Still Plodding

Hi everyone,

I just finished the second 4 week chemo cycle. Did a lot better overall since this was the lower dose, but still by the end of it I am pretty wiped out. My mouth got very sore the last few days, stomach issues got more uncomfortable, and this time around I got the "hand and foot" side effect - only the foot part - which I didn't get last round. It's a strange thing - soles of feet get very sore and tender, a bit swollen, and then start to crack and peel. I could barely walk a few days. Ouch.

Please pray for me as I have started to develop a respiratory infection on top of everything. My chest is very congested and I feel pretty weak today. I was hoping to come out of the chemo and have a few good strong weeks but this virus kicked in right as the chemo was ending. I had my labs drawn today (Monday) and so we will see if my white count is low, which would make it harder to fight off this infection, of course. I have my every 3 month CAT scan on Wednesday. I dread it a bit since the contrast stuff made me kind of sick last time and now my stomach is more sensitive, but also because of the underlying fear that it will find more cancer. Of course, in a few days, when the chemo wears off and the CAT scan is fine, I will be in a whole different frame of mind! Please pray for me to hang onto that hope for the next few days, looking forward to better things at the end of the week!

Thankfully, I was able to homeschool the kids through most of the round of meds, with assistance from my mom (a retired teacher) for the last week or so. That was a big help as my energy only goes so far and she was able to help some kids while I helped the others. I was thankful to be able to keep them on track and not let them fall behind even when I wasn't feeling great. Funny to watch her say the SAME things to them that I say all the time. "did you read the directions", and "look it up in the dictionary" , "let's check that again for errors" and "I know you can figure this out"... Gee Whiz, I went to school to be a nurse not a teacher, but apparently I picked up a lot from my mom by osmosis!

A few of the kids are voicing some fears about the cancer returning, the medicine making mommy sick etc, so please do keep praying for them.

Charles and I are still pretty overwhelmed by the financial stresses but God has provided help in the last few weeks through the generosity of some friends and family to encourage us. We are trying to hang on until the Lord answers our prayers! We had not gotten any replies from our lawyer for WEEKS and it was so discouraging. Last week Charles finally got a short reply from him, which basically sounded like he has made no progress on our behalf. :-( Since then our former insurance agent has reached our attorney and together they came up with another way to approach this which they are trying next. ARGH!!!!

Basically we had a policy that would pay someone to replace Charles if he was disabled in a business truck accident, which he was. We have been paying the replacement worker for 2.5 years with no reimbursement and it has drained us dry. The insurance company continues to stall and fight and double talk. Their latest argument was that we are not really self employed!!!!! ARGH ARGH ARGH!!!! Then why did they sell us a policy for self employed only???? They have had 15 other stall tactics too. Of course if we sue them that will stall it another 2 years, but it seems every other action we take is powerless to push them into paying.

Please plead with the Lord on our behalf to get this burden off us and to have the insurance company do the right thing and pay the claim. We know that the Lord must have some reason for allowing this to drag out so long but we are so weary of it.

Thank you all for checking the blog and not forgetting about us. Keep it up, and hopefully my next update will have some answers to your prayers!

Karen