Spidey Senses

I knew when I started this blog that there would be weeks I wouldn't want to post. Not necessarily just because of how bad I would feel or for lack of energy but because sharing your experiences, being real and all that, can be as exasperating as the experiences themselves.

I have gone round and round in my mind about what to post this week. There are something like 12 drafts saved in my queue because I have typed about 2/3 of what I want to say and then can't find the ending, hate it all, don't want to be that honest, etc.

So I'm just going to say it and then hit publish as quickly as I can.

Last week was just about the worst week of my life.

All the normal side effects showed up on cue: nausea, dizziness, a pounding headache. However, I also experienced something new.

Spidey Senses!

Yes, I'm enough of a geek to know that Peter Parker actually had a singular Spidey sense, and it was the uncanny ability to detect trouble.

I, however, had Spidey SenseS.

As if radioactively charged, my ears picked up on every.little.sound around me. I had to hide in my room and bury my head under my pillows because the amplified clicking and popping and scratching was driving me batty!

Under normal circumstances, I have the olfactory abilities of a hound dog. Seriously, they could put me on the K-9 unit. After the double shot of chemo, I could smell ketchup from the other side of the house. Poor Michael had to go sit outside in the cold to finish his French fries. You don't want to know what happened when he opened the bag of Frito's.

Ahem, those things are permanently banned from our house.

Despite my disdain for his food choices, my dear husband offered to rub my throbbing head. He's nice like that. After a minute, I had to banish massages as well because it felt like he was bruising me.

On top of all that, I couldn't sleep. I take a prescription medicine for Restless Leg Syndrome that should knock me out. But each night I couldn't doze off until at least 4 a.m. and then woke up after only a couple hours sleep. In the few hours sleep I did get, I had vivid, weird dreams. One was so awful and felt so real that it startled me awake and caused me to cry.

But that was a good thing because I needed to cry. More importantly, I need to fall down before the Throne of Grace and cry it all out.

As I emptied myself of all those tears and all my angst, God bottled the tears and He poured out His grace. And I realized that if I'm going to get through this thing, I am going to have to do some things differently.

1. I have to tend even more carefully to my spiritual life. To do that I have been listening to more sermons. I am shooting for one daily. I am also learning more about what it means to pray without ceasing.
2. I realized I need to ask for specific help on the weekends. Before I even had to ask, God answered that prayer with an unexpected phone call from one of the ladies at church. She is organizing meals for our family for the next few months. My family can now eat and I don't have to smell Frito's. ;-) If you are local and would like to help out, email me and I'll get you in touch with her.
3. I am changing my chemo schedule. I started on Thursdays and was told to keep to the same day of the week. I thought that would be a good plan because I would hopefully feel better by Sunday for church. I haven't, and it has only put a huge amount of pressure on me to get 6 days of work done in 4, all to no avail. I am taking some of that pressure off me by changing my shot time to Fridays after lunch. That will give me a little more time to get things done. I also suspect that my insomnia is due to the shot keeping me up late on Thurs and then it takes me 3-4 days to get back to normal. Hopefully, taking it earlier in the day will allow me to go to sleep a little earlier.

And even though it was a really tough week and there were some very low moments, please know that I hold firm to the belief that We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies.
2 Cor 4:8-10

I experienced some dark moments, but I have not lost sight of God and am experiencing the sufficiency of His grace in new ways.

If you are suffering like me and would like to hear more about who Jesus is and why I claim He is my only hope, please contact me. I would love to talk to you more. I would also like to recommend this podcast which explains the Gospel of Christ, what it means to cry out from a desperate place and what exactly grace is.

I am thankful for God's grace.

I am thankful for your prayers.

Love,