Treatment Update

Everything this week progressed as normal and I only have two more radiation appointments left. The radiation burn on my arm is starting to feel like a really bad sunburn so I’ll be happy to be done with it soon and let my skin heal before surgery.

I asked for prayer last week that my veins would hold up for all the vitamin c infusions. After talking to the doctor, we narrowed the vein issue down to the fact that I was going straight from the infusions to the gym. I switched around my schedule this week to workout before the infusions instead of after and didn’t end up with any more bruising at the infusion sites. It’s a very simple solution to the problem I was creating for myself.

Overall, I’d say the BAMC radiation center is probably the world’s worst tanning salon. 1 out of 5 stars. Not bad for radiation though. I got a photo of me in the radiation machine for anyone curious. My engineering mind has a good time while I’m watching the machine do its thing.

Upcoming Tests

This week I have an MRI on Tuesday and a CT scan on Wednesday. I don’t expect to get results from them until Thursday or Friday, but I will send out an update once I have results. Both of the scans are unlikely to show any change, but there is a possibility that it could show a change either positively or negatively. Please be praying that we see both the mass in my arm and the lung lesions shrinking. From a conventional medical perspective, they’re pretty unlikely to have shrunk, but I know that all the cells in my body are subject to God’s will. Cancer is a funny thing in that it can cause so many massive and complex problems for your body, but is really a simple problem of my immune system not recognizing that these cells need to be destroyed. I’m doing everything I can to build up my immune system and body to attack the disease and am praying that the Lord ‘activates’ my immune system against the cancer.

On Thursday I also have a pre-surgery consult with MD Anderson. My hope is that their approach and expected outcomes from the surgery will be identical to BAMC and that I can confidently pursue the surgery at BAMC. Please pray that I would have wisdom in processing the information and would make the proper decision on whether or not to continue with surgery at BAMC.

My Non-Medical Life

I’ve shared in the last few posts that I’ve been looking for a church to go to out here. One thing I’ve struggled with is how open I should be with my cancer diagnosis while visiting these different churches. I know that if I share immediately, people are going to be concerned and I’m going to have lots of people reach out and get me connected. While I’m sure they mean well, I didn’t really want to find a church that way. I wanted to find a church that cared about me and not just the cancer diagnosis.

I’ve now settled on a church out here. I went to this church for 2-3 weeks to made sure it was a church I wanted to go to before I shared about the cancer diagnosis. At that point, the church did what the church is supposed to do and this past week has been really encouraging after a long last few months. I’m new to this cancer thing and can’t say this was the definitely best way to find a church, but I’ve been encouraged by how things have worked out.

I’ve been learning over the last few weeks about how to look for a church as well as how I want to interact with people looking for a church in the future. While I like to try and engineer the most efficient way to get plugged into a local church, it really just takes showing up for multiple weeks and being willing to stand around awkwardly and introducing yourself to people. Here are a few things that I have seen as I’ve been looking for a church:

• It really only takes 1 or 2 welcoming people and doesn’t have to have 20 different people all introducing themselves to be a welcoming church. The best churches I’ve been to have had 1 or 2 people being willing to talk to me for a while, look for me when I come back the next week, and try to connect me to other people I might connect well with.
• I think older couples and families have a tendency to feel awkward about inviting a single person over. Some of the most encouraging times I’ve had have been when I’ve gone to an older couple’s or a family’s house for food. Plus it’s gotta be easy to invite just one person over instead of a whole family, right? I had someone in college tell me that they sometimes “just missed having kids and pets around.”
• Getting people’s phone numbers has meant a lot to me. Even if you never talk to the person again, its encouraging to have a real contact for someone rather than a vague “let me know if you need anything”.
• Maybe it’s just me, but meeting people for the first time as a full-grown adult is kinda awkward a lot of the time. For some reason God in His infinite wisdom didn’t make it easier to start relationships with people, but I’m starting to think that the most socially skilled people are just the ones willing to embrace the awkward.

That’s just my two cents, I’ll get off my soapbox now. In other news, my prayer requests from last week were answered and I am able to go home for a full week. I’m honestly quite surprised how the Lord worked it out, but in a matter of 48 hours after my last radiation appointment I will have gotten a CT scan at BAMC and an MRI at Lackland AFB, driven to Houston, gotten an MRI in Houston, met with the doctor in Houston, and be positioned for only an 8-hour drive back home. Thank you to everyone who was praying.

Another big answer to prayer is that all my things from MS are packed up in boxes and back in Florida ready for me to pick them up and take them back to TX. I had a friend from MS go buy boxes and spend his day packing all my things for me, as well as another friend who spent his day driving to and from MS so that I can spend more time in FL rather than having to go to MS as well. I’ve been learning a lot through this whole cancer process and one thing I’ve noticed is how overly independent I am. I’m always eager to help people but never willing to ask for help which I think for me comes down to an issue of pride rather than a servant’s heart. It took the encouragement of a few different people for me to start the GoFundMe and to ask someone to move my stuff for me, but the encouragement I got from seeing how willing people are to help was worth much more than just the help I received. I’ve been learning that there’s joy to be had in serving people, but also joy to be had in asking for help. I think I’ve been overly focused on trying to square myself away financially so that if I have any problems I can fix them myself and then once I’m finically set and comfortable, I can help other people with my extra money. I’ve definitely been challenging that theory recently though.

Thank you everyone again for praying and all the support. It really means a lot to me. I’ll plan to send another update once I get scan results back.