Pray for Only Purple

Yesterday I was feeling pretty darn good. I realized how gracious God is that even during chemotherapy I can find so many moments of rest and play. And then I remembered several survivors telling me that there will be many bad days. So I prayed right then and there for God to protect me from feeling too secure and that He would prepare me for any bad days on the horizon.

And this morning when I woke up to a stiff, painful knee I realized that my next bad day was closer than I thought.

A lot of people have asked me frequently about prophalactic mastectomy on my right side and I've told them what my doctors have said. "The cancer is no more likely to come back in that breast than it is to come back in your knee cap."

So, I won't pretend that I don't recognize the irony that I'm sitting here worrying that I might have bone mets in my knee. (Bone is one of the more likely places breast cancer spreads to.)

I called my doctor's office and spoke to the nurse. I was expecting her to tell me that joint pain is a side effect of both Taxotere (which is part of my chemo regimen) and Neulasta (which is the shot I get 24 hours after every chemo treatment). Instead, after I explained my pain she said it didn't sound like my pain was related to either one. We hung up after she told me to treat the knee like it was an injury (ice and heat) and then come in for an X-ray on Thursday (when I'll already be there for chemo #3).

So here I am. Having to look my last post about peace right in the face. Right in its dirty, ol', good-for-nothing face. Can I lay this down too? Can I be obedient and not worry? Can I sleep tonight without those awful thoughts creeping back to find me under the covers?

From what I've read/been told, every cancer survivor faces these moments on a fairly regular basis. Every ache and pain makes them think they've got a recurrence. I just never expected to face this while I'm still in the early stages of treatment.

And here's some more irony for you: I've been wearing both my pink 'breast cancer' bracelet (that so many of you are also sporting on my behalf) and the purple 'cancer survivor' bracelet that Paul gave me. But this morning mere minutes before I squatted to lift Caleb and felt the sharp pain in my knee, I had taken off the pink bracelet thinking, "My scans are clear. I'm healed, despite my ongoing treatment. I'm losing the pink."

What do you think? A bit of spiritual warfare? The moment I claim my health in a tangible way, my old feelings of death and despair are thrown back into my face?

Help me win this battle. Pray my knee pain is something else. Anything but bone mets.