Thursday, August 16, 2012

Day 114 Victim or Victor?

Stayed off meds yesterday in order to be able to write checks and pay bills.  Blurred vision and a fuzzy mind do not make for a good pairing with parceling out money.   I had big hopes for this week and so far have had 1/2 day on Monday that I can say I felt good.  The upside is that the bad days are far less worse than the bad days last week.  Just a few more days and we'll start the process over again.  Dr. P is like a puzzle solver and I'm confident that he is going to come up with another solution to at least let me have part of the time when I'm a useful functioning person. 

I really need today to talk about my daughter.  She is a marvel and at this point in my life she is my fortress.  I remember the point when roles reversed and I became the parent and my parents became the children.  Melanie is having to deal with that now and I know, for her, it's gotta be difficult.  She has her own health issues but I have never ever heard her complain.  As a child, her kidneys were damaged and she was cautioned from early on that she should not have children.  When she became pregnant, I made most of the dr visits with her where weekly she was advised to terminate her pregnancy.  No!  A risky pregnancy, an even riskier delivery and for the next 13 years her kidney function was at only 30%.  Lots of meds, injections, iron  infusions and finally 6 years ago her kidneys gave out.  An incredibly successful transplant from a then healthy me and she never missed a beat.  Juggling sometimes over 30 pills a day, holding down a demanding job, being mother and now wife also, keeping up a healthy lifestyle and no one can believe she is a transplant patient.  Never a complaint about all the antirejection meds.  Never a complaint about anything.  Just get it done.  Now its time for her to have a colonoscopy and more complications.  What meds can be stopped for the cleanse?  Which doctor can do what?  Still no complaints.

Me......... another story.  When I'm deep into the chemo haze and sobbing that I would rather die, sweet Mel just listens, consoles and does what she can to help me get through.  Oh my gosh, I've turned into a drama queen.  I've turned into my mother, for goodness sake.  Who would have thought?  Certainly not me.  Not only do I look more and more like her............when she was 90!..........but I sound more and more like her and I think I whine just like her.  Oh, poor poor Mel.  I certainly never intended to burden her with this.

I do hope that some of Mel's strength and good characteristics come from me.  We're both pretty stubborn.  Everyone wants to do things for me and I have to admit that while I was in Walmart on Tuesday trying to pick up everything I needed I wondered why I didn't take someone up on running to the store for me.  And why I didn't accept Tineke's offer to stay with her through chemo.  And why didn't I stay with Mel as she asked me to last week through the worst part of the chemo.  Here is the reason and also here is the reason, I think,  for Mel's strength and independence.  I am only now realizing that a serious health issue takes over your life.  For me, it has been like all of a sudden I have no control over my life.  I am shuttled from one doctor to another, told to do this and to do that, to take this and to take that.  That last stubborn decision, wise or not, to stay at my home and to shop for my own groceries whenever I can and to drive myself to chemo is taking back some of the control that I've had to relinquish.  I suppose it is what in the long run is going to take me from victim to victor.



This is my sweet girl on the left, her best friend forever, Jackie, then me before surgery and the beautiful lady on the right is friend Renee that we have prayed for many times here as she fights breast cancer and wins that battle.

Today I am asking for prayer for support of my daughter, Melanie.

Precious Lord,
I knew she was an incredible gift when You gave her to me but I had no idea what a gift she would turn out to be for my entire life.
I ask Your healing mercies on Melanie today.  I ask that you strengthen her body to deal with fewer and fewer medications.  I ask for a perfect report for her colonoscopy so that this disease that seems to have taken hold in my family has no chance to touch her life. 
Lord, You know how much Melanie loves You and what a witness she is for You.  Keep her strong in her roles as wife and mother and daughter.  What a blessing she is to everyone who knows her.
I ask these things in the name of Jesus Christ, the name above all names.
Amen

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