Both Stacey and I are finding chemo to be entirely unpredictable. Every day is different, and some days things change from hour to hour. Its crazy.
Thursday morning, I got a headache and the chills. Like teeth-chattering, shaking chills. My temp was 95 and I just could not get warm. Through a call to the nurse navigator, my oncologist sent me to the local ER for a blood work up. Larry drove me to Sandstone with a hat, hoodie, winter coat, blanket, heated seat, and heater on 90 degrees. By the time we arrived, my temp was almost normal.
Chest x-ray, strep and flu tests were all negative and though my blood counts were low, they were within normal range, so they sent me home with a wait-and-see antibiotics and instructions to return if my symptoms changed or worsened. They could not explain my symptoms, and chalked it up to chemo reaction.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been told “Every person is different. We just can’t predict.” There are some things generally accepted as “normal,” such as hair loss and fatigue, but pretty much everything else is up in the air. It’s almost as though we are individually created–wonderfully made, even.
How can medical professionals see the immense variation in people and not understand that there is a grand design? How can they tell me “No two people are alike” and think that is a happenstance? The variety that intrigues and drives medical providers should easily point to a higher power and creator, even if they are unwilling to acknowledge the one, true God.
I, for one, am willing. There is one God, and He created me. He knows me inside and out, and knows exactly why my body is doing what it is doing. He has allowed and orchestrated every moment of my life, from before I was conceived. It is He who carries me, guides me, leads me. He will heal me. And I will acknowledge Him all my days.
For you formed my inmost being; You knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Marvelous are Your works, and I know this very well. My frame was not hidden from You when I was made in secret, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all my days were written in Your book and ordained for me before one of them came to be. Psalm 139:13-16
