Thursday May 21st, 2015

“When Normal is Very Good!”

Most of us go about our days with very little thought about the things that are routine. But then you hear the diagnosis of cancer and your very kind, compassionate oncologist says, “This is going to be a life changing situation.” Suddenly there are appointments, scans, tests, chemotherapy, lab work and a dozen other things. Very little seems normal.

Then a day like today comes along. Karen was feeling strong as she got into the driver’s seat of our car and drove herself to the grocery store. Understand that our store is less than five minutes from our home. But for her this was normal. She was doing something very normal. I must confess that I have never prayed as much for Karen at the grocery store as I did today. She’s a pretty tired lady tonight. But she’s a pretty happy lady. Today had some normalcy to it.

By the way, I teased her about the sweet roll monster in aisle 9 and how it must be afraid of her. For those of you who know Karen’s sense of humor, she looked me in the eye and without taking a second to think about it she said, “Nope! There was no sweet roll monster today. In fact, there wasn’t even a donut monster.” Then after a few seconds she whispered, “They were all out.”

Tomorrow she has blood work at our cancer center. The oncology team is keeping a close eye on Karen and making sure she is doing all right. The maximum levels of chemotherapy are fighting the mass. A week from tomorrow is the next round of chemotherapy. Thanks so much for your prayers dear friends. It’s been a great day with a good dose of “normal.”