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| Dear Praying Friends,
Greetings to you all in the name of Jesus Christ our Savior and Friend. I wanted to take a moment to thank so many of you for your thoughts, encouragement and, most of all, for your prayers. Please refer to the May 28th letter for the story from the beginning. July 7, 2005 It always seems that time is ‘flying by’, but now that it is limited, it seems like it is racing by so fast. Larry said this morning it has been 9 weeks since we received the diagnosis. We have had several ups and downs since that initial news. I guess the thing I find most encouraging is that at the time of diagnosis, I was feeling quite sick; the doctors said that the way I was feeling was about the best that could be expected, and that I would be basically going downhill from there. We have (gratefully) found this information to be false. Other than tiring easily, I am currently feeling, pretty much like the old ‘Janet’. This has been quite a blessing. I decided to put a hold on any further treatments after the third dose because they were making me feel so weak. That third dose left me in bed for pretty much an entire week and I did not want to move forward with any more chemo in that state. I determined in the beginning that I would give the chemo a try as long as it was ‘giving’ and not ‘taking away’ from my life. Since I know my time is limited, I don’t want to spend what time I have sick! Once I was off the treatment for about a week, I began to gain my strength and the old ‘me’ began to surface. For the past two weeks now I have felt really well (although I continue to tire easily and take pain medications around the clock which are keeping me comfortable). I haven’t given up on God’s ability to heal, and hope that it is His hand I am feeling when I feel strong and well. It is hard to know what is really happening as I have found that the way I feel doesn’t always reflect what is going on inside. Sometimes when my blood levels are the lowest, I feel fine, and other times when I feel really lousy, my blood levels are fine. After the third treatment I was feeling somewhat discouraged by how bad I felt, and considered giving up on all further treatments, but decided to hold off on making that decision until after I talked with my doctor following my trip to Michigan over the 4th of July weekend (we flew up for a long weekend to see my nephew get married). The trip to Michigan was wonderful. I felt well and so enjoyed the opportunity to see those I love. Since I grew up in Michigan, I have friends and relatives there, and it was really a joy to spend some time with them. My nephew’s wedding was spectacular and offered a time to visit with cousins and others that I might not have been able to see otherwise. |
| July 9th, 2005.
Now that we are back and have had time to give thought and prayer to whether or not to continue with the chemotherapy. Getting the positive report about my tumor marker (a blood test designed to tell if the tumor is growing or not), helped us to decide to go ahead with further treatments if I can tolerate them. The normal reading is under 30, when I was in the hospital, mine was 45,000+, and currently it has dropped by 2/3 down to 16,000+. My doctor wants to do 3-4 more rounds of chemotherapy and then do another tumor marker along with another CT scan of the abdomen. The CT scan is the test I want to do, because it will really show what is going on inside me. The tumor marker is significant, but not considered reliable enough to be used alone as an indicator of success or failure of the treatment. I believe that the CT will indicate if God has healed me from this disease, or whether the chemo is just having a positive effect in helping me to feel better by demonstrating if there is any disease left. A very interesting realization has come to me. When I first began the chemo treatments, I was quite sick and felt very bad. I was very weak and tired and had a considerable amount of pain. The chemo seemed to be just more of the same ‘yuchyness’ as I started it, so it was very had to separate the illness from the treatment. Well, I took my 4th treatment a couple of days ago, and since I was feeling so well and back to my ‘old self’ when I took it, I can really tell the difference between what is from the chemo, and what is from the disease and it is amazing just how much of what I had been feeling can be attributed directly to the ‘cure’ itself. |
| July 7-9, 2005 (Part I) |
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