Recovery Status

My arm has been healing very well. I’ve been focusing this week on trying to get full extension of my arm and after a few minutes of stretching, I can get it almost fully straight. My understanding is that due to the radiation, I’ll have to be pretty intentional about stretching for quite a while to keep full range of motion.

My strength is starting to come back, but at a slower rate than it was the week after surgery. This morning I was able to curl my bible which I wasn’t able to do last week. I’m still doing my normal workout schedule and exercises, but have obviously had to greatly reduce the weights on most of them. Yesterday I did bicep curls, but for my left arm had to do assisted negatives with only a 5-lb dumbbell. I look a little bit out of place in the Army gym I’m in, but I’m happy to at least be able to do the same movements as before surgery. I’ve been overall surprised by how little of day-to-day life you use your bicep for. I previously assumed that the bicep was the main muscle of the arm, but many of my daily activities hardly use my bicep. I’ve also been surprised by just how weak my left bicep is compared to my right bicep when I do encounter a bicep-heavy task.

My hand is mostly normal, but it’s still lacking some of it’s original dexterity and is shaky when I try to fully open my hand. I also still have a reduction in the sensation of my thumb and my wrist. When something like a sleeve brushes up against my wrist it triggers a slight pain-like sensation. It’s not bad and I’m learning to live with it, but I’m praying that it’s just temporary and that Occupational Therapy starting this week will be able to help with it.

The swelling is also pretty much non-existent and the incision is about 95% closed with just a couple of scabs left. My arm gets pretty achy at the end of the day, but if I wrap it up in an Ace bandage for an hour or so it helps a surprising amount.

Meeting with Oncologist

I met with my Oncologist on Monday. The current plan is to wait until my 3-month follow-up scans around the start of the new year to potentially make some decisions about systemic treatment. I’m praying that the lung nodules are done growing now that the primary tumor is out and am wanting to wait until I see actual growth of the lung nodules before I start any treatment. Alveolar Soft Part Sarcoma is known to be a very slow-growing cancer. This is both a wonderful thing and a tricky thing at the same time. It means that I have time to make decisions and decide on the proper path, but it also makes it hard to know how big of a threat this cancer is. The primary way we have to determine what the cancer is doing is to monitor the size of the lung nodules with regular CT scans. If this cancer is growing, we likely wouldn’t be able to detect any change in the size for 3-6 months. It feels like I’m standing in a hallway staring at a man with a knife at the other end of the hallway. I’m grateful that he’s not charging at me, but at the same time, it would almost be easier to make a plan and defend myself if I knew that he was charging at me.

The drugs that would be available options for me have negative effect on your ability to heal post surgery, so the Oncologist and I are on the same page that waiting a couple months before starting anything is the right decision.

My Changing Perspective

God’s been showing me recently how much more He cares about our eternity and our dependence on Him than He does our comfort here on earth. I’m still thinking through this and don’t have a very coherent argument to make about this, but the more I pray about things and see how the Lord’s been changing me through this, the more my disappointment and confusion has been mixed with an appreciation. It would be easier for the Lord to let me live my life as I wished, but He cares enough about my eternity and my relationship with Him that He would let my life come crashing down and provide for me as I sort things out. I’m not sure why the Lord chose this for me and I sometimes wonder if this would have happened if I wasn’t so stubborn and had been more inclined to more closely follow Him.

Like I said, this is more of a question than it is a well-thought-out argument. My perspective and emotions vary day by day and it’s easier to say this when I’m sitting here typing this than when I’m watching a fighter jet fly overhead, but it’s a thought that’s been coming to mind the last few weeks. I read 2 Corinthians 12:8 the other day where Paul says that “three times [he] pleaded with the Lord” about the thorn in his side. This seems strange because I probably pleaded three times with the Lord that the cancer would leave me within an hour of finding out that I had cancer. I continue to pray that this cancer would leave me, but it’s a a good reminder that the battle on earth is not for our bodies (we know we’re eventually going to lose that battle), but for our hearts.

Someone sent me this article last week. I think it summarizes this idea much better than I’m currently able to: https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/the-mercy-of-a-long-wilderness

Once again, thank you to everyone who’s been praying. By how many people have told me they’re praying, I’m confident that my prayer requests are being brought before the Lord far more than I would be able to on my own.