"What do you feel?" I ask Scott this question in some form daily. "What doesn't feel good? What kind of sick? Is it like ___?" I'm trying so hard to understand. I want to understand. And although we are one in so many ways, I can't feel this for him or take it away. He says I'm not annoying him yet but he might be lying.
We are about one week from the first chemo treatment. The first several days we wondered what, if anything, it was doing. Then there were a few nights, late in the night, we began to feel the affects. I say we, but really Scott is doing all the feeling. Awful combinations of feeling like he'd been hit by a truck, pain in places that hadn't been hurting, restlessness yet so tired, led to a frustration and sadness I've yet to see. We found ourselves in the middle of the night pleading with God for breakthrough. During the second night up late, so tired, it felt as though we were being tortured in war. And maybe we are. A war with the cancer and the chemo. A war between knowing God is in control and loves us and wondering if He's left us alone to fight this thing.
I was in a massage a friend got me recently--running late and wired so when I finally laid down, my face mushed up in that hole trying to get my heart rate to calm down, I prayed. I was praying for Scott and the way his body was feeling before chemo. I was asking God to give him relief, to make the bloating and frustration subside. And then I subsequently asked God to war on the cancer. To fight it with a vengeance. To be wiping it out, even without medicine! I often plead with Him, "God, I know you can! I'm asking you to. You tell us to ask and I'm asking!" Very clearly I felt like God said "Lauren, you can't have it both ways. If I'm warring inside of Scott's body, he isn't going to feel peachy. It's war." And in a strange way, I calmed and said "OK". If that's what it takes God, I'll take the war. Now Scott may not like this dialogue about how his body is going to feel that he was not a part of. But he has reminded me numerous times, "Lauren, we can't have it both ways". So we're trying so hard to be okay with side effects and hard days, pleading with God to be warring against the cancer!
God's mercies really are new every morning and yesterday was a new day. Scott's color came back during the day. At one point, he lifted up his pant leg to show me his ankle and was so excited it looked like him! We celebrated that small thing with fist bumps and his smile. Maybe it isn't such a little thing. Maybe his body is functioning more normally. Maybe it's just a tiny reminder that God is working. That something is happening in there!
We don't know much more. He gets blood work regularly to see how his body is handling treatment. And he should go for another "round" in a couple weeks. My friend sent me these song lyrics today, when I confessed how alone this season can feel.
'What was true in the light is still true in the dark. That you're good and you're kind and you care for this heart'
Oh how I need those reminders.
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