What happened over break? (Joyce)

 


Friends, thank you for your continued prayers for our family. Thank you for personally asking how things have been going in the absence of updates. The past 2 weeks allowed for time and connection with my visiting family which is so special over Christmas. Thank you to Mom, Dale, Joellie, Jose, Shirley, Isa and Rafa for braving the Idaho and Yellowstone area snow! Thank you to David for facilitating some of those adventures and to Lyle and Lucia for being such spirited older cousins to the younger ones.

We did come upon some physical challenges. On the morning of Christmas Eve, I had to pause my “Super Cat Nip” cancer drug due to a hypersensitivity rash. While the reaction was not severe, the timing of this happening over the holidays was hard for me to process emotionally. We had just started this amazing, targeted drug less than 2 weeks prior and now we must stop it?! I was placed on steroids to attenuate the reaction, and it resolved within a few days without incident. I am grateful for the physicians, pharmacists and nurses that walked us through that process over the ensuing week. All oncologists we have met with want to give this drug the best chance to work. So as of January 2nd, I restarted the drug at a quarter-dose, keeping steroids on board, with a plan to increase the dose slowly every week over the next 4 weeks. I am one week into this plan. There was a bad return of severe headache for the first 24 hours. But now we know how to anticipate this happening at the start of the drug, and we also know how to manage that symptom a bit better. No more headache after day 1. I am grateful not to have seen the rash return this week and will be increasing the drug to half-dose tomorrow.

For those who appreciate specific prayer requests: please pray for the next month to have no complications with hypersensitivity as I increase the dose of the cancer drug. Pray for no side effects from the steroids, which has its own list of concerns. Pray for wisdom and discernment for my cancer team as they guide us through this month’s treatment process.

I hope to post more frequently and with deeper reflection as we return to routine. In the meantime, I will leave you with the verse that spoke to me in my earthly cancer-fighting body, mind and spirit this week:

“But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.” Philippians 3:20-21

Amen!

Joyce

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