THE LONGEST 7 WEEKS OF MY LIFE

There is no doubt about it, the past 7 weeks took at least 6 months to culminate. The only experience in my life that seemed to take longer was 8 weeks in marine boot camp, and that wasn't near as torturous, and the food wasn't half bad. Well, maybe it was half bad. Actually I gained 15 pounds in boot camp and I lost 15 pounds during this treatment. So now I guess I'm even. Oh my gosh, that was 44 years ago! Forget about it.

This past week was not an easy one for me. Not so much that I didn't feel very good, because I didn't, although I felt better than I did the previous week, I just found it really hard to get myself motivated to go to treatment for those final 5 days. Last Sun. was kind of a drag because I got really dehydrated. After tons of H2O and Gatorade I got my weight up to what it was on Fri. I have since learned that Pedialyte is the hot ticket for dehydration. I learned on Mon. that Dr. Wagner wanted to continue chemo for the final week. This was not a joyful noise to my ears, however I had already come to terms with the Lord. I told him that I would accept anything they threw at me this last week because I knew that everything had been sifted through his hands, and if the doc thought I needed it, than I probably did. Then came the scare. I walked into radiation treatment on Mon. and the tech took one look at my neck and said, "No way, you have to see the doc before I can treat you." I hadn't looked at my neck for a few hours, but what was happening was it was peeling and well, for lack of a better description, it looked very similar to my sons iguanas neck, dry and peeling. After a short discussion with the doc, he looks at me and says "Since you only have 5 days of treatment remaining I think you need to tough it out." That was sweet music to my ears. So again, thank you for all the prayers. My neck actually looked better every day thereafter.

So what happens now that treatment is over? Please continue your awesome prayers. This is where my body starts to heal from all of the abuse it received. I had a very emotional discussion with my chemo doc last Tues. He actually apologized for giving me such a radical treatment, but he felt that I could handle it and that it would be much more beneficial in my recovery. I would have said that he was just saying that to make me feel better if I didn't know that he is a cancer survivor himself. Actually the radiation keeps on working for about 2 to 3 weeks after treatment ends, so they told me not to expect any radical improvement until after that time frame. Well, I'll just have to disagree with that because I know that all things are possible with God. Matthew 19:26 Jesus looked at them and said, "With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible."

So from now on I plan on keeping my eyes on the goal and focusing on getting my body healthy once again. Philippians 3:14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

Pressing on in love,

Old Jer