It's been a challenging week. After a wonderful weekend including the beautiful wedding of a sweet friend, a movie with David, Angeline and Pierce, and a sweet Mother's Day with extended family I went home last Sunday night feeling pretty good. As I began to wind down and relax I started to notice inflammation and discomfort in my chest. I've been experiencing nighttime inflammation periodically and had discussed it with the oncologist. She adjusted and added some medications the previous week based on educated guesses as to what might be causing the inflammation. In the past, a nights rest has resolved the discomfort. Unfortunately I woke Monday morning with increased discomfort and redness around the port I have had surgically implanted for receiving chemotherapy.

The port is in my chest just below my collar bone. A line from the port runs up under my collar bone and has been inserted into a large vein. The chemo drugs, I'm told, would destroy/harden the small veins in my arms. Additionally one of the drugs is particularly risky to administer in the arm due to it's destructive nature if it leaks onto the skin. The small veins in the arm can blow out and allow the chemo to leak onto the skin. If this were to happen I would be rushed to the emergency room for surgery to cut out ahead of the the flesh eating drug. While the vascular system can "handle" the drugs that the skin cannot, they still take a heavy toll. In fact, my arms at the moment look like I've been in an accident, while trying to run an iv, my veins experienced several "blow outs" which left sore bruised areas on my arms and hands. This happened due to the weakened state of the veins from the one round of chemo.

I scheduled a visit with the oncologist Monday thinking I would be stopping, yet again, afterwards at my pharmacy, this time for antibiotics. Instead she (my oncologist) admitted me to the hospital for two nights to receive iv antibiotics. She was concerned with salvaging the port. Additionally, she ordered an ultrasound of the port area and entire left arm. The ultrasound revealed a blood clot in that port vein. The oncologists answer to my wondering why I experienced this infection and clot was that both are common when receiving chemo. And, the solution and prevention are, of course, more medicines.

I now go to a clinic at the hospital every day for injections in my stomach until the lab is happy with my blood (with the coagulation rate of my blood). Unfortunately the measurement dropped yesterday instead of rising as I need it to do. Once the injections are finished I will continue an oral anticoagulant for a minimum of a year to prevent further clotting. The oral anticoagulant has to be closely monitored which means many trips to the clinic becoming fewer as that medication stabilizes as well.

I'm confident the irony of chemotherapy has not escaped anyone who has experienced it. Chemo is killing me to save me. I'm slowly coming to understanding the process more clearly though I don't think I will ever fully grasp it. The chemo kills all fast growing cells. Apparently, if I understand correctly, while it cannot target cancer sells it does like them the best due to their very fast growing nature. So chemo drugs go after the cancer aggressively but the other fast growing cells in my body take a hit as well - hair, nails, skin, white blood cells, read blood cells, platelets, etc. This results in the variety of side effects including a vulnerability to infection. The goal is to kill the cancer faster than killing the rest of me. This is a battle that is statistically in my favor with the type of cancer I have. I can't help but stop even now and grieve for the many and their families who cannot claim those favorable statistics. Those who are being killed by chemo to die. Cancer is vicious.

But, it is teaching me. I just love the apostle Paul. Besides Jesus it is Paul who I would love to go back in time and spend time with. I cherish his honesty and wisdom. I relish that fact that he says so much but really the same thing over and over. My summary of that one thing would change as much as his words are abundant. For today I would say Paul says you must be killed to be saved. He always points to Jesus.

Romas 6:5 AMP
For if we have become one with Him by sharing a death like His, we shall also be [one with Him in sharing] His resurrection [by a new life lived for God].

Paul is, in the surrounding passages, addressing sin and grace. Grace is abundant because of our sin. "Should we sin that grace would be more abundant?" Isn't that just like us to ask such a question? Constantly trying to escape surrender to death and indulge in sin we either - Ignore God all together, some going so far as to deny He even exists. Some of us become what I've heard termed "Sunday Christians," referring to those who sit in the pew on Sunday to allegedly insure their eternal soul but live the rest of life openly indulging the flesh. There are those who do what I call, "staying on the cross" and even express misguided pride in their constant state of dying to their sin they are constantly struggling to overcome. These and other similar scenarios are all the same "remaining in sin." Should we remain in sin?

Romans 6:2
Certainly not! How can we who died to sin live in it any longer?

Then why do we remain in sin? This has been my prayer for several years. I came to understand that this Jesus I love died not just so that I would escape eternal damnation but even more specifically so that I would no longer remain in sin which leads to death or even in sin which does not lead to death. Now I arrive in this place many of us who call ourselves followers love to live in. In the sin does not lead to death and then we enjoy grace that abounds abundantly. Our names are written in the book of eternal life, we love Jesus and don't deny Him but we continue to indulge in the flesh, indulge in exerting our own selfish will.

Romans 6:3
Are you ignorant of the fact that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? We were buried therefore with Him by the baptism into death, so that just as Christ was raised from the dead by glorious [power] of the Father, so we too might[habitually] live and behave in newness of life. 

We have to be killed to be saved. Not remain in the glory of being killed (staying on the cross in pride) but being raised from the dead and living a new life. Not only escaping eternal damnation but escaping all together the bondage of living in sin. Living in sin is bondage. Whether we are among those who deny God all together, sit in pews Sunday and indulge throughout the week, grieve our constant suffering of sin, or live basking in and yearning a deeper nearness to Jesus while justifying an abounding grace for our sin, we are still missing it. I was missing it. I knew I was missing it. I knew I needed to stop sinning - stop separating myself.

Romans 6:11
Even so consider yourselves also dead to sin and your relation to it broken, but alive to God [living in unbroken fellowship with Him] in Christ Jesus.

I have defined sin, while teaching my children, as an acronym - separate in nature. Defining sin as separating ourselves from God. My kids cannot look me in the eye and separate themselves from me. I was remembering with them the other day the moment I saw this struggle come to Pierce's awareness when he was a little guy. Pierce, to this day, surrenders quickly if he finds himself in a moment of conflict or strife. That quick surrender was birthed one moment in the grocery store in my little mans heart.

I don't recall the exact scenario which had something to do with who would be pushing the cart. Pierce was set on ruling me. It was the man thing in him, it was the natural born leader in him, it was the sinful nature in him. That moment was more about ruling me and being ruler of himself than about who would push the cart. There we stood at the carts (with all 5 young kids in tow) in this moment that would forever change him. He would not look at me. He was separating himself from me in order to maintain exerting his own rule. I asked him to look at me. He did not want to. I saw it happening and I remember feeling joy instead of frustration at a conflict in the grocery because I sensed what was about to happen. Pierce loves me. He loves me so much and I knew it then as I know it now. He really wanted to win rule but more than that he loved me. After a few moments of contemplating he looked up into my eyes. Anyone who knows Pierce, knows his amazing joy spreading grin. The moment he looked at me, love took over, he surrendered and grinned and something in him was now aware that he could not rule himself, rule me and love me. He could not separate himself form me to exert his own rule and be untied in the love with me that we treasure and enjoy. He surrendered himself to be united to me. He learned how to be killed to live.

As I have said, cancer is moving something deeper into me that I have understood for a long time but was not owning. We can only teach what we know. I was seeing it way back when Pierce was much shorter than me, but something in me didn't fully take it. River has a harder time with surrender. This reflects me. I am now watching River soften. This also reflects me. He is learning what I had begun to harden in my stubbornness and am finally grasping deeply. My cancerous body is being killed with chemo in order to live and my sinful nature is being killed with surrender to love in order to live in unbroken fellowship with God.

The reward of cancer cells dying with chemo is, I get to keep living. The reward of dying to myself is I get to live in unbroken fellowship with Love. I can't begin to express how sweet both of those things are. Living is good, but living in fellowship with Love is really, really great.

I have a long way to go in this cancer battle. My next treatment is Monday, as long as this port is ready to go. I still have some tenderness at the site and hope it will not interrupt treatment further. It couldn't be helped but I don't like the delay in treatment last week and the sense that comes with it that I am losing ground - the fast growing cancer cells having more time to reproduce. It will be a long day going from chemo at the cancer center which takes 6-7 hours, then across town to the hospitals Coumadin clinic and after that up to another floor for the Lovenox injection. I continue to be grateful for the owning of life I'm gaining. This past week did feel hard though. Long hours in the hospital left me exhausted both physically and emotionally. The good news is, the fruits of the Spirit abounded - patience during my hospital stay. Not that I didn't dart out of there the moment the nurse gave me an out from the pacing I had resorted to. I'm so grateful for all the servants at the different facilitates. Nurses, techs, doctors are amazing individuals. I sat in the car and cried after a Coumadin clinic, Lovenox injection 2 1/2 hour daily marathon. It was a moment of cancer feeling really hard to do. I am so blessed to have a great deal of support. One phone call and I was all better. I know it's going to get harder. I also know my support is going to keep on loving me. And I still feel that really "getting" unbroken fellowship for all eternity is well worth some months of hard.