Not the greatest week...

I still can't write much because I'm on my phone. Despite having a totally amazing time hanging mith my mom last week, I've been having a really tough time. I got a weird infection, and all my energy is gone. Absolutely gone. The bloody noses have started again, but not anywhere near as severe as last time. Blood counts show both hemoglobin anemia and crazy low platelets (hence the bloody noses). Please pray for my blood counts, no more bloody noses, no more infections (this is my 4th since the new year), at least a little energy, and the endurance to make it through my last few chemos. I honestly don't know how I can do it two more times. Fyi, if you don't hear from me for a while, that's usually a sign that I'm not doing super great. But in the midst of it all, praise be to my god who has promised to keep me till the day of Christ Jesus. I for sure don't feel like praising right now. Thank you Lord that I still can though. Let everything that has breath... That means me:)

A special shout out to Tran and Paul for bringing food this week. You guys rock.

I have so many thoughts that I wish I could write... Another time I guess...

Yay! Chemo's a go!

Yay! Platelets doubled!!' I'm at 117! In Chemo now. Hoping to have my numbers up again to have Chemo next week and then I'll be back on schedule. Dr Le predicts it as very unlikely that my numbers will be recovered by then, but I still have hope. Cant type much on my phone, but that's the update.

2:28 am, and still awake

This usually happens.  The night before chemo, I have a hard time getting to sleep.  There is this real conflict of... something... emotions probably, but it feels like a blend of thoughts and emotions.  Maybe it's the chaos as my brain tries to break up a fight between my positive and negative emotions, and thus my brain joins the fray.  Whatever it is, it is fairly predictable.  John caught onto it a lot earlier than I did.  Sometimes I'd be cranky.  Other times I'd be all emotional.  Either way, John knew that he was going to have to take a deep breath and whether the storm, whatever that might be for the night.  It was a lot better for us once he gently gently brought this to my attention.  (It was probably prompted by me saying some thing like "What is wrong with me tonight?!?  I feel so... so... so something.  Anxious or something..." To which he probably wrapped me in his arms and said "Yeah, I've come to expect that the night before chemo".  me: "What? I do this every time?" John: "Yup.")  So there you have it.  Mystery kinda solved.

Unfortunately knowing the source and the cause doesn't necessarily make it go away.  There's that part of me that is praying that all my gorging on pineapples has lifted my platelet levels, and I'll be able to do chemo tomorrow.  The good news will be: I don't have to delay chemo more!  The bad news will be: I have to do chemo now.  Ewwww... Me no likey.  BUT BUT BUT!!!  The really good news (best case scenario) is that if I can do chemo tomorrow (technically it's "today" but I don't consider tomorrow today until I've actually gone to sleep and woken up.) So, chemo tomorrow, and then Dr. Le could possibly say "We'll do a week and a half gap instead of 2 weeks, and do your chemo next Wednesday".  This would put me back on track without any delays.  At that point, after that one that is a mere week and half away from now, I will only have ONE MORE SESSION!!!  Tomorrow is third to last.  After I'm done with that one, there there are only two more!  And after that next one, there is only ONE more!!!!!!  That's totally doable.  I think it is anyways.

So, no deep thoughts tonight.  Just a dance of anxiety and hope.  It's a rather elegant dance though, if I do say so myself:)

Boooo... Frowny face:(

I can't write much because I'm on my phone, but my platelets are not high enough. Chemos a no go. :( We'll try again Monday.

Prayer!! Need prayer!!!

Hello everyone!  Ok, here's the situation.  I felt like I was gonna pass out for the last 5 days or so.  I had just gotten an infection and was wondering if that was the reason, or if my blood was low.  The answer is yes.  Yes to both.  The infection apparently can take a toll on a chemo patient and can make you feel like death.  (Check...)

On a positive note, my hemoglobin levels were low, but not that low.  They met the minimum requirement of what is needed to proceed with chemo.  (they were at least 2 pints higher than what they were last time we had this little crisis)  HOWEVER... my platelets... my platelets are tanked even lower than last time.  The average range is between 130-400, and mine is registering at 52.  Yikes!!!  (Thank God I haven't had any nosebleeds again though or gotten any cuts, or I'm sure my hemoglobin would also be way low!)  The problem with this is that there is a minimum requirement for both hemoglobin and platelets in order to proceed with chemo for the week.  I DO NOT WANT TO MISS CHEMO AGAIN!!!  I do not want to put my ending date back ANOTHER week!!!!  The minimum that my platelets need to be in order to be deemed "healthy enough for chemo" is 80.  Please, please, please, please pray that my platelets would get up to the minimum within the next day and a half.  (Shoot!  Pray that they get up to the normal range!  Dream big, right?) I can't stress how much I don't want to delay another week.

I'm honestly not stressing all that much about it, because whenever I have put something out here for people to pray for, I have usually seen almost immediate results.  God is good, and He listens to the prayers of His people.  I feel ABSOLUTELY confident that He will do this.  However, even if He chooses not to, I praise the name of my God because He is good.  (say it with me!  "The Lord is good" "When?" "All the time")  I love the prayer of Job.  "The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away.  Blessed be the name of the Lord".  Here's my song for the day.  For those of you who were at my wedding, this was the song that John and I walked out with, right after our big fantastic smooch.  Please forgive the graphics.  There's no way to get a Christian song without seriously cheesy graphics.  Just listen and read the lyrics and chuckle to yourself at the graphics:)

 (Blessed be the name of the Lord by Matthew Redman)

(Also, I want to give a shout out to some super awesome people who have been blessing me like crazy!  (Of course my parents) Thank you to my cousin Mary who actually canceled a work appointment to take me into the hospital last Thursday when I was feeling so sick.  Thanks to my other cousin Mandy for actually sitting through two bags of fluid with me.  Thank you to some people from John's school (I'm not sure who...), Abby, Katy, and Stephanie for some awesome meals.  And a huge thank you to my bff Jenise who actually came over to help me clean (Ok, she did most of it while I layed on the couch and cried on John.  But I helped some!).  Not only did she do it, but she expressed LOVING it the whole time!  (She's kinda a freak like that.  Of course, one of her reasons for loving it was she loved being able to actually see such a difference while doing it.  It gave her a sense of accomplishment.  It game me a sense of shame.  Haha!)

A little better, a little worse, and the emotional gamut

Sorry this is tardy!  Our internet has been on and off all weekend. 

This round was not nearly as draining as the previous several.  The last couple of times, I pretty much slept for 3 days straight, and was mostly incoherent for several days after that.  I was actually awake during the day for this one!!  I was still tired, but it wasn't like I had gotten hit by a mack-truck, like how I'd felt the last few times.   The nausea has been much worse though.  The glass half empty mindset would say "Uggg... if it's not one thing it's another".  I think I'll choose to go half full on this puppy and say "Good thing they aren't all coming at the same time!"

These were my thoughts this weekend.  I've run a pretty wide gamut of emotions today though.  Here are the verses that I was really "feeling" today: (read all the way to the end, or you'll get really depressed)

Lamentations 3:17-24

"My soul is bereft of peace; I have forgotten what happiness is.  So I say, "My endurance has perished;  so has my hope from the Lord."


Remember my affliction and my wanderings, the wormwood and the gall!  My soul continually remembers it, and is bowed down within me.  But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope:

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.  "The Lord is my portion," says my soul.  "Therefore I will hope in him."

Such is the ebb and flow of the believer who is experiencing difficulty.  I love Psalms, and I love the lamenting in general from the Old Testament.  They didn't sugar coat things.  If life kinda sucked, they said it:  "Life sucks!", but in beautifully poetic language of course:)  But it never stays there.  It almost always inevitably follows that the writer remembers who God is.  It isn't some saccharine "Let's turn that frown upside down!" kind of crap.  It is knowledge.  The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases.  His mercies never come to an end. 

There is a worship song we used to sing back when I lived in Santa Barbara.  The chorus was "Why are you so downcast oh my soul?  I will yet praise You, my Savior my King."  I always identified with that.  It's an honesty followed by discipline.  It is the honest cry of someone who feels (FEELS) a hopelessness within them.  And it is the discipline of reminding themselves of the truth.  I know what I know, whether I feel it or not. 

I was laying there in the hospital today feeling the first part of this.  "My soul is bereft of peace.  I have forgotten what happiness is."  I feel very strongly that when I am feeling like this, it is because I have been starving myself from the word.  I have not been reading.  I have not been praying.  I have not been plugging into the the one that gives hope in the face of hopelessness.  So I read a little.  I prayed a little.  I meditated on the goodness of my God.  And like water flowing onto a plant that is nearly dead, I could feel myself rising from the depths, and a twinkle came back just a little bit into my eyes. 

I can usually gauge how I'm feeling by how "possible" I feel like it could be for me to be a mom.  I know that I'm having a good day, and feeling good, when I start thinking about having kids.  It is those days that I have enough energy to feel like "I really want to be a mom.  I could do that".  I guess I weigh my ability to do something in the future by how I am feeling in the present.  If I have energy, then I tend to plan optimistically, because future hard work feels possible based on my current amount of energy.  However, it is usually inevitably followed within either hours or days, by the stark contrast of "Who am I kidding? You don't get sick days as a mom.  How could I ever take care of someone else when I feel like this all the time?  I can't even take care of myself."  This didn't start when I found out I had cancer. But then again, we really don't know how long it had been there, so maybe it did.  Anyways, today was a first.  Today was the first day that I have ever felt crappy AND thought about wanting to be a mom simultaneously.  (to quote Zoolander, "Just thinking about it was the most rewarding experience I've ever had!!"  haha!)  It may not sound like a lot for some people, but this was a big deal for me.  It's some part inside of me that is having a spark of a hope that I can have a normal life in the future.  I still may not.  But it's nice to daydream about it though. 

Hillary's Husband has snuck into her account!

[From John to Hillary]
To my Tufted Puffin,

Happy Valentines Day My Darling. I know this bout of sickness (not to mention the cure) have dealt you a punishing blow, and it has been hard to be so helpless in seeing what you endure and yet I can't fix any of it. I can't make the cancer go away, or make the chemo any easier. Yet you have inspired and encouraged me in how you've dealt with it. You are an amazing woman and I fall in love with you more and more each day. Happy Valentines day. I adore you, enjoy you, and just plain love you.

Sincerely, your polar bear.