Cancer Murder, Round 5

DING! DING! End the round!

I'm mostly over the side-effects of round 5, which I had a week ago. My hands are peeling and gross but otherwise I'm in reasonably good shape.

One of the nicest things that happens for me almost every day is that I get snail mail. There are several people who regularly send me cardsand other folks who write occasionally to let me know they are thinking of me and praying for me. I LOVE snail mail.

I'm a heavy user of electronic communication and I love the convenience and frequency of it. But nothing beats a hand-written letter in my mailbox. The time it takes to put anything in the mail makes me feel loved. I aspire to write much more than I actually do, so I appreciate being at the top of other people's correspondence lists.

Another nice thing: I'll get to see a lot of out-of-town friends and family in the next month. For the next three rounds I am expecting a friend, then my mom, then my in-laws to be at our house to help with the kids on my bad days. In my non-cancer life I enjoy company; right now I feel deeply loved that anyone would come spend several days living here to help our family cope with the stress of chemo.

It seems like now that we're settled into a routine of school and work and living in our newish home I am able to recover from chemo in a shorter time. For the last couple of rounds I've had about 3 ugly days and by Saturday things start looking better. Before that I was having about 5 ugly days, including Sundays. It's hard to be out of commission on Sunday when you are married to a pastor.

I suspect, in spite of this improved perspective, that treatment days will continue to be sad for me. I can't think of a way to avoid sadness and discouragement when I'm opting in to feeling crummy for the better part of a week. Praise God that I know the sadness will pass, and that chemo will end.