On the Road Again

 Well, actually.. rail again, in fact.

To Belfast City Hospital once more.

It’s Cycle 2, end of Week 1.

Translated, that means, my second immunotherapy treatment was last Friday.

I have two more weeks till the next one. I’m beginning to detect a pattern. 

The first week is a bit dodgy. I feel kind of rough most of the time, little energy, lie down a lot during the day, and then lose sleep at night. 

After that, it gets better, and I’m more my normal self.

But unusually, I’m back up to the Hospital once again today.

For blood tests, because the results of my earlier ones were a bit askew

As I continue to think of this in terms of a war zone (both physical and spiritual), then this is a border skirmish. The real stuff is still going on against that rebellious army of cancer cells in my bones. But as the T-cells (the ‘SAS’ in the white blood cell world) get armed by the treatment and begin to flex their muscles against the renegades, then there’s always the possibility of ‘friendly fire’ taking down some otherwise innocent targets.  Hence the blood tests with their unusual levels are indicating inflammation in other organs.

And so we continue to fight. Both with the help of the doctors and the medications and all the care I am receiving, plus, on the spiritual level, all the help of wonderful friends round the world, who have been writing, texting and encouraging me with their prayers. 

The Apostle Paul’s description of the nature of this spiritual warfare strikes an interesting parallel for me as to what’s going on in my own body on the physical level. 

To the Corinthians he writes, “the weapons we fight with have divine power to demolish strongholds. So we cast down imaginations and every pretension that sets itself against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ”

Just as those cancer cells, if you like, are rebelling against the very purpose for which they were formed, and as a result are playing havoc with my ability to function, and threatening my overall well being, so those thoughts and imaginations that wander into my head in the wee hours of the night (those ‘why’ and “what if’ and ‘when is it over’ questions you can’t help playing with) need to be challenged, and dismissed - demolished. It’s only through Christ’s power in me, that I can bring those critters into line with what I already know of God - that He is altogether good, altogether powerful and altogether wise in the way he is unrolling his plan for my life. And I need to do that daily too, just as my body needs its regular dose of T cell weaponry!

I believe there’s another whole level to this physical / spiritual parallel going on in the wider world of grief and pain and violence, but that will have to be the subject for another blog post