This morning the Spirit whispered to me, He said…
Love is safe.
Love is strong[er].
Love is super-sized.
I appreciated His words, but it took a while to understand them…
We went in to the Doctor this morning to get a plan for what’s next.
For starters…and this is really embarrassing…I fell down in the clinic parking lot. In my defense, it’s a really tall curb. We were walking in (or trying to!!), I tried to step up and it didn’t really work out. Luckily, my knees took the brunt of the fall. I also almost swept Diana’s leg, I feel bad about that! I suddenly found myself just kind of laying on the sidewalk. AND I couldn’t get up! BUT, my incredible Viking nurse, who witnessed the entire event from the oncology suite, ran out within seconds and swept me up.
It was super hero stuff.
Since then, I’ve managed to stay upright. We got the report on the CAT scan that I took last week. There has been no change since January. So my Doctor has been working with the Doctor at Duke to find a new way to fight.
I’m starting a new round of chemo on April 1st (no fooling!).
It will have two new drugs. One is evil, it was described to us as the nasty step sister of the last drug we tried. We have been told that the first day will be rough…real rough.
Yeah!
THEN…
The revolutionary stuff starts…
Because of the response of the belly bully, instead of the stem cell transplant we are looking at a very new therapy that was just recently approved by the FDA. It’s called CAR T-cell therapy.
I would be one of the first to undergo it.
I would be a maverick, a pioneer! (Cue the cool cowboy music!)
Here’s what CAR T looks like: some of my cells are removed, engineered, and reproduced to be little street fighters. They are put back in my body, they march around Lukeland and they beat the hell out of the cancer cells.
It would all happen at the hallowed halls of Duke.
It’s not necessarily the report we wanted, but I was reminded of what the Spirit had, in advance, deposited in my heart…
Love is safe.
Love is strong[er].
Love is super-sized.
No matter what happens…
Love is safe.
It picks us up. We all fall. We find ourselves knocked down, unable to get up by ourselves. Love sweeps us up and helps us stand.
Love is a safe place that we can fall into.
We are unable to stand without Christ holding us and giving us strength.
Love is strong[er].
Love is stronger than whatever we face.
Love is stronger than the enemy.
Love is stronger than hate.
Love is stronger than death.
I have tasted that.
My Doctor told me this morning that in the last few weeks i “had a couple of real good chances to die”, that I came real close and was able to beat it.
Love is stronger.
Love is super-sized.
Love grabs you by the hand and says let’s do something that we’ve never done before.
Love swallows you up and catches you up in its largeness. We have been grateful recipients of a super-sized love poured out by our friends and family. Whatever comes next is engulfed by love.
Love holds us as we saddle up and head into the great unknown.
carbonated joy 