Round 2, Meeting Jesus, & a Prayer for Nurses
Tomorrow, Round 2 of chemotherapy begins. In recent days, besides some fatigue, I feel like my “old self.” What a gift to complete the first round, for these better days, and to get to receive another treatment.
As the new cycle of treatment begins, some challenging days will surely follow. We are working with doctors and nurses to alleviate the side effects, especially the nausea. Last round, it felt like a really rough hangover that wouldn’t fade away.
I am learning this is the new normal, where I will trade a few tough days for more good ones. This is a small price that I will happily pay.
I am tempted to give in to anxiety, and to wonder if the treatment is working. It helps when I tell myself that the other side effects, like “first bite syndrome,” sudden hot and cold streaks at night, and pain in my fingers from touching or being near the cold (like opening the fridge), are signs that the chemo is working. I comfort myself with these words from Proverbs (3:5-6), “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.”
Tomorrow’s next round is also a spiritual invitation to deepen my relationship with God. Specifically, it is an invitation to reunite with Jesus on his path to Calgary, a road I have yet to travel due to an incredibly blessed life.
When I was feeling my worst, a few days after Round 1’s treatment, I used my spiritual imagination to meet Jesus on what we Catholics call the Stations of the Cross. (To be completely honest, this devotion was always my least favorite from the time I was a kid in Catholic elementary school. I never understood why the Church would be filled on a Friday evening in Lent to symbolically walk with Jesus during his Passion. I understand it now).
This is where my spiritual imagination took me last time:
I find myself with Jesus at the Garden, also asking to be spared, before accepting, and re-accepting, God’s will.
Eventually, I am too tired to even think, letting my thoughts go and to simply rest with the moment when Jesus, who was in much greater pain and suffering, took His next step.
In time, I meet Jesus on that Good Friday as he carries His cross to its final destination. I, too, find comfort when my loved ones help me carry this cross, who wipe away the tears and sweat from my face, and lift my spirits.
I wonder how the depths of His love for me, so many years ago, invites me to meet Him there and here now.
I pray that when the time comes, many, many years from now, I will meet Jesus on the cross. I pray that I will also meet Him on that Sunday morning when it is no longer a spiritual exercise but a spiritual experience.
A Prayer for Nurses
I am grateful for your continued prayers.
In addition to the prayers you say for my healing and for my family, I ask you to also pray for the nurses who meet me and hundred of thousands of other Cancer patients/survivors each week.
My oncology nurse told me that in their small office alone, they see 140 patients every day (up from 70 a day, 7 years ago). They are doing so much more than connecting IVs, they are meeting the wounded Christ and giving all that they can to support the healing process.
Let us pray for them, all who leave their own crosses at home for long hours, only to return with heavy hearts and physical aches from caring for those entrusted to their care. We are blessed by their wisdom, their skills, and their love.
