Today, Wednesday, Joyce has her CT scan scheduled. It takes a couple of hours. She has to be fasting from the previous evening and then, two hours before the procedure, she has to drink several large containers of a chalky/mint flavored solution and then goes into radiology, lies on a sliding table which slowly moves her into a donut shaped tube. She has to lay still there for about 15 minutes as dozens of images are taken that show whats going on with her insides. We won't know the results until we meet with her oncologist next Wednesday. I think this is the 8th time she's had to do this in the past 3 and a half years.
Tomorrow she has to have a bone scan done. That one takes a couple hours also but is less trying. She gets a quick injection of some kind of dye and then we go have breakfast and shop and two hours later we go back to Nuclear Medicine and the put her an the sliding table again and take lots of xray type pictures that show whats going on in her bones - taht's where the cancer has metasticized the past couple of years.
Finally she has to have a blood draw which in tested for particular chemicals that are dumped into the blood stream by active tumors. It's called a tumor marker test and shows if the activity in increasing or decreasing. All the above tests will help us determine if her current course of chemotherapy is working against her cancer.
Hope I didn't bore you with the details - it just helps me sometimes to articulate what's going on.
Joyce continues to be tolerating the chemo she's been recieving since January pretty well. She get real fatigued at times and has only had a couple of days where the pain has been bad.
So here we go again, the testing and then the waiting and then the meeting with the doc. A pattern we're all too familiar with but never get used to.
Through it all, the Lord is our strength and our strong Tower. He holds us all the time - even though we don't often "feel" held. Feelings must yield to faith...and faith is the substance of things hoped for...the evidence of things not seen. Heb. 11
More later.....got to take Joyce for her CT scan now.
In His Arm's, Pat
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isnt it amazing on how well you become an expert on something you never signed up for?? but in it all GOD remains faithful and HE remains in control!! i am just so thankful that HIS mercys are new every single morning...because when you get something you never signed up for more times then not WE need HIS mercy and grace!!! and through that in the mist of everything HE blesses and were able to bless others!OUR precious PASTOR PAT we continue to lift you and joyce to our merciful LORD JESUS and we pray for this week and next!!
ReplyDeleteGOD bless always!!
Thank you for your sharing. You and joyce remain in our prayers.
ReplyDeleteGod is so good!!