health | TRICIA LATHROP

February 18

It’s been a rough few days. Norm continues to ride the roller coaster between going to die and going to live.

My plan was to take him home yesterday. Dr Cutrer said that it would be morally and medically unethical to send him home. BP still iffy, but his oxygen levels had dropped so much that there was no way to give him the oxygen he needed. And still, we wait for answers.

The question is what really is the cause…there are all kinds of fungus. Cultures still growing.

Norm’s brother and sister came, they helped to bolster his spirit, I think the pain meds helped to return Norm to his wisecracking self.I heard Norm laugh multiple times, and he was nice to the nurses.

I’ve decided to tell Norm that he is free to stop the fight. If he wants to live, which is what I want, he needs to do it for himself, not so that he’s not a disappointment. I don’t know if he heard me, but he is my hero….very supportive and encouraging for all my endeavors.

This writing was interrupted. Norm came back from his MRI, in pain (not from the MRI), and agitated. He kept saying over and over, “Oh Lord, you are my God, and I will ever praise you.”

He was in a lot of pain, his oxygen and BP levels were sinking. The nurses put a mask on him and told him to continue the chant, just in his head because talking caused his oxygen level to reduce.

I sang the song to him as he tried to focus on breathing. Song after song, but the oxygen level stayed too low. The nurses looked very concerned.

Suddenly about ten people entered the room, in a rush and began to work with Norm. Dr Cutrer took us out into the hall and asked us what had happened. Then he spoke to one of the nurses. Norm would need to go to ICU and possibly get a breathing tube.

I spoke to Norm about the tube, he was concerned that it would be the rest of his life. I assured him only a few days, giving the doctors a few more days to find the treatment that would get rid of the fevers, and allow him to continue his cancer treatment.

They rushed him to ICU, where he got agitated again, he was confused and I wasn’t allowed in the room while they got him hooked up to monitors and a breathing apparatus…not an intubation.

They got him to be stable…but we still don’t know what is going to happen. It’s scary. Will he recover? Will we have another miracle? Or will he continue to decline? Here we are again, waiting to see what happens, waiting to know if there are any answers to his illness, waiting for whatever the Lord will do.

Where’s the joy? Another day when it is not so clear.

I am thankful for the care and concern shown by the nurses and doctors at each step of this journey.

I pray for a friend who is dealing with pneumonia, and had to be transferred to a hospital where she may have an operation.

I rejoice that God remains faithful, even when it seems he is not there.

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. Lamentations 3:22-23

I tried to load the song from Michael W Smith, “Step by Step”. Perhaps you can find it on YouTube.

December 5

Tomorrow we head back to the hospital for Norm’s brain chemo. He stays at the hospital for at least two days. We see evidence the chemo works. Norm has more energy than he had from August to October. He no longer tries to scratch his skin off. I am grateful for our medical community that works to remove the cancer, and those researchers who go to work each day in order to find a complete cure.

I’m taking joy in these days of reprieve. Three more months of chemo to go, but trying to take them one day at a time.

I am thankful for the medical community that stepped in to save Norm’s life.

I pray for the researchers to continue to discover more effective and less painful ways to battle cancer.

I rejoice that God is in control. He knows what I cannot see, and has a plan. “‘For I know the plans that I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.'” Jeremiah 29:11-13.

A lot of people quote this verse about the good plans that God has for their lives, they don’t realize that God said this to the people just before they went into 70 years of captivity in Babylon. I take comfort in this. Norm has nine more chemo treatments. He’s captive to the cancer in his body. But God still has a good plan for him, a future and a hope. It includes a promise that God will hear and God will be found.

Where’s the joy? Today, Norm and I had lunch with some friends of ours.

Posts Tagged With: health

Where’s the Joy?

Where’s the Joy?