Psalm 121

Today's blog entry does not come fully from me but is mainly just a snapshot of Eugene Peterson's, "A Long Obedience in the Same Direction". I've been writing about this book a lot lately but today I wanted to quote it in my blog so that all of you could get a glimpse of his heart and possibly be encouraged to give it a read. I will also end my blog today by stating my own significance with this quote as well as my internal struggles and inspirations. (Note: Peterson's quote refers to Psalm 121, which I've copied and pasted prior to his quote).

Psalm 121

I lift up my eyes to the mountains—
    where does my help come from?
My help comes from the Lord,
    the Maker of heaven and earth. 

He will not let your foot slip—
    he who watches over you will not slumber;
 indeed, he who watches over Israel
    will neither slumber nor sleep.

 The Lord watches over you—
    the Lord is your shade at your right hand;
 the sun will not harm you by day,
    nor the moon by night.

 The Lord will keep you from all harm—
    he will watch over your life;
 the Lord will watch over your coming and going
    both now and forevermore.

"The promise of the psalm--and both Hebrews and Christians have read it this way--is not that we shall never stub our toes but that no injury, no illness, no accident, no distress will have evil power over us, that is, will be able to separate us from God's purpose in us...  St. Paul wrote, 'No test or temptation that comes your way is beyond the course of what others have had to face.  All you need to remember is that God will never let you down; he'll never let you be pushed past your limit; he'll  always be there to help you come through it' (1 Cor 10:13).

Three times in Psalm 121 God is referred to by the personal name Yahweh, translated as GOD. Eight times he is described as the guardian, or as the one who guards. He is not an impersonal executive giving orders from on high; he is present help every step of the way we travel. Do you think the way to tell the story of the Christian journey is to describe its trials and tribulations? It is not. It is to name and to describe God who preserves, accompanies and rules us.

All the water in all the oceans cannot sink a ship unless it gets inside. Nor can all the trouble in the world harm us unless it gets within us." 

-Eugene Peterson (A Long Obedience in the Same Direction, pg.42-43).

There are three things I found incredibly appealing about Peterson's quote, and since I already made you read quite a bit today I will be as concise as possible. 

1. I LOVE that Peterson supports the fact that Christians are not free from suffering but in fact most likely will suffer, however, in doing so will never be overcome by their suffering (by God's grace) and will never be put through more than they can handle. This is especially interesting to me because I've also been contemplating C.S. Lewis' quote "The real problem is not why some pious, humble, believing people suffer, but why some do not"... I would never wish suffering on anyone, but some days I find myself comparing my life to other people's lives (bad idea) and question why some journeys seem more difficult than others. Reading over Peterson's ideas has helped me clear up some of my thoughts on this.  

2. I'm troubled by Peterson's quote, "Do you think the way to tell the story of the Christian journey is to describe its trials and tribulations? It is not. It is to name and to describe God who preserves, accompanies and rules us." I don't know about you, but I always default to the idea that my life is all about me. I often forget, it's not. I often forget that my triumphs and my failures, my successes and my sorrows, all belong to God. Furthermore, when I begin to think that the story he has given me is meant to draw attention to me what-so-ever I am stopped dead in the moment by realizing "it is not". Everything we do is meant to point to Jesus. This is true humility, and this is an every day surrender we must make in our lives. 

3. I am encouraged by his final sentences in the quote, "All the water in all the oceans cannot sink a ship unless it gets inside. Nor can all the trouble in the world harm us unless it gets within us". How reassuring is it that regardless of the amount of evil in the world, there is nothing that can penetrate God's infinite power and love that He has placed over our lives. This doesn't make us void of suffering, it simply makes us invoid (yes I made that word up) of God's strength in our lives. 

a heart of prayer.

I finished my 5th cycle of chemo! Yay! And although a lot of my tweets, instagrams, and messages I sent to people were shockingly embarrassing this morning I'm still okay with it because now I just have one official cycle left (and hopefully will never have to have chemo again). However, one of the drugs I'm on called predisone, which I wrote about in an earlier blog, always makes me shaky and anxious and sometimes makes it difficult for me to sleep. Last night was one of the nights where I had trouble sleeping so I continued on reading Eugene Peterson's "A Long Obedience in the same Direction" and I must admit it is quite a gem. While reading his book I had an eye opening experience and I wanted to share it with you today, so here it goes!

Since my diagnosis I've had a few (not many) people tell me that if I just had more faith, believed stronger, and prayed harder I would be healed. Whenever people told me something like that it took all the strength I had not to punch them in the neck. I don't think I got cancer because of anything I did in my life physical or spiritual, I also don't think I can manipulate God into healing me by shouting louder when I pray, praying longer, or believing and convincing myself I will be healed. I'm reminded of 1 Kings 18:16-39 when Elijah had a god-off against Baal's prophets to prove to the people which god was real: his God, Yahweh, Jehovah; or Baal, the pagan god.

The opposing prophets gathered on Mt.Carmel and both set up sacrifices for their gods (vs.24-25). Both cut up bulls and put them on their alters and then proceed to prove which god was real by seeing which god would bring fire on their sacrifices (vs.26). Elijah then allowed Baal's prophets to go first to see if their god would respond to their sacrifices and requests (vs.26). After a day of shouting, crying, dancing, and cutting themselves to sacrifice their own blood nothing happened (vs.26). Baal's prophets didn't know what to do to get their god to respond, they where literally trying to manipulate a response out of him. I don't really blame them though, they were desperate. I think sometimes out of desperation we have this exact same response. We so badly want something to go our way that when our simple, genuine prayers don't work we try to sing louder, cry harder, and even sacrifice pieces of our lives to try and manipulate a response out of our God. However, I don't think God wants this from us, Psalm 51 says that the acceptable sacrifice to God is a, "broken spirit and a contrite heart" (vs. 17). By writing this I am by no means judging the people that shout their prayers or cry out to the Lord in the middle of the night, I am no more able to see the state of your heart than to see the state of Florida from my house, but I humbly believe if our hearts are in a place of manipulation instead of a place of humility, there is no reason for God to do anything for us. Why would God allow us to control him like that? He wouldn't, because then we would be god and he would not. Furthermore, as Evan Allnutt says, why would we want to live for a God who does everything we ask him? If this were the case then we would be god and he would not.
So how are we meant to pray if not through shouting louder, dancing, crying, and sacrificing pieces of ourselves? I honestly don't think I can answer this question right now because it would be hypocritical for me to write a blog about how there is no formula for having God answer our prayer and then give you a formula to have God answer your prayers... but I will leave you with the rest of Elijah's story to contemplate, struggle, and mull over as I do so as well:

³⁰ Then Elijah said to all the people, “Come here to me.” They came to him, and he repaired the altar of the Lord, which had been torn down. ³¹ Elijah took twelve stones, one for each of the tribes descended from Jacob, to whom the word of the Lord had come, saying, “Your name shall be Israel.” ³² With the stones he built an altar in the name of the Lord, and he dug a trench around it large enough to hold two seahs of seed.³³ He arranged the wood, cut the bull into pieces and laid it on the wood. Then he said to them, “Fill four large jars with water and pour it on the offering and on the wood.”

³⁴ “Do it again,” he said, and they did it again.

“Do it a third time,” he ordered, and they did it the third time. ³⁵ The water ran down around the altar and even filled the trench.

³⁶ At the time of sacrifice, the prophet Elijah stepped forward and prayed: “Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, let it be known today that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant and have done all these things at your command. ³⁷ Answer me, Lord, answer me, so these people will know that you, Lord, are God, and that you are turning their hearts back again.”

Stay tuned for part two of this blog in the days to come when I've had time to wrestle with this scripture myself. 

a worship blog from the heart of chemo

I'm currently at chemo and decided I would write a blog so I could first hand show my followers the type of delirious I become thanks to a few little drugs being introduced into my system. If this blog doesn't make sense just read it till the end to humour me... maybe something will stick out to you, maybe not, maybe I'll accidentally say something blasphemous... who knows.

Now before I get into my ideas of a heart of worship I want you to keep in mind that the worship I'm referring to is singing priases to God. I know our whole lives are an act of worship but that topic will be  for another day.

Truth time, I have always wanted to be a worship pastor. I remember talking to Andy in his office when I was a first year intern and he asked me if I could have any position in the entire church what would it be. I gave him a funny look and he almost immediately said, "You want to be a preacher don't you!?" to which I answered, "well if I could really be anything I wish I could be a worship pastor but I can't play an instrument, I can't sing, and I'm tune death (yes I said tune and not tone - aca-awkward!)". And why did I want to be a worship pastor? Because they get to sing to God with beautiful voices and bring his people into a place of complete surrender and freedom at the same time. and who doesn't love to bring freedom? I know Mel Gibson does!

Still, no matter how musically-challenged you may be as Christians we are always called to Worship God; and not just worship him in the good times when he's doing nice things for us but in the bad times too -- sometimes when we don't even feel he may be there. I also think worship is a funny thing because when ever I start worshiping God through singing I start praying for all the things I need help with in my life (specifically healing right now). It's so easy to sing praises to God when he is blessing your life and giving you a reason to praise him. It's so difficult to praise God when nothing seems to be going well and there may not be very many reasons to praise him. BUT our praise to God should be unchanging, unfluctauting, consistent, and not dependent on our life circumstances. We praise God because he is God, we praise him because he is good and the definition of good. We don't praise him because he is good to us, we praise him because he's good period!

Wherever your treasure is there your heart will be also. So if you treasure singing like I do but your heart is stuck somewhere then start singing first and maybe your heart will follow.

too big vs. too small

It's slowly getting easier for me to concentrate (which I'm sure will change again tomorrow) so apart from reading my textbook I started reading "A Long Obedience in the Same Direction" By Eugene Peterson. I'm only two chapters in but so far it's a quality read. I've honestly started reading this book three times in the past five years and have yet to make it half way, but I've never enjoyed it as much as I do now so I'm sure this will be the time I succeed!

However, I don't want to write about my awful reading habits I want to tell you about Eugene Peterson! In the preface of his book he writes about prayer and how his generation had a strong belief in praying the psalms. Furthermore, he talks about all the generations before him who also had a strong belief in praying the psalms; but when he looks at the current state of our world, Christians aren't interested in praying the psalms. He then stated that he believed people weren't praying the psalms because they weren't written using common language. One day, Peterson decided he would translate the psalms into lay language so that Christians could once again pray the psalms. Years later, the Message was completed. I loved reading this story because I wonder how far Peterson would've gotten if he had one day decided to translate the entire bible into lay language. The idea of translating the whole bible probably would've been too daunting and disheartening, but because Peterson just wanted to translate the psalms (he actually just started with the 15 psalms of ascent) it didn't seem too impossible a task.

This got me thinking because how often do we look at the things we want to accomplish and immediately decide they will be too difficult so we end up giving up before we even start. Furthermore, how often do we see a small task we want to accomplish but we don't see anything beneficial coming out of it so we quit the small tasks because it seems too inadequate? There are many things in my heart I sincerely want to accomplish before my time on earth is up, but how many things have I forgone because they were either too big or not big enough? How about you? I think it's time we stop forfeiting the things we're called to because we are either afraid of failing or being seen as insufficient. Let's take hold of our callings no matter how big or small because in reality, we don't know the effect our decisions can have, the impact our works can create, and the influence our lives can make.

a beautiful Saturday

Saturday's not over but I just have a feeling it will be a beautiful day. It's pouring rain outside, Mumford & Sons is playing in the background, and I started my day with reading 2 Corinthians 6. Honestly, read these verses and try not to be inspired for the day...

"We put no stumbling block in anyone’s path, so that our ministry will not be discredited. Rather, as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: in great endurance; in troubles, hardships and distresses; in beatings, imprisonments and riots; in hard work, sleepless nights and hunger; in purity, understanding, patience and kindness; in the Holy Spirit and in sincere love; in truthful speech and in the power of God; with weapons of righteousness in the right hand and in the left; through glory and dishonor, bad report and good report; genuine, yet regarded as impostors; known, yet regarded as unknown; dying, and yet we live on; beaten, and yet not killed; sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything." 2 Corinthians 6:3-10

Have a beautiful Saturday!

Clinical Trial part II

I got the results for my PET scan on Thursday and it's normal! I don't really know what that means but I'm glad that I no longer have to stress out about whether or not my treatment is working because I have now been assured that it is! There are still other things I sometimes worry about like whether or not I'll have to have more chemo after my 6 cycles, whether or not I'll have to have radiation, whether or not my cancer will come back while I'm remission... etc. etc. etc. I feel so silly worrying about all of these things because worrying won't help change the outcome of the situation but somehow these worries still creep up on me. There actually isn't a whole lot I can do to change the situation except (i) pray (ii) stay positive and (iii) keep fighting.

Anyhoo -- when I went to my oncologist appointment on Thursday, one encouraging thing he said to me was that I "didn't even look sick", I told him it was because of the make-up but he laughed and replied, "as doctors, we're trained to see passed that". To be frank, I feel sick -- not sick in the nausea, flu, yucky sense but in the weak, utterly human sense. After I got home from my appointment all I could think about was 2 Corinthians 12, when God speaks to Paul and tells him, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness" (vs.9). Paul was such a devoted servant that his reply was to boast in his weaknesses, allowing Christ's power to rest on him and further saying that he would "delight in weakness, in insults in hardships, in persecutions, [and] in difficulties. For when [he was] weak, then [he would be] strong"(vs.9-10). I wish I could be as easily devoted as Paul, he makes following Christ look so incredibly easy. Somedays it seems easy to chase after God and others it doesn't so much. I also find it really difficult to delight in weakness, hardship, persecution, and difficulties, because all those things are quite awful to begin with. Still, I find it interesting that when I finally admitted to God that I was weak, he began to bless me with his strength. I don't think this was the type of situation where he said "okay, if A happens and you do B then the outcome will be C" I just truthfully believe that once I came to the realization that I was weak and running on empty he was finally able to bless me with His strength because my pride was no longer in the way of his blessings. I don't exactly know when the 180 happened but over the past few weeks people have increasingly told me I'm "looking a lot better", I "have fire in my eyes again", or I'm "back"(sidenote: don't ever tell a sick person "you don't even look sick!" it's not a compliment you just sound stupid). Although I've appreciated all the compliments, I can't take credit for them. I haven't done anything different except admit to God my weaknesses and ask him to reveal his strength in me.

I didn't even realize that anything was changing in my life until the people around me started commenting to me. It would be easy to pretend that I've found some amazing inner strength and it's helping me get through this rough time but it would be a lie. God has provided me with his strength, and I believe is in the process of showing His glory, and the funny thing is I didn't even notice it. However, in retrospect, it's easy to see that God's strength is what sometimes drags us through (and yes I mean drag; not carry, walk with, or guide but drag... because sometimes we have journeys we refuse to go through easily).

Dislikes

I finally got my PET scan today! It wasn’t bad at all. The worst part was getting an IV in my arm (which I should be use to by now but I’m not). After getting the IV I then got injected with a radioactive sugar and prayed to God that I would receive some amazing super power to save the world but… no such luck. After being injected with the sugar I got to lie back in a lazy chair for 45 mins and listen to music then go lie down on a table for 15 mins and go back and forth through a giant cylinder so that my PET scan could take place. I don’t know what the results are yet, I find out this Thursday, but I do know that I will most likely have another PET scan in the future, so although I’m nervous for the results, I’m not as nervous for the next scan.

Also! More good news! I did my shot to myself both yesterday and today. I have a dirty little secret about it but I’ll share it with the few of you that still read my blog. I’ve realized there’s only one way for me to get into the right mind to be able to inject myself with a needle and the way that I do this is by listening to “Monster” by Kanye, Nicki Minaj, and Jay-Z. This brilliant idea came to me through a friend and it never fails! I start playing the song, tell myself I’m a super secret agent in a life or death situation, wash my hands, swipe my tummy with the alcohol swab and then jab the needle in and inject myself with the liquid. So I’ve won this game two times this week. Yay me! And let’s be honest, if I hadn’t been able to poke myself after my pump up routine, then my mother would probably have had to do it for me so… it pretty much was a life or death situation. Thankfully I was able to do it so I won. Yay!

However, back to the PET scan, as I was lying down for approximately 60 mins I smelt something that I smell every single time I go to the hospital and every time I get a whiff of it I gag and get grossed out. I’m not fully sure what it is but I’m almost certain it’s the plastic/rubber part of IVs that stick out of your arm after you get injected with an IV. Whatever it is, I HATE THIS SMELL! While I lay there unable to stop thinking about this smell that I hate so much I realized that I’m a pretty easy going person. When it comes to doing stuff, eating stuff, or watching stuff I don’t REALLY mind what I do, eat, or watch. For just a few examples… (i) I don’t watch scary movies but if a friend invited me to watch a scary movie with them I would probably say “yes”, knowing very well I wouldn’t enjoy it one bit (ii) I don’t really like the outdoors, but if my friends were going camping I would probably join them knowing full well I wouldn’t enjoy it one bit and would probably be cold and wet the whole time (iii) I don’t like watching Drop Dead Diva anymore, but if Emily wanted to watch it with me I would say “yes” every time if it meant spending time with one of my besties (iii) and last but not least, my group of friends has the hardest time choosing where to go to eat because none of us mind eating anywhere, we love all food! So instead of one person deciding and everyone else agreeing we all just go around say, “I don’t mind, you choose!”

Anyhoo – back to the topic at hand. When I smelt that rubber/plastic smell I realized that there are some things I really don’t like and then I started asking myself what those things were. I then proceeded to make a list of the things I don’t like and have come to the conclusion that we should all make lists like this one! I found this exercise very freeing because it helped me reveal to myself (and probably others) what I really don’t like or don’t enjoy doing…. So here it goes… here is my list… and while you read it let’s just all remember that when you judge people you’re not loving them…

BG’s list of things she doesn’t like:

1. The smell of plastic on IVs

2. When people don’t know the difference between a vinaigrette based salad dressing and a creamy salad dressing

3. food that looks savory but is actually sweet (for example: cakes or cupcakes that look like burgers; candy in the shape of pizza or hot dogs; gingerbread men [the last one was a cannibalism joke]. To all the foods I’ve listed and the ones I missed, please make up your mind! Either be a burger or be a cupcake! You can’t be both!)

4. When girls have backpacks AND purses – choose one or the other!

5. Any sad movie

6. Any movie that seems happy the whole way through until one of the main characters dies at the end. Those movies need to be told lying is a sin

7. Every girl that Christopher Nolan has ever casted to play Rachel in Batman

8. When my family members re-arrange my house to vacuum and then don’t re-arrange anything back, leave the vacuum out, and leave the house.

9. When you’re stuck in traffic and a zombie apocalypse doesn’t break out

10. People who don’t recycle.

11. Papayas

12. Popcorn (yet I buy it and eat it at the movies every time I go)

13. *NOTE: this is the thing I like least in the world -- adult things that are disguised as though meant for kids (ex. "Nightmare before Christmas" movie, Emily Strange clothes, Hello Kitty, "Coraline", etc. etc. creepy adult things... this includes anything Tim Burton has ever been a part of) 

Therefore, the following picture is a representation of my potential worst nightmare...

So there you have it. My list of 13 things I don’t like and probably never will. I’m sure there’s more but these were the things I’ve been thinking about lately. Make your own list! Free yourself from these things and when your friends want to go out and eat papayas, come to the realization that it’s okay to say, “no, because I don’t like papayas”. If they don’t stick with you after that, then they’re not true friends to begin with. 

Vancouver holiday!

Okay, the title of this blog is deceiving. I'm not going to Vancouver for a holiday I'm going for a PET scan and I leave today (Monday Oct. 22nd) and get the scan early tomorrow morning. However, I'm calling it a holiday because I woke up this morning extremely nervous and am trying to trick myself into thinking it'll be a super fun vacation. Speaking of which, have you ever tried to lie to yourself about something? It makes you feel quite divided against yourself.

After tomorrow my doctors will officially have my results and be able to tell me if my treatment is working or not (this is probably why I'm quite nervous). However, I have hope either way. A couple of weeks ago Pastor Ron, head pastor from my church (Glad Tidings), made me talk to him when I came in to the office to say hello to everyone. I really didn't want to talk to him because I knew I would end up crying but he's my favourite head pastor so I also knew I couldn't pass up an opportunity to talk to someone I look up to and respect dearly. Of course I ended up crying for the majority of our 45 minute conversation but after stumbling through our chitchat and having Pastor Ron pray for me something changed in my heart. Over the next few days hope started creeping into my life again - she's super sneaky like that. Furthermore, a few days after I started feeling hopeful again Adore Conference happened (which I wrote about in a previous blog) and so many of my dreams started creeping into my life again - less sneakily than hope but just as exciting.

The entire month before speaking to Pastor Ron and conference had honestly been a dark one. A lot of the time I felt lonely, even when my wonderful friends would visit me every single day, and more often I felt worthless - being unable to do anything useful for God or anyone else. Although this was a pretty awful time I still would pray to God and ask him for healing and ask him to change the pain I was feeling in my heart but most of the time I just felt the same, the only change that was trying to occur --against my will -- was the numbness that was trying to take over. As I write this I make it seem like I had a really depressing month but in all truthness, it was one of those moments when you don't realize how dark your pit was until someone pulled you out of it.

Coming out of this experience I was reminded of Exodus 17 when Joshua led the Israelites into a battle against the Amaleks while Moses, Aaron, and Hur went up on a mountain to pray. Moses held his hands up to God and while he did so the Israelites would start winning but then when his hands got tired and fell to his sides the Amaleks would start winning. Verse 12 says that "Moses' hands were heavy and grew weary. So... Aaron and Hur held up his hands, one on one side and one on the other side; so his hands were steady until the going down of the sun" (Exodus 17:12 AMP). Moses had been praying the whole time for God to be with them in battle, but it wasn't until Aaron and Hur began praying for Moses that the three of them were able to bring God's glory onto his people. Moses had some pretty amazing friends in his life, thankfully so do I, which caused me to ask the question - what would have happened if Moses had just gone up the mountain by himself? There would have probably been an unfortunate incident for the Israelites that day not because Moses hadn't been watching over them.
We are all fighting a difficult battle - none more important or less important than the other. We all fall short, we all encounter fear, we can all experience joy, and we all sometimes need someone to stand by our side and hold up our hands that grow heavy after a while. So my questions for you today are: what battles do you have in your life that you need someone to lift your hands for you (midterms/exams, friend issues, family issues, emotional issues, illness, loss, grief, sorrow)? And who can you stand by that needs help lifting their hands to win their battles?

It also helps to listen to some encouraging music: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IExdrZGQVeI&feature=related

Almost Normal

I'm finally starting to feel better yay! I started feeling better a couple days ago after forcing myself to go out with friends. I hardly go out during my first week of chemo so near the end of the first week/beginning of second week I start to feel anxious when people ask me to go out and do things. However, on Monday my friends Chris and Anja (Chris just went into remission after having the almost exactly lymphoma as me, I'm so happy for him) encouraged me to force myself to go out even when I get nervous to leave me house. So, Tuesday I went to dayspring, lunch, and the beach with my friend Bekka then Debbie came over to give me my shot and at night time I went to a movie with my friend Ash who I ditched the previous week because I wasn't feeling well. In all honesty I was a little nervous throughout the day but it was a wonderful day and Wednesday I felt almost completely normal.  I later found out Wednesday that people had been praying for me that morning (and I know people are praying for me always as well) so I know God heard their prayers because today is Thursday and I feel better still.
Also, ADORE CONFERENCE is this weekend and I'm so very excited for it! If you aren't going and you live in Victoria you're loco and you need to sign up ASAP!! I am so thankful I am feeling better for it and I hope I continue to feel better throughout the weekend so I won't miss anything.

Anyhoo -- the real reason why I wrote this post was to give you guys my playlist from my morning devotionals in case you were interested but I couldn't find a clever way of tying that in with what I already wrote so here it is:

Bryan & Katie - sing holy
Bryan & Katie - I see heaven
Bryan & Katie - he is faithful
Christy Nockels - sing along
Christy Nockels - you revive me
Matt Redman - 10,000 reasons
Aaron Gillespie - Hosanna
Aaron Gillespie - earnestly I seek thee

(Aaron Gillespie will be at adore conference so... another reason to go!)

Clinical trial

As many of you know I had my latest chemo treatment on Monday October 1st. It wasn't the worst treatment I've had but I have never before wanted to be in treatment less. I cried before my treatment, I cried during my treatment, and I cried after my treatment -- none of this is new information. However, now I have a four week break before my next treatment! Why you ask? Good question! I don't know how I feel about this yet but I decided to potentially take part in a clinical trial. There's both good and bad parts to this clinical trial and I'm going to try to explain it the best I can.
So now that I've had four cycles of treatment, the next step that would usually happen would be getting a CT scan, having two more cycles, then having a PET scan and re-evaluating what to do in the treatment next (options being more cycles, radiation, or being done). However, I've realized I'm allergic to the solution I get injected with for the CT scan so I asked my doctor if there was anything else I could do so that I wouldn't throw up when getting tested and he suggested being put in this clinical trial. So, the way this trial works is instead of getting the CT scan after the fourth cycle I would get a PET scan. The good news is a PET scan is way more accurate than a CT scan, it has a sugar solution which people are hardly ever allergic to, I get to go to Vancouver for a night because I have to get the scan early in the morning, and if my treatment isn't working well enough there's the possibility to change it. The bad news is a PET scan can potentially tell you a million different things which are wrong with you (scary) and if my chemotherapy treatment isn't working then I will get switched to a treatment called RICE which sounds approximately three times worse than the treatment I'm on now. So here are the outcomes that can occur with my clinical trial:
1. get a PET scan and it comes back positive and I have to start the RICE treatment, which includes four cycles of three days of chemo and three weeks off of chemo.
2. get a PET scan and it comes back negative and I have to complete two cycles of the CHOP-R treatment and then get another PET scan to evaluate what to do next.
3. get a PET scan and God has miraculously healed me and I never have to go through chemotherapy treatment again (pray for this one! Although my doctors don't see this happening).

So, my tentative schedule right now is PET scan on October 23rd and chemotherapy on October 29th -- keep these dates in your heads and hearts and you keep me in your prayers! Thanks :)

Laura

First of all, this is about a month overdue. BUT my friend Laura Silletta (now Liira) got married a month ago and she is the best! I've always looked up to her because she's passionate, hard-working, and assertive (which you may not see as a good quality but I can state from experience it's almost impossibly to be an assertive girl without being seen as a total cow - which Laura does marvellously!).
Not only is Laura a strong woman of God but also a fierce warrior for God. One of the things I admire most about Laura is how she works so hard not for herself but for others. Every year she puts on a teen girls conference at Glad Tidings where she not only lifts up pre-teen and teen girls but also the leaders that serve at the event! She has also had connect groups for Adore women and City Youth girls, talked at Imadene for numerous summers, been a camp counsellor at other summer camps, and been loyal to all her friends. Sometimes I wondering if she ever really sleeps, but then I realize she never has bags under her eyes meaning she must get 8 hours of sleep a night. Very impressive!
Still, of all the wonderful things I've said about Laura I mostly have to thank her for being the first person to trust me with giving a seminar to a room full of teen girls and a sermon to a camp full of pre-teen girls. She was one of the first people who has ever believed in me as well as one of the only ones who did something about it. I'm so thankful for the relationship her and James share and for the beautiful journey God has ahead of them. Congratulations you two! I couldn't have imagined a more perfect pair.

Cycle #4

I had my fourth cycle of chemotherapy yesterday and it went okay. I started the day at 9:15 showing up at the clinic and taking 10 & 1/2 pills for anti-nausea, anti-inflamatories, anti-allergies, and some other stuff I don't fully understand too. That was definitely the worst part because I kept gagging every time a pill started to go down. This only started happening as of my last chemo cycle but all of a sudden I hate swallowing pills and would rather throw them up than keep them down. yucky!!

The next part was getting an IV in my arm. I had it in my right arm yesterday because I like to switch back and forth so I'm less likely to get scars. My sister and mom came with me yesterday while I was getting all these things done to me and my sister has never liked needles. I've written about her experience with giving me my shot (although she's pretty great at it now) and I haven't yet written about when I had to get blood taken but let's just say it was a stressful experience. So, after getting my IV in yesterday, my nurse started telling me why it was more difficult for young people to get IV's than old people: more collagen in the skin and more water in their bodies (making the veins slippery and easy to miss or go straight through). After explaining this to the three of us; me, my sister, and my mom; I look up at my sister and she looks like she's going to pass out so the nurses had to ask her to lie down in a chair until she felt better and then Debbie got to the clinic and my mom and sister were able to leave for the day. I'm so thankful for my sister and she has tried to support me through this whole journey but if you are trying to help someone through something please know that it's okay to help them in some areas that you're comfortable with and you don't have to help them with everything -- if you try to help them with things that are difficult to you it probably won't end up being helpful.

On that note, yesterday's cycle was about the same as usual but for some reason I completely did not want to be there, yet realizing I would definitely stay there until the end of my treatment I would just randomly start crying intermittently throughout my treatment. It was pretty awful. I had my good friends Debbie and Bekka to laugh at me and help me feel better but overall I hated being there and would rather have been anywhere else in the world. On the bright side, I'm potentially past half way!!! And if that's not something celebrate I don't know what is!