A Week in Review

I was released from the Cancer Agency last Saturday around noon, heading into Abbotsford shortly thereafter. Coupling my nausea with the badly pot holed West End roads, the drive was an interesting challenge needless to say.

Visistors…
I would like to take a moment to thank all my visitors over the past few hospital weeks! Also heartfelt thank you’s to everyone who wanted to come but distance and circumstance made it impossible …I know your hearts and I thank you. Thank you to the emailers and poster’s as well! As you can imagine, when you’re all but shut out from the outside world with just cancer swirling about, things can get dreary. A massive “THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!” to my New York visitors. Mike, Tim and Ron – it was so great to see you guys, what an awesome surprise!!! Hope my conversation was at least mostly coherent (being on the meds and all). Really! Your visit was very special!
Of course I would be remiss if I did not mention Duane’s daily visits. We can often put the regularity of family visits in an assumed place on the shelf but we must make mention of and appreciate those who join us in the monotony of everyday hospital living. With a schedule of sleep, work, hospital, sleep, work, hospital, sleep, work, pick up new mp3 player for Carin ;-), hospital…they too are hospitalized in a way. Thanks for sticking it through with me!

The Weekend…
Upon arriving in Abbotsford I bee lined it for a very few of the must do’s before everything closed. Then finally…PIZZA! Hmmmmmm. After two weeks of hospital food I needed something really yummy, even if it needed to be tolerated with a mit full of anti nausea meds! The rest of the evening was enjoyed sleeping in my own bed! Hmmmmmm. Another coup of the night!

Sunday! Yay Sunday!!! I have been missing my friends at Fresh Wind so very much and seeing everyone was a highlight beyond words. I love you guys!!!
After church it was off to mom and dad’s for fathers day lunch where I watched them watch me be all blurry eyed trying to stay lucid amidst the pain and nausea meds. Needless to say I was the comedic relief of the day.

Sunday night and it’s back to Vancouver for us. Although treatments have officially ended, as I noted in my last post, my treatments where compounding so my body doesn’t yet know that treatments have stopped. Thank heavens that’s in the body clock for this week (please please please!!!)

The Week…
How to sum up the week? Thankfully I’ve been able to dramatically decrease the anti nausea medications I’ve been taking, so that’s really good. The pain meds are unfortunately a different story. I’m still on those as consistently as ever which makes doing life really hard. Actually sitting at home doing practically nothing is about all I can manage…and I really really really hate that! Even simply staying on task to write this dreadfully difficult. I won’t tell you how long it’s taking me to write it ;-) What little energy I did have for the week went into dealing with some family stuff, some new, some old, all of it draining. Amidst it all there were a couple of positive breakthroughs in a week full of anger and frustration.

Well…it may not be a great summation but it’s 4am and I need to try and get some more sleep. I’m heading into a conference weekend starting tomorrow with Murray Dueck and Eric McCooeye titled “Power in the Rest” Unlocking the secrets of the Resting Place (check it out at http://www.samuelsmantle.com/) Saying I could use a refresher on the subject would be rather redundant but I am looking forward to it tremendously. Eric is one of the spiritual fathers of our church and although I’ve heard him speak on the resting place several times it never gets old. It could technically be the same message each time but it’s a new message each time because you are at a different place in life each time you hear it. So when the spirit is willing, it really is brand new every time!

Kay, so I’ve begun to blather…
Weekend should be good, have got a hotel room in Langley for the weekend to ensure lots of rest for between those busy conference sessions. Rest, rest and resting…rather fitting don’t you think! My heart is set on seeing my loved ones from Samuel’s Mantle (which I’ve missed for at least the last month) and hopefully some from the Fresh Wind family too (it feels as if I’ve bee out of the loop there for nearly that long as well which is really hard on my heart.)

If you feel lead…please pray that the pain would subside so I could reduce the amount of pain meds I need so I can simply begin doing life again…would be so nice.

Love to you all!
Carin