Lymph Journal #27

2/8/2012

Chemo Day #1 Round Three

After six days of feeling quite good it’s time to face the music again.  I’m hooked up and ready at nine AM with today’s gang of fellow infusionees.  The Marmalade Lady has just entered the room her knitting needles and sonic voice confirm the sighting.  We’ll have to wait and see whether today will have a topic for her.  There’s another lady stretched out in one of the lounges not hooked up to anything but asleep and snoring up a storm.  Another pair of patients in quiet conversation and a Sudoku puzzler is hard at in in another chair.  So far I’m the only overtly chemo bald person I’ve seen in the treatments so far.  I’ve suspected a few wigs along the way (in a quick room scan there are two pretty certain cases today) so I guess I sort of stand out.  Well, the hat was getting itchy so I’m letting the head shine in all its glory.

Today’s the day when, along with a few other odds and ends, I get the Rutuximab (Rutuxin) infusion.  I got the bill for the chemo drugs administered by infusion the other day and Rutuxin is definitely the big ticket item costing excess of 3000€ or $4000.  The mice used in the process of growing the monoclonal antibodies that make up Rutuxin must be pretty well paid. 

My hemoglobin is down a bit but still in the acceptable range at 9.0.  I’ve been feeling quite strong – I even skipped the elevator this morning to get up to the treatment center.  The lowest I’ve seen it was 7.  The day I had that reading was he day when death truly looked like a likely outcome of the disease.  Blood transfusion rectified the problem but today I don’t need one.  The slowness at which my hemoglobin has run down over these past few weeks is really quite encouraging and gives me hope that treatment is doing what it’s supposed to do.

Diane and I had a taste of home last night for my “last supper” before a round of chemo.  A local supermarket was advertising “winter Kabeljau”, German for codfish.  Sure enough that’s what it was – fresh cod filets with the skin still on thereby confirming the species.  So, creamed codfish was last night’s entrée (Carl had dinner out with his German teacher and two other classmates as a reward for having spoken the most German during their weekend in Munich) and it was delicious.  I’ve been craving decent seafood of late and I don’t think there’s much better a way to ingest protein that fresh fish.  Apart from bouncing grandkids on my knee and seeing family and friends, fresh seafood is what we miss the most living here. 

All is quiet from the Marmalade lady and the dopiness that is part of today’s infusion is beginning to manifest itself so, until later, Tschüss! (informal greeting/goodbye now banned in favor of Grüss Gott in certain Bavarian public schools).

Back from the edge of drowsiness and I look around the room seeing that some of the characters have changed.  The Marmalade lady knits (looks looks a mitten) on but remains conversationally quiet.  The snorer is hooked up to something now and there are a few new faces.  Day one of the two day cycle runs five to six hours for me so there’s lots of time for the actors to change.  The cast of sunlight has shifted about 45 degrees along the floor and walls and I hope to be out before I become a direct recipient of its rays.  The snorer has awoken, been disconnected and bid Adieu to us all,

I was listening to music while in and out of sleepy mode and it’s always a powerful thing.  I started writing today with no particular “message” in mind, I just wanted to give a first hand “real time” impression of the chemo therapy room experience.  But the songs once again force reflection.  Twice, in the last twelve hours, two different people have asked me how I’m “doing spiritually”.  It’s a question caring brothers and sisters of faith who’ve achieved appropriately intimate levels of relationship and respect are entitled and, indeed, encouraged to ask of one another.  It’s more that a Hello, how are you sort of question and it deserves an honest answer.  (in part because they know it might come right back at them!)

So, how am I doing spiritually?  The short answer is, “I’m doing well” but that certainly could use some definition.  The greatest anchor in doing well spiritually these days is the anchor of peace.  God has granted to me and to Diane as well, I believe, and, as is promised in Scripture, a peace that passes all understanding.  We are firmly assured, convicted and convinced that God is powerful, loving, strong and good.  He’s also in charge whether or not we recognize that so we might as well recognize that. We know that when all is said and done, what is important boils down to being found in Him.  In future posts I want to explore some of these ideas but for now just listing them is meant to identify the roots of our peace.  That peace ranges from enjoying each day in Him and with each other to, while missing the classroom that I love so much to being OK with not being there to whether this disease is beaten on this or the other side of eternity.

The last tune I listened to before picking up the computer again was David Crowder’s Never Let Go.  It pretty much sums up where I’m at right now.

When clouds veil sun and disaster comes

Oh, my soul, Oh, my soul

When waters rise and hope takes flight

Oh, my soul, Oh, my soul

Ever faithful ever true

You are known

You never let go

You never let go, you never let go, you never let go

You never let go, you never let go, you never let go

When clouds brought rain and disaster cam

Oh, my soul, Oh, my soul

When waters rose and hope had flown

Oh, my soul, Oh, my soul

Ever faithful ever true

You are known

You never let go

You never let go, you never let go, you never let go

You never let go, you never let go, you never let go

Oh my soul overflows, Oh what love, oh what love

Oh, my soul fills with hope

Perfect love, that never lets go

You never let go, you never let go, you never let go

You never let go, you never let go, you never let go

Oh, what love, Oh, what love, Oh, what love

In joy or pain, in sun and rain

You’re the same,

Oh, you never let go, you never let go, you never let go

So, I’m doing remarkably well spiritually.  No great revelations these past few days, no mystical heights or depths but peace. In the face of this great and good God and in the grip of His tenacious love I’m not in the mood to rant and rage (and yes, I know it’s OK if I do – I believe that, I’ve read the Psalms – but I’m not “there” right now). 

I’m OK and to those of you with whom I’ve earned the right to ask I will ask – “How are you doing spiritually?”  For all of time and beyond it is the most important question to which you can and should seek an answer.