There's Power in God's People

   It's a Monday.  It's strange how unless one has a regular schedule and set of habits that go along with a week, one can lose sight of both what day it is and why it is really important.  For a quick health update, I am doing well.  Achy, tired, not hungry, but well enough to think that I should be somewhere else doing something else that is far more worthwhile than what I am doing.  I think I have to go to school for a day or two this week because otherwise I will go crazy.  But I also know that when I get moving a little too much, I get tired quickly and what seems like permanently.  We went to the museum with my two-year-old grandson yesterday afternoon for just an hour.  He loved it but his method of checking things out demanded much movement and little reading.  There were also times when the only way to deal with his viewing habits was to physically pick him up and move him along.  I came home and fell asleep.  I have never been a napping person, but this cancer experience has changed that in a big way.
   We continue to be blessed though.  Thank you.

• Scott came by and just talked old times and basketball and camp and future.  It was good.
• Another Scott came by and reminded me that even though I feel like dead weight around here, my mission should be to live this life right now courageously.  Maybe this blog will touch someone.  Maybe my reaction to this or that will make someone sit up and notice that this thing is not done with my strength but with a God who has asked me to go through this.  Maybe it's a note, maybe it's a look, maybe a response on Facebook that picks up someone else at a moment when they need it.  I guess it's a challenge to just be faithful in all I do.  Maybe that's a reminder for each of us.  
• Kyle and Michelle gave us a new table for our kitchen.  Gave.  Michelle works with Connie and was talking about an extra table they had made as they are preparing to get married.  They brought it over yesterday, moved it in, assembled it, and now we have a new table.  
• Maria, a former student, left an encouraging word for me and told me that I was strong.  Me?  She is the one who has gone through life with a host of physical problems - from birth.  She is the one who defines strength and positive attitude in the middle of things that are not positive, and yet she tells me I am strong.  That little interchange meant a lot.

   Who does these kind of things for a guy with cancer and his family?  God's people, that's who.  We received five more "get-well" sorts of cards in the mail today.  See?  All of this points to how blessed we are.  As it continues and continues it also continues to amaze.
   Today I am going to take a walk to the bank.  When I come home, I will switch the laundry over and empty the dishwasher.  Maybe I will paint a chair to match our new table.  Maybe I will even fold the laundry and put it away.  Then...well, probably a nap.  No, then definitely it will be nap time.  It sounds like a Monday to me.
 

Jesse and His Mimi

   Since Thursday evening and lasting through tomorrow afternoon, my grandson has been visiting our house.  Since my daughter and her family live out of state, this kind of visit doesn't happen too often.  Jesse just turned two years old at the beginning of January.  He is so much fun.  My wife was such a wonderful mother to our children when they were small and that gift of motherhood she possesses is being magnified and repackaged as "grandmotherhood" on Jesse.  He loves his "Mimi" and she loves him and watching that relationship have a chance to grow during this weekend has been so wonderful.  Lincoln logs, a mini-basketball, blocks, random game pieces, magnet letter tiles, and other sundry items that have not seen the light of day for a long time are now mixed in with each other and scattered across the living room floor. My wife doesn't seem to mind as long as Jesse is here and having a good time.  The grandmother/grandchild relationship is one of the purest forms of love imaginable, certainly in the case of Connie and Jesse.
   So it is.  Seriously, this is what genuine human love looks like.  Love is a separate entity from  romance.  Love has nothing to do with privilege or gender or position or prestige.  Love is blind to the entropy that is all around it.  Love is unconditional.  Love is filled with expectation and hope.  Love has nothing to do with the frequency of the visits or the length of the visits.  Love is patient and kind, slow to anger...and now those words are not mine but God's (1 Corinthians 13).  Paul says that a husband should love his wife just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her (Ephesians 5:25 ff).  I like Paul and all, but isn't it interesting that he tells husbands to love their wives but he never had to tell grandmothers to love their grandchildren.  I am guessing that is because they have a bond that is deeper than even Paul could describe.
   Don't get me wrong.  I love the child too.  Spending time with him this weekend was wonderful.  But watching Grandmother and Grandson together?  That is magical.
 

Divine Randomness

   From John Piper's Don't Waste Your Cancer:  "We waste our cancer if we fail to use it as a means of witness to the truth and glory of Christ.  Christians are never anywhere by divine accident.  There are reasons for why we wind up where we do...so it is with cancer.  This will be an opportunity to bear witness.  Christ is infinitely worthy.  Here is a golden opportunity to show that he is worth more than life.  Don't waste it."  
   I was humbled today by this fact.  I had a non-appointment to go in for lab work sometime today -- the particular time did not matter.  I left the house at 10:12 am (I noticed the timer on the stove as I left), a perfectly random time in a perfectly nondescript day.  After the obligatory waiting room time and the cursory viewing of two or three magazines, I was called back to the extraction room where they took a vial of blood out of me.  No sweat.  When I came out one vial lighter, I saw Nancy.  She is my chemo buddy, and she had her family with her as they were awaiting their Round Three regimen.  She has been having a harder time with the effects of chemo than I have had.  We hugged, encouraged each other, reminded each other of the team we represent, and she was encouraged at a moment when she was scared.  I decided then to walk through the clinic and pray for the random folks there.  Sure enough, one of them was Howie, another older friend who is in for his first round of chemo (even though he has fought this battle before).  We offered each other greetings and I reminded him that God's got this, even though it is frightening.  We laughed and I was able to pick up his spirits a bit.  In doing so, both Nancy and Howie picked up my spirits.  There are reasons why we end up where we do.  Both of these were divine appointments.  Both were meant to happen.  Both had to happen.  God orchestrated them to happen.
   The random time wasn't so random.  The nondescript day wasn't so nondescript.  The non-appointment time wasn't so "non-scheduled."  It all unfolded the way it was supposed to.  We Christians have to make ourselves available to these kind of moments.  Being a part of God's divine appointments is a humbling adventure.  Watch for them.  Follow through.  Even if it is "randomly."

Fatherhood

   Another new day - this one is a Wednesday - and I have some sneezing and wheezing going on.  This is not a good thing when one is dealing with the effects of chemotherapy because the medications knock down a lot of things in the body, including the white blood cells that fight off illness.  So I supplement with other additives and keep going.  But hey, it's a cold.  Let's go.
   I have decided to read through the Psalms again.  I have a new Bible to write in and I am looking for something to underline or highlight that grabs my attention in each psalm, that points to truth, that crystallizes some facet about who God is.  Psalm 10:14 says, "But you, O God, do see trouble and grief; you consider it to take it in hand.  The victim commits himself to you; you are the helper of the fatherless." When looking at these verses, it is always dangerous to pull something out of context or to individualize a passage to make it fit one's own situation.  But it is also interesting to me how often when one in trouble one is considered to be "fatherless."  Ah, the role of the father...I don't think I have the energy today to start poring over all that this entails.  Maybe tomorrow.  I think the simple reminder for me today is that I still need to be a good father through this experience, even if I don't have the energy to move ahead.  God, give me the strength to be a good father today, despite the powerlessness I feel.  
   

An Old Dog With Friends

   The kids are out the door and on their way to school for another Monday.  My wife is feeling a little better after a nasty weekend cold and cough.  I am home waiting.  So it goes.  For those concerned about how I am feeling, I think Round Three has gone better than the others so far.  I am four days past that experience and I have had no huge residual effects other than the exhaustion and the queasy stomach.  This is all good.  Let's keep going.
   Report cards are due this week.  I will be working on them from afar.  This is the first time in 17 years I have had to produce report cards for students and the last time I did this I used a grade book that was actually a book of grades.  Now of course everything is on line and in a web program and my pre-technological mindset is struggling a bit as to how to do all of this.  I am sure my friends at school will help me out and I know parents will understand if what they see is somewhat prehistoric in nature.  "Old dog...new tricks."  I will keep moving forward.
   Friends, thanks again for the you-know-what and the how-do-you-dos:

• Julie, your gift and your visit were wonderful.  Thank you.
• Matea, your comment ("You don't look so good") made me laugh.  Thanks.
• Eric, once again you skim off the top of your business to bless us.  We appreciate your generosity more than you will know.  Thank you.
• Judy, your e-mail conversation has lifted me.  Thanks for thinking about me.
• Linda (a woman I have yet to meet but I am sure that we will one of these days) I appreciated your kind words and your uplifting sentiments.  Thank you.
• Sean and Melissa, thank you for blessing Tessa with a great weekend.  
• Mel and Scott, I find myself thinking a lot about you all and hope this endurance race you have started is starting alright.  I am sorry I could not be with you.  You may think these things go unnoticed at times and in moments when everything is fine and rosy they have a tendency to drift into the background.  But I think the immediacy of difficulty makes one notice these things so much more clearly and therefore appreciate them so much more fully.  Thank you.

   Let's keep going.
 

Chemo: Round Three and Brazil's Burgers

   Saturday morning...I begin by saying thank you so much to so many people who have been following these disconnected writings of mine.  People tell me they appreciate reading what I have to say but honestly, it becomes a form of therapy for me to get some of this written down.  While it allows those who care to stay current with how I am doing, let it be honestly revealed I have my selfish motives for writing this blog as well.  There...confession...I feel better.
   It is about 48 hours since Chemo Round Three entered me.  I am alert but have the familiar lack of appetite, slight nausea, and that too-tired-to-think feeling.  I understand this is all a part of the regimen but it is still frustrating.  Sometimes "chemo-brain" takes over and my thinking gets quite skewed.
   I dreamed last night that I was a short-order cook in Brazil.  I did not understand anyone because I don't speak Portuguese and the orders were backing up.  People were yelling at me, weird little animals were skittering at my feet because the dining establishment was a dive to begin with, and my grill was getting more messy all the time.  Finally I awoke in a sweat, quite relieved to find out it was all a dream.  Now I don't put much stock in dreams.  I am not looking for someone with Joseph-like insight to describe for me what all of this means.  While it was genuinely weird, I think that it does encapsulate a bit of what is going on with me.
   My brain is telling me there are many things I need to do and that this disease and its effects are keeping me from doing life well and I cannot understand how to get it all back in order again.  My blessed wife reminds me to not be hard on myself but that doggone sense of responsibility that is either genetically transferred to me or drilled into me as a kid does not always allow me to wait well.  To wait...well.  Catch...a breath.  Re...lax.  God's...got this.  Take...a breath...then...another.  Whew. I've got to do this better.

   Dana's visitation hours are tomorrow.  I don't know if I will be up for going but I really want to.  Please pray for her family.  Dana and I have this connection and Lord willing we will be able to talk about things some day.  Oh, and my grandson sat in a U.S. mail truck yesterday and pretended to drive.  He was so excited.  Life is still fun and funny.  But stay away from Brazil.  Their short-order burger joints are very dirty and confusing.

Dana

   Dana died last night.  Dana is the sister of Mel and Scott, two very dear friends.  She was young (in her forties) but finally succumbed to pancreatic cancer after a year of fighting it.  This hits close to home for a number of reasons.  First of all, I feel so sad for Mel and Scott who have to go through this loss.  Mel's family is wonderfully woven together like a tapestry and are very close. Now they are mandated to go through this season of grief.  At least they have each other, yet grief strains everything.  It stops every other desire, responsibility, duty, and emotion in its tracks.  It doesn't allow one to go on until it chooses to abate a little bit, then it will come up and grab the heart again at an unexpected time in an unexpected way.  God, please help Mel and Scott and the rest of the family to wade through this grief together with you.  Lead them on this journey.
   Secondly, I feel loss because we were praying for her and she did not recover.  While God is sovereign, there are still times I wish I could grab him by the ears and yell, "What are you doing?" This beautiful young mother is taken by this nastiness and there seem to be no obvious answers about why God allows this to happen.  That's probably because there are no obvious answers about why God allows this to happen.  We just don't know.  I am guessing questions like this are seldom if ever answerable on this side of heaven.  We live in a world that when one asks a question, he googles it, and we are offered the answer, the quintessential answer that everyone who might be curious says," Ah...now I get it!"  But there is no app for grief.  It doesn't work that way.  God, while I know you are still sovereign, and while I don't know your reasons for this, I hope you do.  I know you do.  Hold these people close as they also will wrestle with this earthly kind of question.
   But thirdly and selfishly, it was cancer that took Dana.  The evil cancer that my body is fighting afflicted Dana to the point that her earthly life came to an end.  Sure, we each have different forms of the illness, but it is the same ugly, mean, unnerving, "get-back-to-hell-where-you-belong" disease that I am battling.  But Dana does not have cancer anymore.  She is now in heaven with Jesus -- this is not some false hope or general myth.  This is God's word.  As a believer, Dana is in Day One (like it really matters in eternity) of celebration and awe.  My daughter gave me a small booklet by John Piper entitled, Don't Waste Your Cancer.  After quoting 1 Thessalonians 5:9-10 ("God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him.") Piper writes in his preface, "That is enough.  I am not destined for wrath, but to live with Christ.  Until we see him, may God help us not waste our health OR our cancer."  This is a good reminder for me and you...every day.
   By the way, Chemo Round Three just finished for me.  We will see what happens from here.  I intend to fight this thing and finish strong.  After all, Dana did.

Making Progress By Doing Nothing...Except Thinking

   And the waiting continues.  It's a strange thing to be a busy person and then put everything on hold while one sits and waits.  Sure, there are things to do: lesson plans, laundry, drink more, eat more, text, and oh...the Waltons are on Channel 391 at 3:00.  My school community is on hold today too because of the freezing rain.  Many young moms are decrying this fact, but it is what it is.  But my waiting comes with milestones besides the "to do" list.  Forty-eight hours from now Round Three of chemotherapy will enter my veins.  While I have a total of six of these treatments, one should be excited to hit the halfway mark, and I am to some degree.  But each one comes with a cost of nausea, exhaustion, no appetite, and then, of course, more waiting.
   In my imagination I sometimes go back in history.  I ask my students to do the same thing when encountering historical characters in our studies at school.  I want them to imagine how their lives would be different and yet these people of the past also had families and therefore they most likely experienced love, pain, laughter, apprehension about the future, hope, money concerns, faith, hunger, and grief.  Each life on earth that has ever lived goes through these feelings and experiences.  Right now I am pondering those early explorers that sailed the Atlantic Ocean looking for a new land.  It's out there somewhere, but the waiting with its storms and uncertainties and endless waves must have felt overwhelming from time to time.  Even the beauty of sunrises and sunsets may have been of little comfort in the face of that kind of uncertainty other than the knowledge that they were generally still  going in the right direction.  For me I can sometimes wallow in similar feelings.  "Will I ever get there?" "Will I enjoy health and well-being ever again?" "Will I ever have the energy to do the things I used to do?"  Sure, one can ponder such things, but really the waiting must be waited out. But I also can wait it out with a sense of faith.  I have a faith that this journey is covered by God's supervision, that his Word is still true, that his claim of love for me is untarnished, that his promises are true.
   The waiting?  I can and will wait it out.  It will be worth it when we ultimately land in the New World.  "But those who wait on the Lord will renew their strength.  They will mount up on wings like eagles..." (Isaiah 40).  Now is the time to wait.  For now, progress is measured in the waiting.  I can do that.

Waiting for the Truck

   And the "Within One Week" waiting game has begun.  I am within one week for the next round of chemo and feeling fairly good at the moment.  Sure, I still don't sleep well and I get tired quickly but I have been eating fairly well again and don't have the constant nauseous feeling going on inside of me.  While I know I need to be happy for how I am currently feeling, I also know the truck is coming around the corner for the third time and is looking to steamroll me again.  Remember the Roadrunner cartoon on television when Wile E. Coyote turns around and the truck that says "Acme" on the side pancakes the coyote into his grill?  Yup.  Me.
   But let's go.  I need to learn how to be thankful in moments like this rather than anticipating the grief coming around the corner.  We all have grief coming around the corner -- I just happen to be fully aware of when and how mine is going to hit, at least to some degree.  But this is probably one way God protects us from ourselves -- we cannot know the future.  As a kid I used to think it would be wonderful to look into the proverbial crystal ball and know all sorts of things about my own future -- who I would marry, how many kids we would have, what they would be like, where I would work, and even how and when I was going to die.  But that is kid stuff and therefore, if that wish was ever granted to my childhood self, it would take away the need for faith, for allowing God to work through me, for the necessity of my ongoing sanctification, and I think would ultimately lead to despair.  God says that he is all we need.  I need to take him up on that when he tells me and not worry about the future -- even when I think I know what might be coming around the corner.
   The "Within One Week" waiting game has begun, and I need to celebrate the "Four More Days of Feeling Decent" game.  I think I will try.  I think I will go to school tomorrow and do just that.

Why Not Me?

   This is Day Three -- three days in a row where I am feeling more normal than I feel sick.  While this is good, I know that my next round of chemo is less than a week away.  So I decided to make myself useful today.  I crock-potted a venison roast (thanks Todd and Barb), I started the laundry, I sorted out the bazillion hats and gloves and scarves and socks that have ended up in one entropic pile at the foot of the basement stairs, and I walked to the grocery store.  It is now 10:30 and I am tired.  Not that kind of tired where one says, "I think I will sit down for five minutes to regain my strength." No, the kind of tired that stays in the bones for a good long time.  Ah, the new normal...at least for a while.  But hey, did you see how much I did already today?
   I realize this blog sometimes turns into a litany of blessings and good people and all of those warm and good feelings I have and for those of you who wish there was a little more gloom-and-doom, that's just how it is.  Find another blog if you want hopelessness.  While there are certainly times of questioning and sadness, most times and encounters are positive and uplifting for me.  Since lymphoma seems to have no real rhyme or reason as to who it afflicts, there is no need to ask the prototypical "Why me?" question.  I am a human, so "Why not me?" would be a more appropriate question.  This disease has invaded my body without asking for permission, and so I definitely think of it as I would a burglar or a terrorist.  Nobody wants it here.  Nobody has any use for it.  Nobody has any answers as to why it has to even exist.  But it is and does...I have to deal with it.
   But again, I look around and remember that I am not dealing with it alone.  Chris came over last night and just dropped off a load of food.  Alex is taking over my class at school and is willing to do so until after spring break.  Randy did not charge me for a minor car repair.  Tami sent me a long and rambling text that made me smile.  Lymphoma does not isolate me.  It does not take away the joy I see reflected in the actions of others.  Many are motivated by their love for Jesus and I appreciate that because that is what motivates me.  But others who do not have that kind of relationship with Jesus are stepping in as well just to make sure I am okay and those encounters bless me too.
   Three good days in a row.  I am thinking that soon I need to find ways to bless others as well.  I don't just want to be a taker and, somehow when this is over, I don't think I will be.  But I think I will rest right now.  I am that kind of tired.

My Middle Schoolers

   I went to school for a while today.  I loved it.  What's not to love?

--Whit wants to move to Florida.
--Jess agrees because Michigan is too cold.
--Ainsley made batches of different colors of some kind of goop (they were each ziplocked).
--Will is building a battery out of paper clips and a potato.
--Josh and I talked about farming.
--Chase shared his basketball with me.
--Emma smiled.
--Ocean has a wedding dress hanging in her locker...trust me, we talked.
--Jackson learned to spell with his fingers...I didn't know that was possible.
--Logan told stories of Puerto Rico.
--Aly wants more homework.
--Gavin wants less homework.
--Olivia gave me two kiwis.

   Do you see?  Do you see why I want to get back there and enjoy these beautiful people?  Every day is filled with opportunities to meet and greet and love and be loved.  Every day things happen at school that nobody can prepare for, that nobody can expect, that never will happen again.  And they allow me to be their teacher.  I am genuinely a blessed man.  I have come to understand that for me, teaching is the greatest of callings.  I could work different jobs, but being with students on a daily basis leaves me humbled and enthralled.  I am exhausted after staying there up until 1:30 but I once again realized that I am in the right place and working with the right people.  A former colleague used to be fond of saying, "I came to teach but I stayed to learn."  I understand that now better than I ever did before.  I want to keep doing this job for a while, because I have a lot to learn.  It all makes me think, "I wonder what will happen tomorrow?"

Dave and Marv

   So I am officially now nine days away from my next round of chemo.  It is strange how nine days used to feel like a long time, but that doesn't seem to be the case anymore.  Physically I feel decent, even though eating and drinking never seems to be predicated on hunger or thirst.  I have to make myself do these basic things that have never been a problem for me before.  But food is just now starting to taste good again so it is time to eat as much as I can.  Sleep is still a commodity that gets tricky.  That good deep sleep that was once an unrecognized blessing of who I was never really arrives.  It has been replaced by a lighter version that tends to be more like a daze than a sleep.  I wake up frequently each night and then find it hard to get back to sleep.  Ah, it is what it is.  I need to remind myself that this is a temporary season of life.
   My friend Dave has reached out to me a couple of times during this episode I am going through.  When we were in high school together, Dave lost his father to cancer.  I remember going to the funeral and really confronting death for the first time.  It was surreal at the time to have such a good friend go through such a great loss.  But what Dave told me recently reminded me of God's grace all over again.  Back then, I just remember that Marv had "cancer." Dave recently told me that his dad had a large-cell, non-Hodgkins lymphoma, very similar to the variety of the illness I have.  Back then his dad could only be treated with experimental  drugs and protocols that very likely taught the medical community more about this disease.  Science has advanced to a place where now this very same disease that took Marv's life forty years ago is being treated with confidence by my doctors today.  Marv was a pioneer in this regard, setting the stage for the recovery that I will be and have been experiencing.  This was a humbling realization, but also one I am thankful to be aware of.  God's timing is once again a blessing to me.
   Onward.  I have nine days.  I have to eat, drink, and sleep.  Oh yes, and I have to get better.  Marv would have wanted that for me.
 
 

The Voices of Experience Matter

   I had a couple of great conversations with people yesterday who have gone through much of the stuff I am going through.  Scott and Tom, thank you.  Last week was a blur of down feelings, exhaustion, and the basic genuine crappy feel I have come to expect with this temporary new normal.
These two lifted my spirits and reminded me that what I am going through -- at least the mental part of it all -- is part of the package.  Without trying to describe the darkness I was feeling, let me just say that I had no energy to think and therefore probably no energy to fight.  My wife pointed this out to me at a time when I really didn't want to hear it but probably had to hear it.
   Nothing is easy.  I gotta keep going...

Announcements For My Students

   After one day back in the classroom, I would like to use this space today to simply report about a few things:
   1. I am now thoroughly exhausted.
   2. A lot of what concerned me about employment as a teacher and the accompanying   responsibilities during the next few months is being resolved.  I am blessed to have an administrator who sees what I am going through and is willing to hear me out and help me solve issues -- even when I am crying (although he knows a thing or two about shedding tears over important matters).
   3. I am more resolved than ever that I want to be at this school.
   4. I am more resolved than ever that I want to get better so that I can be the type of teacher this school deserves and expects.
    I am excited.  I am good.  I want to be a good teacher again.  I will be a good teacher again.  Watch out, my current students.  You are going to learn more than you ever expected when I get over this.  I thought it would be good just to warn you.

The First Day of School

   I am going back to school tomorrow.  This will be the first day since before Christmas vacation and I find myself quite nervous.  Honestly.  I am a grown man.  What should I be afraid of?  School has always been a place to be with students, to feel their energy, to guide their lives.  But I struggle with the root causes of that nervousness.  I struggle with notions of self-doubt (common for me).  The questions nag me: "Can I teach them anything?"  "Will I be prepared enough?"  "Will I physically be able to get through the day?" "What has been happening since I was last there?" "How do I deal with the details of sick-time, time off, short-term disability?"  "What is actually best for the students?" "Can I even do it?" I feel a little like Moses at the burning bush, offering up excuse after excuse about why I cannot go.  It has nothing to do with the students...I love them.  It is all rooted in self-doubt, in the feeling I have that I will be inadequate for the task, in some form or another.  My principal told me to take my time, not to worry, that he was fine if I return at 80% or 90% of what I was, as long as I think I can do it.  I am realizing that I will never score myself that high until Lord willing after this cancerous ride is over.  But I am going back tomorrow.  I have to.  I need to keep moving ahead.  Please God, grant me the strength I need to get through the day well.  Bolster me with your power to reform those relationships that are so important to me.  Let me stay focused on the important things and disregard those things that are not so important.  I need you.  Please.

Finding Out What Will Happen

   "Anyone can find out what will happen," 

Aslan said to the children as he shook his great mane.  

"Get up at once and follow me.  What will happen?  

There is only one way of finding out."

                                                                                         --C.S. Lewis in Prince Caspian
 
   I am glad I found that quote today.  I am still at home.  I am tired of always being tired.  I seem to have taken a step backward today just in how I feel.  I talk about how I want to live a day at a time, but I get impatient, expecting that each day will be better than the one before.  When that day-by-day improvement wanes, I get impatient and angry.  I want to be better.  But I am asked to just follow.  I am not asked to set the pace, to make the plans, to form the timetable.  I am asked to follow.  This is not an easy thing since I want to be in control of all of this damnable cancer and its nasty side effects.  But then I don't really have the choice.  Will tomorrow be better than today?  Will I ever really be cured or in remission or better?  Will I run and jump and dance and climb and backpack and laugh without giving this experience a second thought?
   What will happen?  There is only one way of finding out.  Let's go!

"So, How Are You Doing?"

   "So, how are you doing?"

   It seems like a simple enough question, usually offered in a genuine heartfelt tone.  But this question takes on weird meanings when one is going through hard things.  My hard thing lately has been lymphoma and (maybe even harder) chemotherapy.  How do I explain how I am feeling when I am going through something I have previously never experienced?  How do I talk about the constant nauseous feeling and the dry "urps" that come up out of my gut but seemingly out of nowhere?  How do I describe the razor-thin line between awake and asleep and how I never really knows which state I am in other than how the state of sleep can be characterized by slightly less nausea than the state of awake?  How do I pinpoint why I am not eating, why I am not drinking, why I must but I cannot do these things?  And why does the mere thought of beer or coffee make me cringe (by the way, God -- I really want those two tastes back when I am done with this!).  And why does a walk to the mailbox seem like three days on the trail with a heavy pack?  Oh, and then I have to come in from the mailbox as well...three more days.
   But please know you may ask the question.  I am not grousing about my friends that are concerned and really are want to know some sort of progress report in to the "So, how are you doing?" category.  Please know though that quantifying and describing might just be impossible given that you have other places to be yet today and I have a nap calling out to me.

   So, how am I doing?  I am hanging in there.  I have been better and I will be again.  Right now I think I will put on my cement combat boots and waddle out to the mailbox.  I'll be back in three days.

Nancy, Howie, and James

   It is now Monday morning -- the Rose Bowl Parade is on television and I understand the Lions lost last night.  Oh well.  Other things seem to have taken greater precedence lately.  I believe Round Two of Chemo (which was on Thursday, Dec. 29) is safely in my rear view mirror at this point and I think we made it through relatively well.  I still have no appetite -- I know, I know, I have to force myself to eat.  But other than the accompanying exhaustion that seems to come with each of these rounds, I think we will pull through this round relatively unscathed.  Thank you for checking in.
   I want to make sure that all of you who have been praying for me will also launch your prayers on behalf of a few others right now:
   1. Please pray for Nancy.  Her next round of chemo is on Thursday and she did not handle the first round any better than I did.  She is now one of my official partners as we pass through this craziness together.  Please bless her with your prayers.
   2. Please pray for Howard.  My friend's father is looking at the possible diagnosis of pancreatic cancer and has been through several bouts with cancer in the last twenty years.  His words have meant inspiration for many and now he needs prayers for his body.  Please bless Howard with your prayers.
   3. Please pray for James.  He is the brother of my auto mechanic and James, at 66 years old, has had many respiratory problems lately and is in the hospital.  My mechanic is a good man but does not have the saving knowledge of Jesus in his life.  I promised Randy I would pray for James -- please help me out in this regard.
   One does not have to go far to find people in need.  The New Year typically is a time of optimism and hope but for many people that does not seem to fit with whatever they are facing.  Trust me...cancer sucks.  There is nothing good about it.  But I have hope, a future, a support system, a great God, and a family.  Many people endure what I am enduring without these key factors.  Please remember them and look for a neighbor that you can bless somehow today.  Thank you for reading...now get busy with the praying.