"My New Normal" Archives

Master of Chemo?

March 4, 2018 By dnicewonger@gmail.com Leave a Comment

Along with chemo came my craving for tater tots

Tomorrow morning I have the second treatment for this round of chemo. I find myself reflecting on the first treatment.

Master of Chemo

Tuesday after chemo was amazing. Sure, I was hooked up to my pump and had to carry this annoying “man purse” of chemo everywhere I went, but my energy level was through the roof. This was not the chemotherapy I remembered from last round. Maybe these new drugs were going to be easier to tolerate. Could it be I had become the Master of chemo treatments and was going to float through this process? [Read more…]

Competing Voices

February 20, 2018 By dnicewonger@gmail.com 1 Comment

Denial

The decision to restart chemotherapy was made some weeks ago. We were fine tuning calendars but I knew it was coming. I have not talked too much about it with anyone. Last time I talked about it openly and freely. For some reason I have not felt ready, or willing, to do that yet. Talking about my upcoming treatments felt like an obligation or a burden. Talking about it made it real and I was comfortable living in denial for a few more weeks. Last time we were surprised and the journey began in a matter of days, it caught us off guard. This time we have had weeks to think, plan and prepare. While the planning has been helpful it has also given me way too much time to be “inside my own head.”

Pouting

Sunday was not a great day for me. Church was awesome! We heard from our local Young Moms program. Heard testimony of how partnership between JAM Daycare and Young Moms is working to change lives. Worship was very good, and the sermon was not too bad. It was a great day. Emotionally I was all over the place.

I did not want to start chemo again. I know what the journey ahead will look like. Been there, done that and it is not something I am looking forward to. Right after church I got a phone call from the people who deliver the chemotherapy drugs prior to treatment. They wanted me home ASAP so they could make the delivery. There was paperwork to fill out and instructions to get. I wanted to go out for lunch. Cancer wins, home to wait for a delivery. I was not in a good place emotionally. [Read more…]

A PLAN

January 24, 2018 By dnicewonger@gmail.com 4 Comments

God is Good All the Time…All the Time God is Good!

It was not a surprise. When the nurse called to arrange todays appointment she said, “Dr. Saroha wants to review your MRI results and talk treatment options.” Nothing we talked about today took me by surprise. Now we have a plan.

MRI results

My MRI shows a “normal size liver with twenty metastases.” The good news is that back in 2016 when this journey started my liver was “enlarged with innumerable metastases.” We are making progress. The not so good news is that there are signs of active cancer in multiple metastases. One spot in particular has “grown significantly.” Not the best news, not the worst news.

Expectations

Realistically we are right about where my oncologist expected us to be. When he decided it was time for me to take a break from chemo I asked, “How long will this break last?” He told me to expect a break that lasted anywhere from a few weeks to a year. I was blessed with a little more than a full year chemo free. Things are progressing pretty much according to his expectations.

Listening to Dr. Saroha and making plans everything seemed so matter of fact. I remember the last time we were making these plans. There was anxiety, fear, a sense of the world spinning totally out of control. Today it felt calculated, matter of fact, almost emotionless as we were objectively planning the best way to attack this illness alive inside me.

Nancy and I know what to expect. Fridays will mean blood work and an oncologist appointment. The following Monday will mean chemo all morning long. Tuesday and Wednesday of that week I will feel weak and tired. Thursday morning I will begin to feel more like myself. Pace yourself, recover, repeat twelve times. [Read more…]

MARKERS

January 14, 2018 By dnicewonger@gmail.com 2 Comments

The signs were there. Markers of what was. Easily ignored when viewed alone, but built one upon the other they served as markers that a new season was about to begin.

MARKERS

Walking up the hill to the local coffee shop I was out of breath. This felt familiar. “Stop being paranoid, you are simply overweight.” The truth is I have not really exercised in over a year. My trips to the gym cut short because of the neuropathy. I am at the upper end of my normal weight fluctuation. Any time I have found myself near this weight life has not been easy. It has served as a reminder to change habits and get myself back into shape. Start the diet. 10,000 steps per day is the goal.

CAT Scan is complete. The normally emotionless nurse who administers the test places her hand on my shoulder and says, “You be well now.” There was tenderness and caring in her voice, her touch, in the entire interaction. It caught me off guard. I have talked with Nancy about her. I have shared about how she is all business, kind of robotic as she goes about her job. This was different. “Stop imagining things.” “Maybe her boss has started to help her get better with patient interactions.” [Read more…]

looking backwards

December 27, 2017 By dnicewonger@gmail.com Leave a Comment

I have been on a somewhat unusual journey for the past few days. It started when I began to transform my blog into a book. At first it seemed like a pretty straight forward project. Take the posts from one format and put them into another. Ultimately that is still the reality of what I have been doing. What I was not prepared for was how the process would affect me.

Remembering the journey

I spent time laughing as I remembered the day Rayann drove me to my chemotherapy treatment and took me to Owen’s vet instead of my oncologist.

I felt pain as I remembered what it was like to sit on our front porch with no energy, no sense of a future and wonder what tomorrow would hold.

I was thankful for Nancy and the way she walked with me the past twenty months. Her grace in the midst of difficulty and pain has been amazing. I am humbled by the reality that she chooses to continue to journey with me.

As I read there were moments of amazement as it was abundantly clear that God was using cancer to help me grow and mature as a person and a spiritual being. Part of our vision statement at First Baptist includes the words, “Empowering people to grow into mature followers of Jesus.” There is no doubt I did some maturing and growing over the past year and a half. (there is still a lot to do) God allowed me to see things with a clarity that I would never have seen without fighting cancer. I came to walk with a sense of peace and confidence that affected every piece and part of my life.

In my July 2, 2016 post I talked for the first time about the needs of the caregiver. I spoke about how it is often hard for the caregiver to take care of themselves. Growing out of those early thoughts we now have a Caregivers Support Group that meets at First Baptist. It is a young ministry but it is a good ministry. The group that meets there on the 2^nd and 4^th Tuesday of each month know that they are not alone and that people care for them…the caregivers.

Rollercoaster

Reading through the journey of the past twenty months it is clear we were on one giant rollercoaster ride. On August 18, 2016 I wrote,

People ask me, “When will your treatments end?” The short answer is, “they will not.” The longer, more complete and honest, answer is: “My treatments will continue to keep my Cancer at bay until someone finds a cure for the type of Cancer I have or the treatments are no longer effective and I experience the fullness of what Jesus talks about as ‘Life to the Full’”.

The truth is that is what my oncologist was telling me at that time and it was what I believed to be true about life. Since then I have received an awesome gift! January 9, 2017 was my last chemotherapy treatment. It was decided for me on January 20, 2017 that my body was tired and it was time for a break. This break has lasted almost a whole year! It could last even longer. January 3, 2018 I have labs, followed by a CT scan on the 5^th and then my follow up appointment with Dr. Saroha on the 12^th.

My prayer is that the rollercoaster will continue its upward climb.

This has been a good project for me. It is far from complete yet it is reminding me of lessons learned over the past twenty months. One of the biggest fears I expressed during this journey was that I would lose some of the lessons and insight as things got better for me. I have seen it way too often in the lives of others. In the midst of a crisis we tend to learn truths, make commitments that fade away as life returns to “normal”. Reading through this journal has helped me commit to retaining lessons learned and continuing to move forward.

God is Good All the Time…All the Time God is Good (btw: this first showed up in my posts on May, 5, 2016)

A Novel

December 22, 2017 By dnicewonger@gmail.com Leave a Comment

Christmas is an exciting time of the year. One of my favorite things is catching up with friends from “past lives” as cards and letters drift in. This is a totally unfair pleasure on my part as our family is horrible in this department. I would blame my mother but she was a good letter writer and insisted we write to people on a regular basis. I digress.

A few weeks ago we received a card from my first spiritual director. Scott helped me wrestle with issues of faith and over the years our paths have crossed a number of times. I had the pleasure of being in a small group he facilitated. Our conversations were always rich and I walked away a better person from time spent with him. It was good to hear from him. I sat down and mustered up my letter writing skills and sent off a quick note. A few days later my phone “dinged” and there was an email from Scott. In the email he talked of my blog and then wrote these words, “Have you given thought to publishing your “stuff”? even just as a self publisher for family posterity?”

The truth is I had thought about it. There had been fleeting thoughts but nothing that amounted to anything. His “nudge” was enough to get me looking at it. I spent my spare time over the last week moving posts from my blog into a word document. Turns out there were 88 posts written from May 2016 till today about my journey. Thanks to the word count feature in Microsoft Word I can tell you that amounts to 85,247 words. To be fair, I can not take credit for all those words, Nancy did put together some amazing posts.

As I moved posts from one platform to another I spent time re-living the experience so far. I have some thoughts but need to think about them some more before I share. One thing is abundantly clear, God’s faithfulness rings out though the entire thing. I was allowed to see just enough for each day. In moments of darkness there was just enough light to help me put one foot in front of the other. God’s mercy was shown me. Yes, in my return to health, but even more in the way I was met in times of darkness and struggle.

I pray I never forget God’s faithfulness. It was not an easy way to learn that lesson but a lesson well worth learning.

Thank you for traveling the journey with me.

God is Good All the Time….All the Time God is Good!

WHY ARE YOU HERE?

December 19, 2017 By dnicewonger@gmail.com 1 Comment

“Why are you here?”

Nancy and I were waiting in the oncologist’s room. Talking about anything but why we were there. My last few reports had been good but there is always this sense of fear each time we head back to meet with the doctor.

We heard the familiar knock on the door and then he entered. There were no words of greeting or welcome. The first words out of his mouth as he entered the room, “Why are you here?”

All the reports look good. Numbers are fantastic. “I do not need to see you for three months.” It is safe to relax and breathe again. Make a few plans, schedule a few appointments and head out the door.

Anniversary

I have been blessed beyond all expectations! I am nearing one year without any chemo treatments. January 9, 2017 was my last chemo treatment. When this journey began in May of 2016 my oncologist suggested the most positive expectation I should have regarding life expectancy was two years. Nobody is promised tomorrow, or even this afternoon, but it does appear that I will be shattering their projections.

The fact that I have been blessed beyond all expectations humbles me…and troubles me. [Read more…]