Visualize this

"Learn visualization" was one of the pieces of advice I got way back when in 2001. Visualize your chemotherapy as something positive. Make it something coming to your rescue, or something military-like that will help you in battle. Visualize the chemo as your ally, your partner in the fight. Okie-dokie. I can do that. Hey, it's like a form of prayer for my body, right??? So by the time my first round of chemo came calling on June 14th, I was ready.

First of all, I didn't know about how long it would take to drip in the pre-meds. Anti-nausea, anti-reaction (Benedryl) anti-whatever else (Prednisone) and a good dose of saline. I had lots of time to practice before the real stuff went in. I visualized Jesus on a white horse, with any army of soldiers in white behind Him. They were ready to seek and destroy all abnormal and unhealthy cells in my body. White, pure, healthy, cleansing. My army, my Savior...we were ready to do battle! When all of a sudden Jan showed up at my chair with big ole syringe (we're talking horse-size) filled to the brim with a RED fluid.(Adramyicin)

No-o-o-o-oooo. I said to her. Oh no! How can I visualize this treatment? I had trained myself to think of everything in the terms of white. Wait a minute...back up! What do I do now??? Even worse was the nickname for this chemo.......the "red devil". Yikes!! I was just about undone by this turn of events. Then my cousin and the people sitting near me started trying to help me out. Look at it as an ambulance, said one person. How about the Crusaders who carried the red crosses on horseback, (good one, I thought) . What about fire trucks and any rescue vehicles coming to help you to save you Jan suggested. I really don't know which visualization
I used, but I got through the treatment and after effects with very little problems.

That next Sunday, I was telling this same story to Norma, my Sunday school teacher. When I got to the part where people were making suggestions, she threw in one of her own. She looked me dead in the eyes and said, "no, just think of the blood of Christ." Talk about a moment of revelation. She was so very right. All I ever needed to visualize, to remember is that Jesus shed His blood for me on that cross and wiped away my iniquities and healed my infirmities. I needed nothing more. I needed only to remember the blood and what it meant. That I was washed in that blood, cleansed by that blood, healed and saved by that blood. Right then and there I knew.....like the song says, "nothing but the blood, nothing but the blood, nothing but the blood of Jesus." That was and continues to be exactly what I need to visualize.

I continue to use prayer/meditation and visualization as this journey goes forward. Every time I am in the treatment room at the Dr's office and I see someone about to get that big ole red syringe pushed into their IV line, I want to get up and run over and tell them about what they
are getting, and that they need to sit back, relax, and think about nothing but the blood.
Not about their own blood that was drawn from a needle earlier, but the blood of Christ that has always been there to save them.

And here's a good one for you: "they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb." Rev. 7:14 I get to use both white and red after all.