Quote for October

A Prayer for the Ephesians Eph. 3:14-21

For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom His whole family in heaven derives its name. I pray that out of His glorious riches He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge--that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.


Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen!


Tuesday, July 19, 2011

One Month Later

I am not doing as well as I wanted to be. In June I had been retired for one year, and realized that I am getting worse twice as fast as I expected. My expectation was that I wouldn't be much worse at all in one year. Maybe have some more flushing and feeling hot a couple days a week. A few bouts of diarrhea per month---nothing that would change my life very often. Boy, was I off base!

Now it is just a month after my one year retirement anniversary, and I continue to go downhill. I have been able to give myself extra Octreotide once per day for a month, and that reduced the feeling of having a hotplate between my shoulder blades. I don't perspire as heavily. However, I can't stop my face from flushing, and I am having diarrhea and abdominal pain a few days a week. Today the abdominal pain has been greater than before, going up and down the ascending and descending colon. That's not unusual, but today the pain has never gone away. I couldn't do much because of the pain and weakness.

For a month I have sometimes had pain and a feeling of fullness across the upper abdomen. One day I felt like I was getting a "stomach flu." I had feelings of nausea followed by feelings of impending diarrhea, weakness and exhaustion. Then I realized I also had the full feeling across
the abdomen, and took my shot of Octreotide. I felt better in 20 minutes. I repeated those symptoms last Wednesday, but I had already taken my Octreotide. That was discouraging.

My family just returned from a nice vacation in Idaho. We were able to stay at my younger sister's house in the country, and see my great niece. My father went with us. We were gone 9 days and had a great time. I had difficulty staying in the car for two or three hours at a time while we drove to Idaho. Therefore, I have decided that I need to make my trip to France in the next 18 months.

It's a bucket list item. I was not planning to see France so soon, but now I know I had better go. Since I will be old enough to remove some money from my tax deferred savings next July, I will make the arrangements to see Paris, Versailles, and Normandy. I want to see where my Laizures (LeSueurs) came from. I guess we might be gone from home about 12 days. It is odd to have to speed things up because I don't know how much longer I will be able to go places without great discomfort.

Today I called my surgeon to make an appointment to see him. Usually, I have seen him after every Octreoscan, but last year nothing showed up in the MRI, Octreoscan or CT scan. The surgeon has more years of experience with carcinoid patients than my oncologist does, so I want to talk with him. My oncologist's nurse returned my call, also. She told the doctor what was going on, and he increased the dose of my LAR from 30 mg to 40 mg every 28 days. I have been able to get by on 30 mg for 2.5 years, so the progress of my cancer was slowed down by the medication. It's just time for a higher dose now.

This is not a terribly interesting post, but I want to be realistic about my case in order to give information to other patients. I know I wanted to know what others were going through when I started out with carcinoid.

The nice thing is that my Uncle Jim sent me a great passage of scripture from Ephesians 3:8-20. I have quoted part of it at the top of the blog.

"Although I am less than the least of all God's people, this grace was given to me: to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ and to make plain to everyone one the administration of this mystery, which for ages past was kept hidden in God, Who created all things. His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, according to His eternal purpose which He accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord. In Him and through Him, we may approach God with freedom and confidence. I ask you, therefore, not to be discouraged because of my sufferings for you, which are your glory. For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom his whole family in heaven and earth derives its name. I pray that out of His glorious riches He may strengthen you with power through His spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ and to know this love that surpasses knowledge...".

God Bless,
Sharon