January 1, 2001|
Happy New Year’s y’all! I just wanted to give a quick update of my current situation. My energy level is just toast, so getting on the computer is miracle in itself. I appreciate all of your encouraging emails and cards. Someday in a month or so I will be able to respond fully. So I apologize for not writing back sooner. It literally takes all my energy to write something like this.
I am being pumped full of tons of chemo and various anti-nausea liquids. I end up urinating about every 45 minutes on the dot. I have gotten used to it, especially since I have to save it for the nurses who keep a running tab to make sure everything is flushing through. These are some powerful drugs, and they really wipe me (Mr.Energy) out. Usually by 6pm I am out. Not necessarily tired, but unable to do anything like watch TV or read – almost like a zombie. It’s incredibly difficult for someone like me who can’t stand just lying around without doing anything.
The other tough part is eating. From now on, it gets difficult as the nausea usually brings it back up. After tomorrow when the chemo is done, I will be finished with nausea (thank God!) but mouth sores causes by the chemo killing all rapidly reproducing cells will make eating impossible for the next 10 days. Art = twig boy, for sure. After that everything rapidly heals and gets back to normal. It is just the next 13 days to get through. I don’t ask for much from y’all, but I will now. Please pray super hard for me for the next 13 days. Like as hard as you ever had. Pray that I can deal with the nausea. Pray that the days pass quickly. Pray that I can sleep. Pray that I can “fast” (Like y’all) for 10 days straight without it decimating me. Honestly, I am so scared. This is the toughtest test I have ever encountered, and there is no studying or preparing that can help, it’s all game time. After this is all over, I will look back and wonder at how I survived. The only answer will be the prayers of the righteous asking Christ to give me the peace that passes all understanding.
As I look back over this past year, a time of reflection, I realize despite the suffering, uncertainity, hardships that I would never change it for the world. Sure, there are times when I wish I could snap my fingers, and wish I could go back to last February and have the doctors discovered mono instead of cancer, but all in all, I wouldn’t trade it. All that I have learned, all that I have grown, from a boy to man. From a being “religious” to actually knowing, feeling and understanding God. I can see a Mastercard commericial coming out of this …priceless.
And probably one of the most rewarding things of this year is seeing how you all have stepped up to bat for me. Always. I sit here with my quilt and see all the hands of friends, family and co-workers from all over the country on there, rooting me on. The e-mail encouragements, the calls. I feel like I need to repay y’all, but I know I will never have enough time on this earth to do so. Love, I think I know what it is now too. 🙂 Never really knew before this all. Anyway, I hope you all have been blessed as much as I have during this adventure. It’s almost over, almost have reached the peak. Just pray that I get up there. Thank you.
Art