Grace and Beautiful Views

It feels like it has been forever since I have written an update which is a good because as the saying goes, no news is good news.  A few weeks ago I was experiencing some pain both with my stoma specifically and a bit not too far away from it.  After an appointment with an ostomy nurse we got my stoma pain figured out and it quickly resolved.  The other pain has also completely gone away which I hadn't actually realized until just this afternoon.

The last few months have been pretty wonderful overall.  We were able to spend 4 days in St George with my grandparents at the perfect time for a break from the cold in Northern Utah.  It was fun celebrating Easter with Elliott for basically the "first" time since he was still too young last year to have any clue what was happening.  He had absolutely no interest in the treats in his basket but was absolutely ecstatic about a bubble gun, new cars, and more playdough. We've also enjoyed time with both Cliff's family and my family and we have loved being able to go to church in person again. We were able to go on our first hike in over a year to see Moonshine Arch. Mothers day weekend was fun spending more time with family - even my grandma, my uncle, and my aunt who have been visiting from Minnesota. Elliott is still loving his swimming lessons and we've all had a lot of fun times on our tramp and exploring different parks on the good weather days.

I've been thinking about the word grace a lot lately and how it can be applied in all aspects of life.  Right now for me biggest application is physically.  Though I have more energy now than I did even just a few weeks ago I still just can't accomplish as much in a day as I would like to.  It's only taken me a year of having no energy  to a little bit of energy now to be 100% okay with that certain fact of life.  Having lots of ups and downs in regards to being patient with myself has made me realize just how easy it is to put ourselves down. 

I'm sure most of you - especially you women - can relate to this exact scenario.  The day is coming to and end and you're laying in bed just about to go to sleep and you start making a mental list of all the things you want to get done the next day.  More often than not that list likely includes things like work, taking care of your kids, exercising, general housework, cooking, running errands, and now with nicer weather, yard work, and gardening. When I was first told to expect energy to come back after my last round of chemotherapy in my mind I thought, "perfect, daily life can go back to normal" and I'm sure God couldn't help but chuckle a bit. 

Fast forward to 6 weeks ago when I was receiving my 2nd dose of immunotherapy and the nurse administering it asked how I had been feeling all around but most specifically in regards to energy.  I must have grimaced or something because she very kindly reminded me to be patient with myself and then told me the cold, hard truth.  She used the example of creating good habits versus developing bad habits - it takes much longer to create a good habit than it is to develop a bad one or simply to let the good ones stop for a time.  She let me know that the general rule of thumb with chemo and energy levels is that it takes about twice as long for your energy to come back completely as it did for  the chemo to get you down to your lowest point. Obviously the lowest point is going to be the last round so since I had about 6 months of chemo it will take about a year to feel like I'm close to where I was before as long as treatments keep working well in the meantime.

At first I was discouraged hearing that but then I remembered my grandma telling me about half-way through chemo that if all I accomplished in a day was taking care of myself and my son than that was more than enough.  She also reminded me that chores will always be there and that there will always be other things to do so whatever state the house was in at the end of the day was perfectly fine because there was always the next day to work on it. At that point I decided I needed to lean into all of that and allow myself a whole lot of grace. 

Letting myself feel good about whatever I may accomplish any given day has in turn helped me emotionally, mentally, and spiritually.  Who knew that one thing affected the other? 😉 Afterall, if God gives us grace in all things shouldn't we give ourselves and others that same grace?  Just some food for thought and something I have to regularly remind myself of and I hope all of you give yourself the same reminders as well.

One of my cousins-in-law gave me some sweats during chemo when she heard I was cold all the time and she had this embroidered on them...

She gave me a card with them that said she chose the phrase "believe in the magic of miracles" because she could tell how fully I expected miracles to happen as soon as I was diagnosed with cancer. Then she said she put stars with it because looking up at the stars reminds us to seek the light and look towards heaven...or something along those lines anyways.  She didn't know this at the time but I have always loved looking at the stars so she picked the perfect symbol for me. I remember laying on the grass with friends all the time at night in the summer admiring the stars and Cliff and I went stargazing all the time when we were dating and engaged.  To me the stars are the perfect reminder that God is in the details and that He knows every single one of His creations. 

Despite fully expecting miracles to happen from the beginning of all this it seems like I also always expect the big ones to stop happening anytime. That probably sounds terrible but I feel like it's just the reality that everyone who is faced with such a hard challenge faces at some point. It's like you want nothing more than the best possible outcome but also feel like you need to be at least a little prepared mentally if things take a turn for the worse again.  That's how it is for me at least - always hoping for the best, enjoying the now as much as possible, and remembering how precious time is.

At the hospital today we ran into, arguably, our favorite person there who was assigned to me as an HCA - Healthcare Assistant - multiple times during my chemotherapy weeks and who was seriously a Godsend right when both Cliff and I needed some uplifting the first time we met him. His name is Jesus and it was so nice being able to catch up with him and enjoy the beautiful day outside together for a while versus only ever seeing him in a hospital room previously. We also saw our favorite nurse practitioner briefly and we'll hopefully run into her again in the future when we can actually visit for a bit.  I can't say enough what a difference all the great healthcare workers make in how you view being stuck in a hospital for a week at a time and then in going back regularly for appointments and treatments beyond that.  I've been fortunate enough to have nothing short of good experiences with everyone that has cared for me so far but there are definitely those special few that seem to become true friends.  On another fun note, every time I meet with my oncologist she teaches me a few new words or a phrase in Greek and I teach her something in Japanese.

Now for the drumroll...I met with Dr F this afternoon after having had a CT scan on Monday and to use her exact words my scans were a beautiful view and look amazingly great. My tumor has continued shrinking though it's not a complete certainty that it has kept shrinking as a result of immunotherapy as I'm barely past the time when the shrinking could still be chalked up to being a residual effect of chemo. There is also no new evidence of disease which is equally fantastic.  So, the plan is to do two more doses of immunotherapy - aside from the one I had today - to make sure it is indeed the immunotherapy that my tumor is continuing to react to before surgery.  It makes complete sense to me why they want to know that for sure before doing anything else but that means hanging onto my ostomy bag until fall sometime.  I can honestly say I'm not bummed about that in the slightest though because I was so happy that my tumor has continued shrinking especially because that was never the assumption with immunotherapy to begin with.  As Dr F said many times before chemo had even ended immunotherapy would be considered an absolute win if it maintained the state my cancer was in at the end of chemo.  So, I'm adding my current scan to my ever-growing list of miracles and will continue to believe in the magic of more to come.