Lymph Journal #7

1/12/2012

This morning’s thoughts began with a reflection on how certain sicknesses and circumstances exert a force bent on shrinking one’s world.  Don’t take this as a pity party – it’s not meant to be.  The usual routines through which you establish your days get set aside, conversations drift from routine inclusion of the future to more immediate urgencies, favorite foods might now seem unappealing, the geography of life is less expansive – yeah, it happens – it happens to all of us many times in our lives. 

One flip side of this experience for us has been a radical realization of how large our world has become.  We’re still waiting on South America and Antarctica but all the other continents have checked in with people offering encouragement and prayer.  People who share what they’ve been through, people who have shared how their lives have been intersected by ours and the promise of prayer and thought are all such an encouragement.  And, this very day, a dear friend and supporter in the States is undergoing cancer related surgery – our prayers are with her – especially after receiving her card today acknowledging the “same boat” status we’ve attained.  God bless you M.

So, these things shrink your world and they expand your world.

Today was the first dose of the toxic portion of chemotherapy.  Having heard stories both horrible and not I wasn’t sure what to expect.  Things seemed to just go rather routinely.  I was given what the therapy called for over the course of a few hours, finished Josh Harris’ Dug Down Deep (a sort of systematic theology book with a personal bent), listened to some music and watched the drip.  It was a quieter day in the chemo club room – no dissertations on marmalade.  The real bright spot was when, towards the end of my session, a grand older lady came in, IV paraphernalia dangling from her right wrist.  She was on either side of a robust looking age eighty (my best guess).  Regal, whimsically so, in no way proud or haughty.  She was just infectiously, genuinely happy to be there, to be awaiting treatment, to be in a room that she could (sorry for the cliché) light up with her smile.  And, to any of us who were not in a chemical stupor at the moment, she did.  I don’t know her secret but she had the gift!

We’re getting the routine down pretty well with these appointments.  Diane has been terrific – well in every way – but in particular with getting me back and forth for (x)hour long treatments that usual become (x+[?])hour long sessions. She’s learning the ins and outs of the city of Lörrach, we’ve coordinated the drop-off, pick-up points and she can go home in between to work being only about 20-25 minutes away.  Driving in the early morning in a German city is fairly challenging stuff.  We discovered 7:30 is about the worse time on a weekday.  It’s semi-dark.  There’s a bit of ground fogginess about.  The vehicular traffic is heavy and it includes not just cars but mopeds skittering in and out and lots of bicycles.  Then there are hordes of pedestrians at the crosswalks and hitting the Walk buttons at the busier intersections and throwing a logical flow of traffic lights into disarray.  Many of these walkers are the ubiquitous schoolchildren trudging to school in the dark with their rigidly rectangular backpacks that usually are wider that the child. Really, they look like hard colored boxes with shoulder straps – I have yet to figure out when the German schoolchild actually abandons this model and goes with the soft-sided.  I’m sure there must be a rule or custom.

Tomorrow I’m scheduled for a transfusion to pump up the hemoglobin – now that’s something to look forward to – no joke.