No, I am not out strolling, nor am I in a bar partying with friends or something like that. I am just home, unable to sleep since midnight. My family is sound asleep, and I relish being alone with my thoughts...
I kind of miss this, actually. I had been out of my chemotherapy drugs for about three months, and I was pleased about it: my life was back to normal. Well, new normal for me.
After having been ravaged by multiple myeloma, radiation and chemotherapies of all sorts, I am now 1.5 inches shorter on my right leg; have cataracts on both eyes, had a lens transplant on my left eye; has hearing discrepancy on my left ear; got peripheral neuropathy on both legs and some on my hands. I now have hepatitis b; had been attacked by dengue fever, had two or three attacks of pneumonia, had shingles and had first hand knowledge of what 'writhing in pain' means when I had UTI a couple of years ago. Quite a resume, don't you think?
But yesterday, I had to have that pesky chemotherapy again - Velcade, Cytoxan, Dexamethasone - to bring down my cancer counts so that I can have the stem cell transplant that my oncologist planned for me.
So, here I am, experiencing anew the effects of the drugs: my stomach was queasy, was lightheaded for a short while, got very tired early so I slept, only to wake up at midnight, and tossed and turned for two hours. Now, I am just making full use of my sleeplessness. If I'm not mistaken, I will be very energetic tomorrow, but will be out of sorts by Sunday and Monday.
But you know what? There's a good side to this thing: It seems that I am able to draw out my deepest thougths at this time - is it cortisol, or something in the drugs I took? Hmmm... this is worth a study, or perhaps someone had already studied this? Add to that is the fact that I got a relief from this toothache that annoyed me this week, plus my right leg is not much of a bother tonight. I believe these are all from the steroid that caused all the havoc that I enumerated above. Well, short term benefits, versus long term destruction? Can I even vote?
It is a good thing that I have discovered these words a couple of weeks ago:
"... Even when called upon to surrender those things which in themselves are good, we may be sure that God is thus working out but for us some higher good."
"In the future life the mysteries that here have annoyed and disappointed us will be made plain. We shall see that our seemingly unanswered prayers and disappointed hopes have been among our greatest blessings." MH 475
With an assurance like this, who can not rejoice in this 'new normal'? I don't know about you, but I will bask in my greatest blessings today, and every day afterwards.
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