Chemo Day 3 - Monday 7/3/17

Day three of chemo is done! Today more of the symptoms are kicking in. I started experiencing the "wow this is going to be a long journey" feelings.

He described how he was feeling as a war inside--nausea pushing up in his stomach and anti-nausea meds pushing down, resulting in a loss of appetite, and he described it by saying, "I don't want to give the nausea any ammunition." Compared to Thursday the pain has been under control; just twice in the last 24 hours he needed to supplement with IV pain meds, which is an improvement, but it's still there and that's not what we want ultimately, so please continue to pray accordingly!

His sound and light sensitivity continues, so we are keeping the room and dark and quiet as we can. Today he was feeling generally yucky and was actually thankful he didn't have visitors, which was kind of sad for me to see. It really lets you know how rotten he feels when he just wants quiet and to be alone. The foggy "chemo brain" has set in a bit too, which is another thing we can pray against.

Some good things today: he pulled out a favorite computer game from his teenage years, "Civilization" and said it was a fantastic pain management tool. It's a turn based game so he has time to process, and the familiar rules keep him from needing to have too many things going in his head. (Which is funny because there are a decent amount of components to the game and it's not one I'd consider "easy" 😂). Also I had a great conversation today with a pediatrician about Esther, and it turns out he had testicular and overcame it, and knows a friend from our church! He talked with me for quite some time and I felt even more encouraged afterwards.

As all of our doctors had said, this type of cancer is one of the more aggressive ones, which makes it very responsive to chemo. Peter is really feeling it: this is an aggressive battle. We are both praising God for the scientific advances of the last few decades in this type of cancer, and praising Him in advance for what we hope will be a recovery that surprises the doctors. Meanwhile we trust Him as we engage in the fight of our lives.

Please pray for all these symptoms I've mentioned to subside, and especially for his appetite to come back, the pain to LEAVE, and for his spirit, body and mind to be full of the peace and joy of God, and strengthened so he can be well enough to see a few more friends soon.