And If Not

It took a while, but I finally got a call from my oncologist on Friday. I had seen the radiology report a couple of days earlier, but didn't fully understand everything it said. I was excited because it did say there are no new tumors anywhere in my body, and the ones that were there are all stable. 

But there were other words like "ascites," "mesenteric edema," and "gallbladder wall thickening" that I didn't understand the significance of. Sometimes, I see scary words, and they don't really mean much, but in this case, it seems they do. My liver isn't functioning properly (hence the elevated liver enzymes). But the CT scan revealed that the lack of function extends further, to not being able to manage fluid and proteins. Because of that, fluid is backing up and spilling out other places - around my intestines, in the gallbladder wall, and into my abdomen.

This fluid explains the abdominal pain, bloating, nausea, and silent reflux symptoms I've been having (and may even explain the cough!). What we don't know yet is why my liver is struggling. It could be due to my current chemo treatment (best-case scenario), or it could be that there are microscopic, unseen tumors keeping it from functioning properly. 

Either way, my liver needs a break. So I'll get a six-week holiday from chemo (a holiday for the holidays - yay!). They'll keep checking my labs, and we'll hopefully see my liver enzymes start to go back down. They're also going to do an ultrasound to make sure there aren't any blockages in my liver and maybe get a bit more insight into what's going on.

Regardless, I'll be stopping my current chemo and moving on to something else. 

All of this is disappointing and disheartening for so many reasons: I don't want to lose yet another of the few treatments left for me, and this one has been easier on me than some of the others I've had recently. But if we can't get my liver into better shape, there might not be future treatments my body can handle. On the other hand, if we find that my liver is full of microscopic tumors, there might not be much they can do at all.

This definitely feels like a new phase of my cancer journey. I've been kicking the can down the road for ten years now, getting more time after more time. It seems like those days might be slipping away. I'm now symptomatic from the cancer and not just the treatments. And having tried 13 different treatments already, how many are left? 

We're still processing all of this. We're sad. We're scared. We don't know what's coming next. This isn't what we hoped for. But God is with us. He's reminded me of that many times over the past few days. Could He heal my liver? Yes. Could He heal me? Yes. But He tells us that His ways are not our own; His thoughts are higher than ours. He sees so much more than we do with our limited perspective. So I trust His love and care for me, His good plan for me, and His constant reminders that He is with me. Does that make it easy? No, not at all. But because He's been so faithful throughout my life, I choose to trust that He is somehow going to make even this possible, too. His grace will be sufficient just when I need it. There will be new morning mercies. 

Will you pray that I can keep my eyes on Jesus moment by moment and not on the storm around me? It's so easy to lose focus and start to despair. I'm not attempting to walk on water like Peter was, but dealing with this feels pretty hard, too.