Starting Week 7 today - some thoughts

I had a special blessing over the weekend.  As a result of this blog and of being public about my treatment at my church, I had the opportunity to encourage two other men that may be following in my footsteps.  I was able to answer a lot of questions about the procedures and steps that I have come through so far and was able to talk a bit about the reasons the course of treatment I am receiving was chosen as opposed to other options like surgery, chemo or hormone or radiation therapy alone rather than in combination like I am getting.  Over the years, I have learned that it is always easy to say "I'll pray for you" and then I can feel good about myself whether I follow through or not.  It's a much better thing to say, even on a phone or Zoom call, "Can I pray for you right now?" and then do it immediately.  In every case, it has been a profound experience and my close friends always tell me they covet being prayed over personally, as do I. 

I wasn't always like this.  I grew up Lutheran and my idea of public prayer was saying the Lord's Prayer with the rest of the congregation at the appointed time in the church service while I was thinking about what I was going to have for lunch.  I was the Prodigal Son for 25 years and not long after I came back to the church when I was 45 years old, I was asked to do the Scripture readings during one of our Sunday services.  I was comfortably sitting behind the altar with my Bible when our Pastor, upon finishing weekly announcements, declared "And now Dave will open our worship with prayer!"  Talk about sheer terror!  I approached the microphone and the most beautiful prayer came out, supplied of course by the Holy Spirit.  That was one of my first lessons in the fact that when we are doing the Lord's will, He supplies everything we need.  You can't fail, no matter how badly you mess up, because it's being used for His purposes anyway.  That's a very liberating thought.  Since then, on each of my 19 mission trips to Kenya, I have had that lesson reinforced over and over again.  On one trip in particular, to a rural community called Kiambu where we were serving because of security concerns in Nairobi after the Westgate Mall attack, I REALLY learned to pray.  One day, I had to split the prayer duties with one of my Pastors.  We saw 439 people that day and I know I prayed over more than 200 of them, one on one for needs ranging from abusive spouses to alcoholism to children with university degrees that were jobless.  It was pretty humbling.  It also taught me that it wasn't me doing it, all of the right words at the right time came from above.  What an amazing thing to have happen to you! It is probably the closest I will come to having an out of body experience, I felt as though I was watching someone else laying hands on all of these people who were hurting or in some cases just wanted a prayer said over them to praise God for all of His daily mercies.  So what's the lesson in all of this after rambling on?  I would say be quick to listen, you will hear the joys and the pains of others if you only do that one simple thing.  If you listen, people will think you are a great conversationalist!  Next, be quick to pray and offer to do it gently, getting the person's permission.  I can't tell you how many times people have said "Not just now" only to return to me at a later date when they were ready or their circumstances had changed and they remembered my offer.  And even if you're turned down, you can pray for them anyway after you've parted company.  It's all good.  Thank you Jesus for giving me some insight into the power of prayer!  And to those of you that have read this, I hope my words have found open hearts.

My appointment today was supposed to mark the beginning of my 7th week and was to be my 29th treatment.  I drank a 20 ounce bottle of water on my way to the radiation center, I wanted to be sure I was fully hydrated.  When I got there, nearly every parking space was full. Uh oh!  I knew what that means.  They're backed up.  There was a problem last Monday when they had some technical difficulties with the radiation machine itself.  Everything has got to be right on the money with the radiation machines and with the computer network, off site servers and the Internet connection.  If any key sub-system is having issues, they won't perform treatments and I am thankful for that.  I waited for over an hour past my scheduled appointment.  As time went on, I had to partially empty my bladder a couple of times, something that takes a lot of practice and which requires exercises to strengthen certain muscles.  When you need to do this, you are glad you took their advice and did the exercises!  You must have a full bladder during the actual treatment to protect surrounding tissue, organs and the bladder itself from the radiation.  This would have been funny if I wasn't so uncomfortable.  Looking around the room, I could tell even with masks on that the other guys were in distress: crossing their legs, dancing around, taking turns with the bathroom, etc.  An hour can be an eternity under the right conditions!  Eventually, they gave each of us the option of going home, which I did because even though the radiation machine itself was in working order, the supporting computerized equipment was not communicating with the server.  Being a computer guy myself, I know you can't predict how long these things will take.  An extra day will be added on to the end of my original treatment schedule, meaning if all goes well, I'll finish up on Wednesday July 22nd.  On the bright side, I got yet another lesson in self control!

No picture of the day today since I didn't get my treatment.  I'm going to make an album of the 45 pictures, one for each treatment, and give everybody at the center a link to it as a thank you when I've completed everything to remind them of that Dave guy that just made every day into a party!  And I will publish the link here as well so you can see the images all in one place.