I have always been a great believer in making plans, especially when we are doing something special or going away somewhere. It is best to get it right and not miss anything out. Be in control!
The trouble is that we are seldom, if ever in control. Something will always get in the way – a knock at the door, a phone call – there is always something there, because we can only ever really plan for our own part of it, and even then things get in the way. You will have seen from my recent story that some of the things that get in the way can be so massive that they don’t just interrupt your plans, they can disrupt them totally.
Most of my plans are set by external sources now, and this week has been such a week.
On Monday, I was getting my PICC line put in. This is a plastic tube which goes into a vein my upper arm, round my shoulder and then into my chest. It will stay there all the time I am getting chemotherapy. There are two tubes come out of it and that is where the chemicals get fed in.
On Tuesday I went to get it checked and flushed out to make sure all was safe. The nurse also took bloods from it to make sure I was safe.
On Wednesday I saw the oncologist, who finally agreed that it was safe for me to get the chemo.
Yesterday (Thursday) I turned up for my chemo at 9:15 and was taken into a ward where 3 other people were sitting getting their chemo. It was amazing that one of them is someone I have known from the church for some years – it is a very small world.
The nurses then got me ready to start the session. I have never seen so much plastic! If any of the protect the planet from the evils of plastic groups saw a chemo session they would be shocked, but I am certain that if they ever needed chemo they would go for it big time. There were tubes everywhere! They hooked me up to the first two bags of chemical drip, and so it went on for the rest of the day. Because it was my first session, they took it slowly and I was there till 5pm just so that they could monitor me and make sure I was OK.
Before I left, they hooked me up to a bottle with another chemotherapy drug which releases slowly and which the district nurse will remove tomorrow afternoon. The magic of this drug is that it stops the cancer cells which were damaged in the main session from repairing themselves.
It’s all interesting stuff, but that is quite a lot of time out of any planned week! Fortunately, it is just every second week that I go through the same routine, so I can make plans for next week. Maybe?
It’s obviously very early to say, but so far I have had no adverse side-effects.
The main side effects I have had though, like everything else in all of this journey are the changes to my thoughts and the way I think.
Firstly, it occurred to me that I should think differently about the term terminal cancer. The English language can be very specific about a lot of things, but can also have double meaning. This is an example. I heard the word terminal and assumed, as we all would, that it applied to me. But then I thought of the chemo drugs – they are designed to damage the cancer cells and the one in the pump I am attached to as I write this is designed to stop them repairing themselves.
What if the word terminal applies to the word cancer, not to me?
The second thing that I am really thinking about is the whole area of plans. You will have seen from earlier posts that I thought life would go on, we would do this, do that, for years and years. But we never know what is going to happen next. We cannot possibly know what is going to happen next. Sometimes it’s best that we don’t!
One of my favourite promises in the Bible is Jeremiah 29:11-12
“For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope. In those days when you pray, I will listen.”
I can make all the plans I want, but God has plans for me. I’m sure that he did not plan that I got cancer, but he has a plan for me while I have it. It’s a good plan and it’s one that gives me a future and a hope. It’s a plan which cannot be interrupted by a knock at the door or a phone call or a hospital appointment. It’s a plan which might be influenced by a prayer that I make to him, but the main thing is that it is HIS plan – not mine!
Bless you Robert. You are in our thoughts and prayers. Xx