Chemo pill - lingering - time and stacking stones

it's a single pill...pale pink, flesh tone really, fairly large as far as pills go and the coating has no taste.  Inside this pill is chemo, a word I seem to use as almost insignificant now, an every day word.  Oh, it's just some chemo.  Like oh, it's just some vitamin C.  But this pill is my current treatment plan and is far from insignificant.  This pill is my hope for time.  When you are in the midst of cancer treatment they call it your "active" treatment but I think of my pill as "lingering" treatment. 

The pill is called V-16 and it's an Etoposide Chemo.  I found this info: Etoposide belongs to a class of chemotherapy drugs called plant alkaloids.  Plant alkaloids are made from plants, in this case derived from the May apple plant.  The plant alkaloids are cell-cycle specific which means they attack the cells during various phases of division. Interesting really, I would like to learn more about how it works.  But for today I will tell you what I know...I take one pill a day for 21 days, then take 7 days off and start the cycle again.  The goal is that it will keep the tumors I have stable...perhaps shrinking a little, perhaps growing a little, but with no significant change for a long period of time.  My oncologist says I may be able to stay on it for a year, maybe two years.  When we compared this option to the risks associated with radiation, surgery or stronger chemo, and although these treatments could have resulted in being tumor free, this lite weight chemo seemed a far better choice.  The side effects are typical of chemo, but with this light dose they should be minimal, and allow me to live a fairly normal day to day life.  Two years of stable with minimum side effects....good choice.

And yet, it was not all easy.  Driving home from the oncologist appointment in Montreal, where we discussed all the options, considered the possible outcomes, and came to a conclusion that my husband, the doctor and I all agreed was best...driving home I found myself going through a range of emotions that played out for a few days.  I have always preferred to tackle things head on, go the hard way if needed and net the best possible result.  Choosing this chemo did not feel like that.  Instead of banishing the tumors from my body, I am going to let them stay.  A concession.  A slight giving in.  A hard pill to swallow.  But also a gift, the gift of two years of having physical strength, a feeling of overall wellness and time...what shall I do with that? 

Bedtime was when I decided would be the best time to take the chemo pill.  Then if there was any immediate nausea or unwell feeling I would sleep through it.  But I will admit, and it surprised me to feel this way, the first night I put that pill in the palm of my hand I had a hard time putting it in my mouth.  I looked at it, I thought of the chemicals and cell killing toxins inside it.  Chemo when a nurse hooks up an IV seems different than this.  Here I was, about to willingly swallow poison. 

Today is my last day of the first cycle and tonight I will take pill #21.  Side effects?  tiredness is all I have to report.  Not an all day tired, but a knowledge now that I won't be the life of the party after 8pm.  Hair is still intact, appetite is definitely intact.  Day to day, I feel awesome. 

Thanksgiving..today is Thanksgiving Sunday.  I love Thanksgiving.  I love the fall, the harvesting, the cool air, the sense of putting up for the winter season the bounty of the summer.  Its a time of celebration, of giving thanks, of feeling joy and preparing for the winter when we cuddle inside and rest a bit. 

I find it truly spectacular how different things come into my life, at just the right timing, and they intersect to create "ah hah" moments.  Fierce Grace.  God is masterful in how he delivers guidance and answers to me.  2013 has been a wild year of experiences and adventures but now the lessons seem to be different.  There is this chemo, which asks me to "linger" in treatment.  There is my quieter home now with less children in it.  A friend invited me to a book club...I have never taken part in a book study group so it was unusual to be asked but the timing fit in easily so I said yes.  The books is called "One Thousand Gifts, A Dare to Live Fully, Right Where You Are".  At first I wondered if there was much I would learn, as I feel I am pretty good at living in the moment and feeling grateful for the gifts in my life.  God has shown me though that there is reward in keeping myself open and expectant, to not jumping to conculsions...to quiet my mind and wait.  So I went with my hands open, waiting to see what God would place in them.  We are only 2 of 5 sessions into the study but already I have been given much to think about. 

The book we are reading in the study is written by Ann Voskamp so please know these are her words, not mine.  I don't know if it will make sense, but I want to share some parts I have highlighted in the book.  A part I am really drawn  to is where she and her brother-in-law are talking about coping and understanding the loss of his child, his second son to die as an infant, a pain I can't imagine.

"If it were up to me...I'd write the story differently!"  "Just that maybe...maybe you don't want to change the story, because you don't know what a different ending holds."  "There's a reason I am not writing the story and God is.  He knows how it all works out, where it all leads, what it all means."  "Maybe...its' accepting there are things we simple don't understand.  But he does."

"I wonder too...if the rent in the canvas of our life backdrop, the losses that puncture our world, our own emptiness, might actually be places to see.  To see through to God."

I think on this...the need to let go of what I want life to be, my version of perfect and let God have control.  Not only to give over control, but to seek joy in his plan, all of his plan, not just the parts I like.  And the notion that the hurts in life, the holes created in our hearts, are the clearest views to see God.  that's a big thought. 

"Joy is the realest reality, the fullest life, and joy is always given, never grasped.  God gives gifts and I give thanks and I unwarp the gift given; joy."

gives, give, joy...so simple and yet, so taken for granted and so difficult at times. 

And now the book is taking me onto the path of time....unhurried time...taking time...having time.  Here I think is a lesson for me.  I have always struggled with time...not enough time...never enough time to take care of my home, do things with my children, get things done at work.  Cancer makes time a stark reality.  I thought I had changed..changed priorities and how I spent my time....but perhaps God has more to teach me here.  I hope so.  Fierce grace.  He continues to give to me.  Molding the hard clay my life is, into a beautiful useful vessel.  I am grateful for the heat, the fire that has been needed to mold me.  For the unending attention. 

Time..taking time...stacking stones.  Ann Voskamp also spoke in the video last week of the ancient art of stacking stones.  They would create a stack of stones, each stone to count a blessing in their life, a time when God had blessed them, times of faithfulness.  And then future generations would see the stack of stones, and hear the stories recounted to them.  As part of the study we were asked to think of examples of how stones had been stacked for us by past generations.  As I look back on yesterday I realize it was full of stacked stones and it happened when I gave time.  I stopped by my daughter's new home, randomly pulled in for a visit and our conversation repeatedly reflected on how my grandparents (her great-grandparents) had impacted our lives.  Stories...stacked stones.  I came home to work in the garden...called my mom who was making pies...invited her to have come have a tea break with me.  We sat by the garden, my son beside us, watched the pigs root, snipped the basil.  Stacked stones.  Later I came upon the wood splitting crew...my Dad and my son working together to split the wood.  My husband stacking.  To see the three of them together, to see my son working alongside his grandfather, learning from him how to handle the wood that seemed to heavy to lift by rolling it up a board to the splitter, to watch him work out the mathematics of how many cord of wood...stacked stones. 

taking time...stacked stones...stacking stones...giving thanks...a happy and blessed Thanksgiving.

with much love,
Teresa

My son and my Dad
 working together

Pigs tilling the garden