HIGHER THAN I

Hear my cry, O God; Attend to my prayer.
From the end of the earth I will cry to You,
When my heart is overwhelmed;
Lead me to the rock that is higher than I.
For You have been a shelter for me,
A strong tower from the enemy.
I will abide in Your tabernacle forever;
I will trust in the shelter of Your wings.
(Psalm 61:1–4)

I’m sorry for not updating you all sooner. There wasn’t really anything new to talk about, other than that the PSA numbers keep falling. This past week, I had a PET scan. This is one where they inject a dye into my vein, the cancer attracts it, and they take pictures of where the shiny spots are.

To summarize where we are: each month the PSA numbers continue to drop, 222 to start, 11.2 last week. I’ve had a bone scan that revealed that the cancer has spread to my bones (hips, spine, skull, etc.). This past week I had a Pet scan. There was good news and bad news with these results. The good news is that the cancer isn’t in most of my soft tissue and organs. The bad news is that the one place it has taken up residence is in my liver (two lesions).

So far, I’ve talked with an oncologist, who wants to start me on chemo right away. And a radiologist who wants to start radiating the cancer yesterday. I will be talking to a surgeon next week to see what he has to say about the whole thing.

What I would like is for there to be one place where I can go to get information from either everyone at once, or from everyone who is in contact with everyone else. I’ve heard there are places like that and I’m pursuing that option (if it is an option).

I’m experiencing more and more pain in my back, but it is nice to know that it may not be the cancer causing the pain (probably a side effect of the hormone meds). It still doesn’t hurt when I’m sitting still or lying down. Getting enough sleep has been difficult. I need to use the bathroom several times a night and have difficulty going back to sleep afterward (which is strange, because I didn’t need to get up in the night before these things began).

After visiting with the oncologist, this past week, I became very sad. When I got home, I thought, “I think I’ll just sit on my couch and cry for a while.” That was a strange idea. Then I thought, why am I so sad? So, being sidetracked by the question, I didn’t cry, but I also didn’t get a good answer for why I was sad. I suppose it was because the doctor said there is no hope. The best that can be done medically is to apply all these things to keep me alive longer. At the same time, her description of what being alive would look like didn’t sound much like being alive, if you know what I mean.

She said with no treatment I would live six months. I wasn’t sure if she was saying six months from when the cancer was discovered or six months from now. Either way, it made dying much more certain and imminent. I remember reading that Samuel Johnson said, “When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.” Even though I’ll probably live longer than a fortnight, I spend way too much time thinking about my situation.

So, I remind myself that it isn’t about me. It isn’t my party. I don’t live for myself. I live for and to glorify Jesus, my Lord. I pray the prayer above and hope in him for my future and the future of everyone I know and love. I call to him, I plead with him, and I believe that he is higher than I. I know that he lives and that whatever he has for me is higher than I. When my heart is overwhelmed, he leads me to the rock, and he is my shelter and my high tower. I pray for healing and I pray that if he doesn’t heal me, that I would live with my infirmities they Paul lived with his in 2 Corinthians 12 when he said,

Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power
of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in
reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For
when I am weak, then I am strong.
(2 Cor 12:9-10)

Please join me in praying this way for me and for you. My niece has a sticker on her car that says, “we’re all going to die.” And you know what? We are all going to die. So, let’s all join together and lift one another up to the throne of God and hide in the shelter of his wings.

Thank you for praying for me and for letting me know you’re praying for me. In the same way that the hard news made me sad, your kindnesses lift me up and remind me that there is more to life than living. Dying is also about life. And it’s all part of the adventure.

Image by Eukalyptus from Pixabay