if He doesn’t — what if He doesn’t do what we plea, what we pray, what we believe He can and will do and should do?
And the three men before fire, they whisper the startling answer in Daniel, the answer of all of holy writ and writhing humanity: “And even if He doesn’t” –
Even if He doesn’t do what we beg, we are still His beloved.
Even if He doesn’t, He still is.
Even if He doesn’t do what we will, His will is still right and His heart is still good and the people of God will not waver.
Real prayer has eyes on Christ, not the crisis.
Even if He doesn’t – He does give enough — Himself.
Even if He doesn’t – He does still love us.

I don't know why God is having me walk this road of pain and sickness and fear and suffering.  I think the answer lies in one of the quotes above: "God’s purposes are not for me to understand His plans: His plan is for me to understand Who He is."  Paul says, "But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ, and may be found in Him, [...] that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings" (Phil. 3:7-10, emphasis added).  When we suffer, we fellowship with Christ.  We taste a bit of what He experienced in His life on earth and death on the cross.  We come to know Him in a way that could be accomplished no other way.  We get to know Christ.  And that matters much more to God than that we are comfortable or happy.

All that being said, I don't enjoy suffering.  Just because the end result is good doesn't mean it's easy to go through.  I'd rather go running in the opposite direction of the cancer center tomorrow.  So pray that I will fix my eyes on Jesus and the eternal joy that is set before me rather than on the temporal pain tomorrow may bring.  "Encourage the exhausted, and strengthen the feeble. Say to those with anxious heart, 'Take courage, fear not'" (Is. 35:3-4).