A Valley

Last summer we had the opportunity to travel through (what seemed like) a huge chunk of West Virginia.  Good friends of ours were vacationing there with most of their family, and we were joining them just for one night and to hand Rachael over to them for her to visit them and others we had left behind when we left Arkansas.  As we got started, it was raining, and though some would say it looked pretty dreary, I would have said it just looked pretty (remember me and my penchant for every day).  But there were moments that the surroundings could only be described as perfectly gloomy and filled with foreboding.  The sky would be dark, rain would be falling and there would be mountains all round.  We were in a valley.

Last week I was in a valley.  Thank you for all who reached out to see what if anything was wrong.  And I am sorry that I've been a week negligent to my calling.  I can only say that it was a bit of a downer to have had such a great weekend (again) with family, and I was already feeling fatigued.  The wind was taken out of sails, so to speak, and I think I needed a time to recharge.  So what happened during my absence?

Well, the week (31 October through 7 November, my longest dry spell, I know) started with us driving back From Newport News on Reformation Day.  Work on Monday, a partial day on Tuesday (for an appointment with the VA), and the rest of the week was essentially as it has been  - work, with periods of fighting off the fatigue.  Then came Saturday.  Well , I have gotten ahead of myself.  Thursday I received my flu shot and also a pneumonia vaccine.  Friday, I felt pretty good, still fatigued, but making it by.  Then Saturday came.  I could not get up Saturday.  I did eventually get up and make it to the den in time for the NC State/Clemson game, but I slept through the entire first half and most of the second.  I was running a fever that at one point was over 103.  But covered in blankets, and armed with Motrin, I broke the fever with about nine minutes to go in the game.  Saturday night the fever returned, but this time it brought a headache along and it would not let me rest.

So I tossed and turned all night and into Sunday.  For this to have been Fall Back time, it felt like we gained an entire day, not just an hour.  And about 2 o'clock and a fever now of 102.8, we went to Inova Fair Oaks Emergency Department (they told me they had a VIP room just for me - this was, after all, our third trip there in the last seven months), where we saw the first doc we had seen way back on our first visit and who had been the one to recommend the follow-up MRI that started us down our journey.  Sweat still running down my head as if I had been running (which I assure you I was not) and they take my temperature upon arrival - 97.8!  After blood cultures, a CT scan of my sinuses (suspect for the headaches) and a chest x-ray, it was determined that I have a sinus infection, and a possible inflammatory reaction to the pneumonia vaccine (a six inch long red spot on the back of my left upper arm that is hot to the touch and painful).  A bag of fluids and a script for an antibiotic, and all is well again.  We had great nurses there, and Joyce did a fine job with her first ever accessing a powerport to get a blood sample.

So today I took the day off to try to recoup as much as I could, and I knew I needed to get back to this blog.  I also took the step of going all the way back and copying all the previous ninety-five posts into a file on my external drive - something Cynth had been after me to do for a while.  And I feel that I owe either an apology or I should ask for your understanding - in looking back over many, I have found way more errors than I though I had left from my editing.  Now I am going through and re-editing them and putting them in  chronological order, but it is a huge task.  I know that I can talk the bark off a tree; I didn't know I can write the white off of paper.

Here I am now, though.  A week after I began what has thus far been my worst week.  Just a general malaise that insidiously (like hypoxia is insidious) but surely took control.  Yet, that should be expected, I guess.  It comes down to I don't like my situation right now.  I want my situation to be much different - cancer free, not watching each and every hour I have to be away from work, not concerned about the time away from Cynth or the kids for doctors appointments or being too tired to engage, being able to work on and finish many of the projects I have started.  OK, all of the projects I have started, and many that I have not yet begun.  I miss being in choir, where even now they are beginning to work on the fabulous Christmas music that has become so huge for me during the season.  I miss helping with our Lay Counseling ministry.

Change is hard.  It is hard because it requires something of us.  I hate change, much like I "hate" growing, but yet growing and change go together, especially when the change is such that you are shaken out of your norm, which probably happens with every change, it is just a matter of degrees.  Praise God that He never changes.  I cannot imagine going day-to-day with all that "happens" wondering when the next shoe will drop, the next piece of bad news will come, or whatever may come next, and just taking it as it comes and reacting as if out of some sort of script that no one has rehearsed.  What a huge, freeing peace it is to know that my steps are ordered and guided lovingly by the One who created me.  When I face the evil of this world, He shepherds me through the darkness of the valley, even though I may be there a while.  And when I stray, He hears my cry of repentance and he leads me back in His way.

I was not alone last week.  God was with me, encouraging me, building me up, readying me to continue in this journey - this life - not just the cancer part, but my life.  For this is His story too.  His story of redemption and restoration that began with His act of reconciling me to Him through the work of Jesus who died my death in obedience to the Father to satisfy the debt I could not pay because of sin.  I am not alone now, for the Spirit is with me to teach and guide, perfecting me as we go.  And I will not be alone in the future, because God raised Jesus from the dead and so shall I and all who believe in Jesus be - raised to eternal life to be with God the Father, Jesus the Son, and God the Spirit as it was meant to be.

Thank you again, for all your notes and encouragement.  I am happy to be back in this saddle again.

God bless you all as you go this week and in the weeks to come.