Battle Weary

Battle weary. Sometimes I just get that way. When there is not a break from the pain, the exhaustion, the anxiety, the feeling that I will never see a day again when I feel normal...there is always something.

My chemo friend Sue just happened to be getting bloodwork done yesterday while I was getting IV Zometa for my bones. She and I started our real hard fight together. the fight when the news had been terrible. The Stage IV fight. The fight where you stop looking too far out in the future and do battle day by day and week by week. We have seen each other go through a barrage of treatments, hairdos, hair colors, weight fluxuation and, of course battle fatigue.
She has been on a break from chemo for four months, but yesterday she took the time to comiserate with me about how hard the battle gets. Pain is always the issue. We are constantly looking for ways to defeat it. Not so much pain from the disease but pain from what years of chemo has done to our bodies. Sleep is our second issue. Who knows what nights you will end up not sleeping for who knows what reason and how that takes you down for the following day....a day you don't want to waste but do anyway because it's too hard to get out of bed. Then there is the constant sticks, pokes, shots, withdrawals, labs, and the ever-looming scans.

Sue and I have woven these components of cancer treatment into the fabric of our everyday lives. We live by a different calendar than people who do not fight the disease. Our time is divided into sections of 1 week, 10 days, 3 weeks, or 30 days. We have different measures for our successes and milestones of our lives. We both are a pair of extroverted, verbally expressive soldiers who never forget what is lurking somewhere back behind us in the shadows. To an outsider, we may look like two queens of denial, but we are really street-wise gang members who are living large but always mindful that a drive-by shooting may be just around the corner.

Sometimes all of it just wears me out. I was pretty fed up with the whole thing yesterday. Janet probably picked up on it when she saw me the day before. The inside of my mouth was sloughing away, the skin on my hands is like tissue paper, and the exhaustion in my voice had to be detectable. Despite all of our great, great victories over the past month, I can never forget that, as in any war, the battle takes a toll. This isn't sugar water they're putting in my veins. Really, I do not know the last time I was off chemo.....perhaps over two years??? Janet and Maha are giving me an extra six days before my next round. It feels like freedom.

But, as always, I will take whatever it takes. I have never said "no more". I will still be loud and happy and positive and hopefully, bring something meaningful to everybody I see during this journey. When I get so exhausted physically, I also rest in the comfort that God is always there to "cover (me) with his feathers, and under His wings (I) will find refuge;" Ps.91:4
Throughout the whole book of Psalms, God is constantly providing rest, refuge and protection for the battle weary David. He still does it today to all that ask it of him.

So when I feel weary. When the battle seems to overwhelm me....I only have to do one thing.
That thing is to remember the words of the greatest Comforter: "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest." Matthew 11:28

The footnote to all this? The denial queens have been comiserating over the battle coming up on four years this month. Not bad for a couple of crazy gals.