Sink or Swim

In approximately a half hour I'm getting in my car and driving nearly 25 miles to a testing center, where I will take the Professional Teaching Knowledge examination for the ABCTE English Language Arts teaching certificate.

I signed up for this online program a year and a half ago, in late January of 2010.  I've already been granted one six-month extension, which ends July 31st.  If I do not take both my exams before the end of this month, I forfeit my tuition.  If I do take them, and fail, I can apply for another six months for a retake.

So I'm venturing my PTK today, ready or not.

So why am I not ready?  Several reasons, some more reasonable than others.  In the first place, the ABCTE website is not the clearest to navigate and it wasn't easy to find out where the material even was to be found.  In the second place, I was diagnosed with possible ovarian cancer the month after I signed up.  Going through surgery and chemo isn't conducive to study and retention.  In the third place, I can be a terrible grasshopper.  Sing and hop from task to task and do what seems most attractive and best at the time, oh, yeah, and never mind delving into hard and esoteric new subjects.

And my biggest reason of all for putting off really, really studying until the past three or four weeks?

I've been a substitute teacher for the past two years.  And as much as I love and enjoy the kids (even the mischievous, difficult ones), as much as I enjoy sharing and enciting knowledge, understanding (and all the rest of the Bloom's Taxonomy levels of learning), I hate, hate, hate educational politics.  I hate the prospect of having to join a union that does not reflect my political views.  I hate the squabbles that go on in the media and sometimes literally on state capital grounds over the perceptions of teachers and their rights.  And most of all, I hate the squirmy, slimy, cuttle-fish-ink-squirting politics that goes on in individual schools, where policies both official and unspoken make it difficult to maintain good discipline, let alone to guide the students to high levels of understanding.

But I paid the money.  It's a big chunk of change and I mustn't waste it.  And like it or not, becoming a public school teacher may be my only hope at this stage of my life of getting a steady job and getting my debts paids off.

So I'm going.  Wish me luck.

The Gifts of God Alone Remain

I say it to my shame:  I still have no medical insurance. Thus I had to reapply recently for financial assistance from the hospital system that did my cancer surgery and chemotherapy.  Today I received a letter from their financial assistance department.  The second paragraph read:

This letter is to inform you that your recent request for financial assistance has been approved for a 100% discount.  This approval applies to your accounts with outstanding balances before 06/02/2011.  The total amount adjusted is $x,xxx.xx.  Please note that this financial assistance approval applies to all N--- Hospitals, N--- Cancer Centers, and/or N--- Physician Services for services which qualify under our policy guidelines.

I read this and I was deeply humbled.  I nearly cried.  100% of my outstanding balances forgiven?  Oh, what a difference that will make, especially with the school year ending and my teaching income coming to an end for three months or more!  It was almost too good to be believed.

Well, maybe it was too good to be believed.  I know good and well my total outstanding balance is more than the amount given.  I went upstairs to my computer and checked for sure.  Yep.  The amount I'm still making payments on is actually 40% higher than the amount given.  Oh.

The last character I want to emulate is the welfare queen who thinks she's entitled to other people's money.  So if there was some reason why "100% of the outstanding balances before 06/02/2011" doesn't mean "100% of the outstanding balances before 06/02/2011," I wanted to know how that would affect any payments I still needed to make.

So I called the "any questions" number.  I was transferred to a nameless someone in the Financial Assistance Department and asked my question, reading out the relevant paragraph in the letter.

At first she said the letter had given only a partial amount "because the rest of it hasn't been billed yet."  But I told her out that pretty much all my outstanding balance is from the surgeries and hospitalizations I'd had in March and April of 2010 (my chemo, barring last week's followup, is paid up and current), so it certainly has all been billed.  She insisted, however, that my balances on "those two accounts" is 0.  Funny, I have three accounts with balances yet to pay  . . .

Nevertheless, I said how grateful I was, considering my circumstances, and what should I do with the statements I've already received for payments on account to be made in June?  I wasn't about to be presumptuous and say, "Oh, good, I guess that means I don't have to make any more payments, right?"  There was still that discrepancy between my figures and theirs.

It was about now that she said, "I need to check something."  I visualized her digging around in some pile of papers, but of course it wouldn't be that, it'd be on her computer.  She gets back to me and says, "I think there's been some confusion.  You already had a 80% discount on the bills you incurred last year.  We can't give you any more discount on that.  This $x,xxx.xx applies only to services since January of 2011."

Oh.  But wait a minute, ma'am.  I've had nowhere near $x,xxx.xx of services since the beginning of the year, and most of that is already paid for.   (Not to mention that my previous 80% discount had extended to mid-March).  But she went on about the forgiveness applying solely to my "Physician Services" bill, including, she said, to an amount "in May" that could only be my last week's post-chemo check up.  That's what was being taken care of.  Yes, nice, but that's not Physician Services, that's Oncology-Hematology.  She wouldn't or couldn't clarify, so I, taking to heart the maxim about not checking the gift horse's mouth, didn't press the matter.  True, I felt rather as if I'd been promised a fine Morgan plow horse and ended up instead with a miniature Shetland pony.  But it's not like I had earned either, right?

So, as I summed up to her, I'll go ahead and pay the statements I have in hand as arranged, and wait for the July bills to see if or where any adjustments have been made.  It really was too good to be true, so it's not like I'm suffering from any big letdown . . . though I have to wonder what the point of the letter was . . . it really looks like I'm in exactly the same situation I was in before . . . and what's going to happen with my future chemo followup bills, which will certainly be incurred after last Thursday?

Guess I'll have to wait and see in the weeks to come.  What's apparent now is what I implied in the title to this post-- Gifts given by man fade, wear out, are consumed, or even are taken away.  Only the eternal gifts of God in Jesus Christ remain.

Living in the Past

Is there as such thing as a chrononaut, and if there is, can such a person get the bends?

The past few weeks, I've been living and breathing genealogy, and it's hard coming up for air.

I've done more or less with it off and on in the past.  But given that most of my research perforce had to be over the Internet, it seemed I had hit brick walls on pretty much all my lines.  More would have to wait until I had the money to travel to some archival library or at least could afford to subscribe to Ancestry.com.


Then this past February, I started watching this season's run of Who Do You Think You Are?  And I thought to myself, Well, maybe there's something new on the Internet that was posted since I looked last.

There was.  On the site Findagrave.com, there was a report on the burial site of my three-times great grandfather.  And one for his wife, my ggggrandma, whose name I hadn't known before.  And a list of some of their children.  It overlapped the family's enumeration on the 1850 census, which I'd accessed via microfiche and printed out on a trip to Washington, D.C., in 2005, so I knew it was the right guy.  I e-mailed the man who'd posted the Find a Grave memorial to tell him about the missing older brothers and sisters (including my 2x great grandpa).  He immediately replied back, and joy, joy, he turned out to be a fourth cousin, he supplied me with further info about our mutual forebears going back to colonial days (including our family's reputed relationship to Daniel Boone-- it's true, he'd be first cousin to both of us, several times removed), sent me a facsimile copy of an important document or two, and generally broke the logjam for that branch of the family at least.

I'd been messing around with Geni.com since 2009 when my niece Micki* started entering the family info onto it, and after I talked with cousin George*, I logged back on and filled in the members he'd supplied me with.

Only trouble is, since I'd last looked at it, my tree had been overrun by unknown putative distant cousins (or whatever) who've added to my tree without my permission, merging theirs with it so it had tons of duplicates, sticking in folks with only initials for first names, and most annoying of all, modifying the profiles of close deceased family members that only my mom and my siblings have any direct relationship to.  Carp.  I'd thought it was bad enough when my niece put women in under their latest married instead of their maiden names.  The state of my tree was scary, and without getting "permission" from a lot of unknowns, there was little or nothing I could do about it.

Worse, I read online that Geni.com is infamous for violations of privacy, that their goal is to make one worldwide family tree, and who cares if it's accurate or not.  Me, I don't care about everyone in the world.  The family tree I'm interested is mine.

So I blew the money for the Legacy software, the Deluxe paid version, because it has what's supposed to be a handy way to enter sources.  I've already had one extensive Family Tree Maker tree go into the cyber bit bucket thanks (no thanks) to faulty backup software and to my reluctance to post it online with no sources attached.

In time, my new genealogy software arrived.  But it wasn't the most user-friendly program I've come across, so I let it, and my family research, alone for a month or two.

But then, towards the end of April, I got a positively juicy idea.  Now that I've got more information, wouldn't my mother like an updated version of her chart for Mother's Day?  Oh yes, oh yes.  I figured out how to use Legacy 7.5, I got out my paper files, and off I went.

And off I've gone, and gone, and gone.  For all of a sudden, a lot of the brick walls are tumbling down.  Where it came to one particular line on my mother's mother's side, I hit the, um, mother lode.  Pay dirt.  Grandparent after grandparent after grandparent, good, credible, documented progenitors, going back literally to the Dark Ages.  So of course, since I've got the information, I have to add it in.

There's a line in Shakespeare's Macbeth that goes, "What! will the line stretch out to the crack of doom?"  And that's how it feels, only in this case it isn't a family line into the future, it's the one into the past.  Thanks to this one ancestress sometime in the 1500s, I find I'm directly descended from most of the Irish, Scottish, Pictish, Welsh, and even a couple of the Saxon kings who stomped around waging war and exercising their petty tribal authority the length and breadth of Great Britain after the Romans pulled out.  I'm not descended from Macbeth himself, thank goodness, but apparently Duncan, the king he killed (in battle, not in his bed, it turns out) is some sort of multiply-great uncle . . .

What I think about all that, with theological reflections, needs to go in another post.  The point is that I've somehow grown obsessive about this.  Addicted, more like it.  Here it is, what? four weeks after Mother's Day, and I feel I can't send the chart to my mom until it's finished.  I stay up all hours working on this, I'm neglecting my house renovations and my English teacher certification studies, I dream at night of filling in the blanks on the Legacy family pages, and fathers of mothers and mothers of fathers call to me, saying, "Add me in!  I'm here, add me in, too!".  It's actually a relief when I settle that some ancestor reputed to be descended from British nobility really is not (Matthew Howard, I'm talking about you), because British nobility and gentry were so damned conscientious about documenting their pedigrees, and if I really am related, I have to put them in.  That's how enslaved to this process I've become.

And oh, the mess it makes when they start marrying their cousins, especially cousins once and twice removed!  Even today's advanced charting software can cope with that only by duplicating the trees.  As it is, my mom's chart is almost four feet high-- goodbye to the idea of printing it out at home and taping it all together.  But how can I leave all that out?  I mean, won't she get a kick out of knowing that she's the 49th-great granddaughter of Old King Cole?

I've gone back in time, I'm scarcely living in the present at all, and don't be surprised if you hear I've painted my body blue.
_____________________________
All this said, see this post here.

Irony Rich

About an hour ago, my telephone rang.  By the caller ID, I knew it was the board secretary from the school I sub at the most.  And I let it ring three, four, five times, before I put out my hand to pick it up and answer it.  And when I did, I saw that my hand was shaking.

I do not want to substitute teach at that school.  Sometimes, I wonder if I want to substitute or teach anywhere at all.  But let's stick to that school.  It's gotten so there's only four of us who'll come and sub there.  Everyone else has told them not to call any more.  But do we get any respect from the administration?  No.  The principal thinks it's perfectly all right for the board secretary to call us in for one class, then switch us to another.  We're the ones who get yelled at when the regular teachers leave inaccurate or conflicting schedules or lesson plans.  The principal persists in spelling my name wrong on the office assignment board, even though the school secretary has tried to correct her on it.  Their  attempts at discipline are useless.  You can't send a disruptive child out of the class unless she or he is physically violent.  The detentions we give seem to have no effect.  The kids are trained to the utmost pitch to recognize when they're being 'bullied,' but never seem to notice when they're bullying somebody else. 

The kids, especially the younger ones, can be well-meaning and sweet.  They're at a disadvantage, really, when it comes to focussing and working quietly.  The school's a partial open-plan, and even if your class is fairly silent, you still get noise from all sides.  And other teachers' students walking through the back of your classroom, to get to theirs.  Stressful and distracting for everyone involved.  And the stress is mounting up for me.

Between my regular expenses and the credit card bills and the medical copays, I am appallingly broke.  Even if I were to work seven days a week, subbing and front-desking and preaching, I still couldn't cover all my expenses.  But still I felt a wonderful peace this morning when 6:45, 7:00, 7:15 went by with no call to come in and teach, especially from that one school.  Am I lazy-- or do I show signs of truly being sane?

But the irony.  Yes.  That comes with what was told me nearly three years ago by my executive presbyter, when he said my Committee on Ministry unilaterally decided to bar me from looking for a new solo pastorate, because I was "too traumatized" by what went on in my last full time call.  And that they'd be more likely to recommend me for the kind of ministry posts they will allow me if I'd get some secular work, even if it was just clerking in a department store.  Hey! I'd like to say to him now, I'm doing that.  I've been sub teaching for almost two years now, and don't get any help out of you or COM at all.  And now, if my trembling hands are anything to go by, I am traumatized.  So what has been the point of keeping me from fulfilling my call?

But never mind that.  Yeah, I told the board secretary I'd come in tomorrow.  It's not like I can afford not to.  And I have to go in two more times this week as well.  But this can't go on.  I have to think of something else, because it can't go on.

"Drill, Ye Tarriers, Drill!"

Haven't fallen off the edge of the world.  But things have changed in my work life, and it's not just that I have less time to blog, but also that I'm feeling less impetus to blog.

I'm getting more substitute teaching engagements since the start of the new year.  That's largely because I've been taken off the naughty list of one school I'd formerly subbed for a great deal.  I was put on their naughty list last October when the principal thought I'd said too much about why the teacher I was subbing for was out having surgery.  (No, dear readers, I didn't sign any HIPAA pledges when I took that job, and the way the other teachers were talking about her op, I didn't think it was a secret).  Principal was sure I'd offended the regular teacher, so I was out until further notice.  Further notice came the day after the January teachers' meeting, when the teacher in question asked why she hadn't seen me around for so long.  She hadn't been offended at all!  So I'm back on that school's list, and they're calling me two, three, four times a week.  That on top of the other schools that call me, too.

Then, three or so weeks ago, my friend Frieda* called and said, "I've just gotten a job working the front desk at Dick & Harry's Tax Service*.  They still need people.  Didn't you work for them before?  You should call and see if you can get on, too."

I did call, I was rehired, and currently I'm working every evening, five weeknights a week.  This week I'm on from 4:00 to 9:00.  Really fun (not) coordinating that with the subbing work, where I often don't get off till 3:30, but we manage.

So "it's work all day for the sugar in your tay," and that's about what my earnings will buy me, the pay in both of these jobs being so low.  But I have to take what I can get.

Today I did not get called in to teach.  I caught up on my sleep, and now I have to a) do housecleaning, to get rid of the sanding dust so I can refinish my stairs, and/or b) do architectural continuing ed (blast! my calendar is backed up with that!), and/or c) do my on-line study for my English teacher's certificate, and/or d) finish what I need to do with my email addresses so I can finish dumping my old DSL Internet provider, now that I've been nearly a month with the local cable people.

And am I excited about doing any of these things?  No.  My mind is obsessed with when payday will be and will it bring me enough to cover my looming bills, and damn! I'm supposed to be so educated but here I am working twelve, thirteen hours a day for peanuts, which probably won't cover my looming bills, and sometimes I just want to cry.

There is light and blessing in all this.  Like the teaching gig I had last Friday where the regular teacher wasn't leaving until lunch time and I had all morning to sit-- yes, get off my feet and sit!-- in the teachers' lounge boning up on advanced Algebra so I wouldn't look like an idiot when it came time that afternoon to teach it.  And the local Red Wing Shoe store a couple weeks ago had some nice, comfortable, lace-up black shoes on sale for $10.00 a pair, and aren't those a godsend, especially in this weather!  And yesterday the student teacher did most of the work, so the fact that I had to report to Dick & Harry's without any dinner didn't make as big a difference in my front desk performance.  Imagine if my full energies had gone to teaching and disciplining and organizing first graders all day!

Well, three hours now till I have to change my clothes and get to the tax office.  God grant I use them wisely.  But you don't blame me, do you, when I come home at 9:30 and just want to watch reruns of I Spy or Magnum, P.I. on Hulu.com?

Words for the Day

Last year about this time, I wrote a blogpost about my Scripture reading regimen. As I noted then, it's not a Read-the-Bible-in-a-Year plan. So any particular pericope can fall on any given day.

Well, this morning's readings were strikingly appropriate for New Year's Day . . . unless you insist that "appropriate" mean "full of cheer."

First there was Psalm 90, the one I call the "Our God, Our Help in Ages Past" psalm.  This "Prayer of Moses, the Man of God," speaks eloquently of the passage of time and the transience of this life, compared with the solid eternity of Almighty God:

1 Lord, you have been our dwelling place
throughout all generations.
2 Before the mountains were born
or you brought forth the earth and the world,
from everlasting to everlasting you are God.

3 You turn men back to dust,
saying, “Return to dust, O sons of men.”
4 For a thousand years in your sight
are like a day that has just gone by,
or like a watch in the night.
5 You sweep men away in the sleep of death;
they are like the new grass of the morning—
6 though in the morning it springs up new,
by evening it is dry and withered.

7 We are consumed by your anger
and terrified by your indignation.
8 You have set our iniquities before you,
our secret sins in the light of your presence.
9 All our days pass away under your wrath;
we finish our years with a moan.
10 The length of our days is seventy years—
or eighty, if we have the strength;
yet their span is but trouble and sorrow,
for they quickly pass, and we fly away.

11 Who knows the power of your anger?
For your wrath is as great as the fear that is due you.
12 Teach us to number our days aright,
that we may gain a heart of wisdom.

13 Relent, O LORD! How long will it be?
Have compassion on your servants.
14 Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love,
that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days.
15 Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us,
for as many years as we have seen trouble.
16 May your deeds be shown to your servants,
your splendor to their children.

17 May the favor of the Lord our God rest upon us;
establish the work of our hands for us—
yes, establish the work of our hands.*


Yes, Lord, we do pray for days of gladness in 2011.  And that you will give us work to do and establish it.  But most of all, that you will bring us to see that you are our dwelling place, our satisfaction, and our wisdom.  But do you have to remind us of our weakness and our sin?  You mean we're not capable of doing everything right in this new year, if we try really hard?

Then, today, it was time to begin Ecclesiastes.  Not my favorite book.  And in the first chapter, Solomon says:

1 The words of the Teacher, son of David, king in Jerusalem:

2 “Meaningless! Meaningless!”
says the Teacher.
“Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless.”

3 What does man gain from all his labor
at which he toils under the sun?
4 Generations come and generations go,
but the earth remains forever.
5 The sun rises and the sun sets,
and hurries back to where it rises.
6 The wind blows to the south
and turns to the north;
round and round it goes,
ever returning on its course.
7 All streams flow into the sea,
yet the sea is never full.
To the place the streams come from,
there they return again.
8 All things are wearisome,
more than one can say.
The eye never has enough of seeing,
nor the ear its fill of hearing.
9 What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.
10 Is there anything of which one can say,
“Look! This is something new”?
It was here already, long ago;
it was here before our time.
11 There is no remembrance of men of old,
and even those who are yet to come
will not be remembered
by those who follow.

What?  Is it indeed inevitable that "auld acquaintance [should] be forgot/ And never brought to mind"?  Is the work of our hands ultimately futile?  Does the inevitable round of the years mean we're wasting our time to try to do anything new, because it's all been done before and it's all equally meaningless in this life under the sun?

But do I have to life my life "under the sun"?  What if I make a concentrated effort to dedicate myself in 2011 to live "under God" instead?  Can I do that?

Maybe Romans 5:12-21 has an answer:

5:12 Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned— 13 for before the law was given, sin was in the world. But sin is not taken into account when there is no law. 14 Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who was a pattern of the one to come.

15 But the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God’s grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many! 16 Again, the gift of God is not like the result of the one man’s sin: The judgment followed one sin and brought condemnation, but the gift followed many trespasses and brought justification. 17 For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.

18 Consequently, just as the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men, so also the result of one act of righteousness was justification that brings life for all men. 19 For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.

20 The law was added so that the trespass might increase. But where sin increased, grace increased all the more, 21 so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yes, truly, death, decay, and futility did enter the world through Adam.  As his descendants we're all locked onto and broken by the wheel of Time.  But Solomon, O king, there is something New under the sun.  And that is the irruption of Jesus Christ the Son of God into this meaningless world.  Jesus has brought grace, brought life, brought righteousness, brought meaning.  The iniquities Moses speaks of in Psalm 90 are forgiven and wiped away in Christ.

O Lord my God, in this year and all years may we reign with you in life through your abundant gift of righteousness and grace, come to us through your Son, Jesus Christ.  In him and to his glory, establish the work of our hands, O God, establish the work of our hands!

____________________________________
*All passages from The Holy Bible, New International Version, 1984

Christmas Carol

I didn't think I would be able to produce a Christmas carol this year; not enough energy and too much going on.  But this past Monday a rudimentary melody and the words started coming to me; by Tuesday the poem was pretty well finished and I had the notes of the soprano/unison line written down; on Wednesday (or was it Thursday-- my short term memory stinks) I downloaded the MuseScore free software and started in on the notation; and by Thursday and Friday I had the thing pretty well done.

And here it is:


O brothers, sisters, let us sing,
Alleluia, allelu,
How came the birth of Christ our King,
Allelu, alleluia.
Once Earth was new, and we were free,
But Adam sinned most dreadfully
And sold us all to slavery,
Allelu, alleluia.

In death's dark prison we were bound,
Alleluia, allelu,
And in ourselves no hope we found,
Hosanna, alleluia.
But God looked down on our distress,
His oath on Abram He did rest,
That through him, mankind would be bless'd,
Hosanna, alleluia.

The prophets bold foretold the day,
Alleluia, allelu,
When grace would sweep our guilt away,
Allelu, alleluia,
When to us, fearful and forlorn,
A holy Savior would be born
To dwell with us, that blessed morn,
Gloria, alleluia!

So, humble, in a manger laid,
Alleluia, allelu,
Jesus was born of mortal maid,
Gloria, alleluia!
The very Son of God was He,
But bent He to our frailty
And shared our doomed humanity,
Allelu, alleluia!

Beside Him, lamb and oxen stood,
Alleluia, allelu,
And He became the Lamb of God,
Hosanna, allelu!
Upon His cross He off'ring made
Of His own flesh, His might displayed,
Now sin and Satan are dismayed,
Allelu, alleluia!

Then Christ our Savior burst the grave,
Alleluia, allelu!
And to His faithful, life He gave,
Allelu, alleluia!
Before the angels now He names
Us brothers, sisters-- unashamed
Of us His holy blood reclaims,
Gloria, alleluia!

Now we from death have been set free,
Alleluia, allelu!
And sons in glory aye shall be,
Allelu, alleluia!
To God our Father, praises bring,
To Christ, our Brother and our King,
O brothers, sisters, let us sing!
Gloria, alleluia!


Maybe what got me off dead center with this was remembering how, a few months ago, the pastor of the church I attend when I'm not preaching somewhere challenged us to come up with hymns on the doctrine of Adoption.  I can't say this is that hymn, but thinking about the theme made me consider that something could be done with Hebrews, chapter 2.  And so I did.

I still have to publish it, meaning run off copies of the score and send them to my kinfolk and friends in lieu of Christmas cards or gifts.  I've already published it online, here.

A blessed Christmastide to all five of my readers.  Remember, it's all true.

Two Lines

Two lines to say that my CT scan from November 18th was clean, my CA-125 blood test number is low (which is good), and I got a very cheerful No Evidence of Disease pronouncement from my chemo doctor at my visit on November 22nd. 

He says I won't have to get another scan until six months out.  With my cancer having been caught so early and treated so aggressively, there's no point in exposing me to the radiation at quarterly intervals.  I'll have another blood test and visit in February, but that's all.

Unless the CA-125 levels are up.  But we won't invite trouble and expect that.

My head hair is about 3/16" long now, all white, or maybe it's platinum blond?  The eyebrows are returning, too, in a pale gray.  I hope that's won't be their final color.  Not sure about the eyelashes-- I'm so farsighted I can't see if they're coming back yet, even looking in the magnifying mirror!  I'll have to get somebody to look for me.

So now if I can get the rest of the copay bills discharged, I'll be on my way to putting this behind me.

God willing, of course.

Getting Lit Up

Today I embark on the next stage of my cancer cure journey.

Though maybe I don't want to use the words "next stage" in regard to cancer, since it implies things getting worse, not better.  Which, God willing, is not the case.

I'm presently sitting in the waiting room of the radiation oncology department of my local hospital, slurping iodine water to light me up for my baseline CT scan. 

Now that my chemotherapy's over, I get the exquisite pleasure (!) of going in for a CT scan every three months for two years to make sure the cancer zombies aren't coming back.  Then once every six months for three years after that.  The baseline scan today should-- no, blast it, will establish that I'm free of all abdominal and pelvic masses, tumors, lumps, bumps, and other execrences that could even vaguely be construed as cancer.

Coincidentally, yesterday my friend Ruth* (also a cancer survivor) sent me a link to an NPR feature about an oncologist who has just published a book called The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer.   In it he writes about the manifestations of cancer throughout human history, coupled with his own experience treating patients suffering from it today.  The excerpt seemed well-written and compelling.  I may read the book when the subject becomes less . . . personal.

But at the bottom of the book article were links to other NPR items, including a rather alarming one about increased risk of secondary cancers from both diagnostic and follow-up CT scans and other radiology techniques.  There is a particular danger, it said, for women in my age group who undergo repeated scans.  The author says that the amount of radiation varies from hospital to hospital, machine to machine, but in some the dosage is as high as what the survivors at Hiroshima and Nagasaki suffered . . . and we know what happened to them later in life.

Oh, joy.  Isn't this just designed to inspire confidence!  But as I understand it, I have to have these tests, because if despite everything the ovarian cancer manages to come back, it has to be found as soon as possible.  So a few minutes ago, when the nurse brought out the iodine water and the clipboard with the form to fill out, I mentioned the radiation risk.  And happily, she agreed that in my case, with the repeated scans scheduled, they should assuredly put me in the low-dose machine.  And happily again, that turns out to be the one they used on me last March.

So here we go.  God grant that I will now and hereafter be dancing with NED (No Evidence of Disease) and all this will be strictly routine.

Coming Through

This past Monday was my last chemo session!  GodwillingGodwillingGodwil-ling that's the last of the Taxel and the Carboplatin.

I should have been done the last Monday in September, but my persistently-low white cell counts made it necessary that my treatments have four weeks between them, not three, after the second infusion in early July.

Anyway, all six are past now, and I've really come through it pretty well, considering.  My eyelashes, eyebrows, and most of my head hair are gone, but I expected that.  I never lost my sense of taste and actually gained about three pounds.  My luck, right?  It's just that every time I'd think of eating raw vegetables out of my garden, I'd get a scratchy feeling in my tummy and headed for the bread and pasta instead.  Everybody says my color is good (whatever that means), and with the wigs I manage to pass for healthy with people who don't know me well.

I am being annoyed with a spot of peripheral neuropathy in my fingers and toes, since my fifth treatment the end of September.  My toes feel continually like there's crud between them, and my fingertips sometimes feel like sausages.  But they don't actually hurt and I do all right, regardless.  I mean, I can still fasten my jewelry and obviously, I can use a keyboard.

About the only thing that's bugging me in any real way just now is a bronchial infection I developed about a week and a half ago when I overdid it raking leaves a few days in a row and can't seem to shake.  This is a real joy (not), since I'm heading into my lowest white cell count.  I wasn't able to come in to teach when I was called this past week, and won't be able to until this clears up.

Here's the funny thing, though:  It really looks like my head hair is already trying to come back!  I noticed this on Tuesday, the day after No. Six.  Little white or light blonde spikes, all over my head.  They say it's supposed to grow in baby-soft and fine, but this definitely feels prickly to me.

Oh, well.  At least it's not red, like some bright soul suggested.  Not that I have anything against redheads; I just don't have the coloring for it.

I'm Not Sure

I had my first stint substitute teaching today since before my surgery last April, and I'm not sure I have the stamina for it.

If I were a better cat-herder-- I mean, a more proficient emergency teacher of 2nd graders-- I might think differently.  But by the end of the school day I was nearly weeping from exhaustion.  And now it's almost 7:00 PM and I'm sitting here still in my work clothes starving to death because I'm too shattered to get out of my desk chair.

Except for one child, who was so obstreperous early on that he started kicking the aide and had to have Security called on him, the kids weren't malicious or bad . . .  they just didn't know how to stay in their seats quietly doing their work.  They didn't understand that finishing a test early didn't give them the license to walk around the room bothering those who were still working.  They didn't realize that the end-of-the-day leaving chaos was not a good time for them to blindside me with fundraising forms, saying they had to take them to the office. And as my limited energy ran out, so did my creativity.  By 3:00 PM I was reduced to saying, "I know nothing about that.  Ask your teacher on Monday."

I'd just say No to substituting until the chemo treatments are over, except that a) I need the money; and b) I'm on a tiny bit of Unemployment Compensation, based on the subbing I did last fall and winter, and if I turn down work it's deducted from my benefit amount.  I don't know: the full possible benefit is equivalent only to two days of work and may not be worth demolishing my health over.  But again, anything coming in helps and it seems wrong to forfeit it.

My throat is sore, my sinuses are blocked, and I need to go eat. But I'm on to preach on Sunday with a sermon still to write so I won't exactly be resting this weekend.  We'll see what my blood counts look like when I go in for my chemo Monday morning.  The way my body feels now, I'm frankly glad I can't accept any teaching work that day, whether they can infuse me then or not.

Well, All Right

A friend who follows this blog mentioned on Facebook this evening that I'd been leaving all three of you dangling for several weeks.

All right, let's do a highlight reel.

1) Not sure what was wrong with the car, but it hasn't done it since.  The garage thinks maybe a piece of dirt stopped the fan and that's why it overheated.  They didn't charge me for checking it, which was nice.

2)  On the 19th of July I attended one of the American Cancer Society's "Look Good, Feel Better" makeup sessions.  It wasn't exactly what I expected.  I thought it'd deal specifically with how to mask the visible effects of chemotherapy, but it was more like basic this-is-how-you-put-on-makeup.  Good grief, I've known that since high school.  Well, I came home with some products I could use, so that's something.

3)  Twice now I've had to postpone my chemo treatment a week because my blood counts were too low.  I don't have much leeway to begin with, so it's not surprising that my white counts, especially, have taken a hit.  Thank God, they've come back up in time for me to get my infusions at a four week interval, with no supplementary blood-boosting drugs.  But the delays mean I won't  be finished until the 11th of October-- if I'm lucky.  It could stretch out to nearly Halloween.

4)  As far as effects go, tiredness is the main one.  It's hard to tell if I'm being lazy or if it's just chemo effect.  I know I don't get as much work done as I'd like to.  The hair, even after four treatments, isn't 100% gone, though alas, the eyebrows are flaking out a bit.  I admit I look in the mirror and see my little-old-man pate and think, "This is stupid!  I could have gone the rest of my life without this!"  But there it is.  And fortunately, I do okay with the wigs when I go out.  Otherwise, I let my head hang out around the house. And sometimes in the yard.  And the neighbors' yards.  Unless it's too hot or too chilly, that is. 

Everyone tells me how healthy I look.  This is good, I know, but sometimes I crave a little sympathy.

Or maybe I don't.  I don't like it when people patronize me over the chemo.


5)  I've been getting a shot at four different interim pastor positions the past three or four weeks.  "Three" I should say now, since one of the churches phoned me today and said they'd decided to hire someone else.  And that's the church that's given me the only real interview so far; the rest of them have been informal look-sees when I've come to supply preach.  I spent a week obsessing about that interview and getting really depressed about my prospects-- how to cover what happened in the past without making me or my former church or my presbytery look lame--, but I felt it went well on the day.  Not well enough, obviously.  But maybe it wasn't the right position for me anyway.  That church is in the middle of a worship war, with "contemporary" currently in the ascendency, and if there's anything I find to be a non-edifying, crashing bore, it's so-called contemporary worship.  I would not have been neutral, no matter how hard I tried!

I hope and pray something comes of one of these churches, since I can't support myself on substitute teaching.  (School year started here this past Tuesday, but I haven't been called in yet.)

That's good enough.  I'll try to be more diligent about posting in the future.  Besides, when you're in my position and you go silent, people might begin to worry.  I know I do.