Chemo: Round Five

   It's Saturday morning, 48 hours post-Chemo Round Five and I think I am doing alright.  Thank you again for checking in with me.  Five down, then just one to go.  Besides that, I had two other bits of good news that buoyed our spirits:

• The results of the PET scan showed good news.  My doctor actually used the word "great" when describing what he saw.  I will still need to finish the treatments and the ensuing stem-cell transplant but the scan results were exciting.
• The stem-cell transplant can most likely be postponed until after school gets out in June.  This is great news because I really want to get back to school following spring vacation and ride the rest of the year out with my students like a normal teacher.  I will have a rough start to my summer -- two weeks in isolation and then some time to recover -- but it will be worth it.

   All of this good news was enhanced as well by the presence of my two out-of-state daughters (with each one bringing a grand baby) being able to hang out with me for a few days.  What fun. All in all Round Five and the accompanying news has been fantastic.  Thank you to all of you for praying, for being in my corner through this ordeal, and for allowing me the room to heal and grow. So far my fifty-seventh year on earth has been a difficult one but it has also been filled with blessings and hope.
   But please continue to pray for those I have met and re-met along this journey who are battling through this ugliness too:

• Pray for Pete who just lost his wife Millie to this disease.
• Pray for Scott (and his wife Kathy) who is facing bladder cancer after battling kidney cancer just a few years ago.
• Pray for Nancy (and her husband Ed) who is one week behind me in her treatments for lymphoma and has been an awesome cheerleader for me through all of this.
• Pray for Howie (and his wife Ellie) as he battles through a very complicated case of cancer and Ellie who is recovering from a nasty fall.

   We are all members of a club that none of us wanted to be in.  But here we are as fighters.  We all share the same God and the same hope of eternity.  "The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet" (Romans 16:20).  Life is good.  Eternity is better.  Thank God for both.