Ooh, My Head

We just finished a fun moment, dancing with our son in the living room to the LaBamba soundtrack. (I'm still sicker than a dog, but it was fun to try.) I decided that one of the songs, "Ooh, My Head" was probably my theme song. Of course, our favorite song on the soundtrack is "We Belong Together":

You're mine and we belong together
Yes, we belong together,for eternity

You're mine, your lips belong to me
Yes, they belong to only me,for eternity

(Jacob and I share a special smile during this part):

You're mine, my baby and you'll always be
I swear by everything I own
You'll always,always be mine

You're mine, and we belong together
Yes, we belong together, for eternity

Jacob knows that "eternity" means...for-EVVVV-er.

This was our fun moment of the day. The icky moment of the day was when I was conversing with my oncologist's office about the delay in my chemo regimen because of my lowered white blood cell and neutrophil counts. I mentioned hearing that glioblastoma can double in size every three weeks, so I was worried about delaying my chemo treatment at least one third of that time. The reply I received was that it is only that aggressive "when" the tumor becomes resistant to chemotherapy and goes out of control, and I do not CURRENTLY have any clinical signs of that problem. Unfortunately, I confirmed with them that yes, this is considered to be a WHEN, not an IF situation: my cancer cells will ultimately develop an immunity to chemotherapy. The blow was softened with reassuring possibilities: it may take a long time for that to happen, that's why we monitor so often, there are other treatment options, research may find a cure or a long-term solution, etc., etc., etc. But still - I had an icky feeling throughout the day, like I was given something new to add to my "in case you run out of things to worry about" list.

BUT - reminder to self: trust not in the arm of flesh. Sure, there are icky possibilities. This is an icky cancer. People die from it pretty quickly. When I was at Relay For Life and met other cancer survivors, I got the same reaction from each survivor that I met, when we did the "what kind do you have" exchange. These people (these fellow cancer battlers) would hear me say, "brain cancer", and give me that, "oh,wow - that's too bad - dead woman walking" look. It was weird. It's bad news among bad news. Glioblastoma multiforme - the most insidious of all brain cancers on top of that. No wonder I sometimes get treated like the walking dead. But...this is all based on the reasoning of man and not the wisdom of God. Trust not in the arm of flesh...

For some comic relief, my husband and I had a good laugh today despite our initial gut wrench reaction to the "resistance to chemo" possibility. There is a scene in the movie, The Princess Bride, where the hero wins a roulette-style battle of wits over which drink contained iocane powder, a tasteless, odorless poison that kills instantly. When the opponent dies, the hero reveals that both drinks were actually poisoned, but he had spent the last five years building up an immunity to iocane powder. We both remembered this scene, and laughingly decided that perhaps the secret ingredient in Temodar is iocane powder. Unfortunately, though, building up an immunity will threaten my life instead of save it. So again, it's one more new thing to keep those prayers fresh.

And meanwhile, as we were reminded as we danced to the La Bamba soundtrack: despite "Ooh My Head", we know that "We Belong Together" (for eternity).