The Worst Day Ever

For the seventh time in the last three months, we had the worst day of our lives today. A lot of "stuff" has happened in 46 years of living, 22 years of marriage, and 21 years of being a parent. The list would take another post...but nothing we've been through has compared to watching Rhonda go through chemo.

There really aren't any words (even for a writer) to express the emotions that you experience when they tell you your child has cancer. The grief, disbelief, anger, fear and pain are very real. But as bad as it is, none of that gets you ready for what chemo is like. Rhonda has been so sick. Just walking through the door of the Oncology Center is enough to get her started. And it goes downhill from there. This is not what a 21 year old girl is supposed to be doing the summer after finishing college.

I'm grateful for wonderful doctors and nurses. They've been incredible. I'm so proud of our little girl. She's so brave through all this.

Her dad is about to fall apart.

I have no right to complain. They caught it early. She's responding to treatment wonderfully. She has the "good" kind of Hodgkins (and we're so sick of that expression!). God is healing her. Friends are praying. And yet...I feel so helpless and alone. Watching her get sick again today before they even started the chemo was the last straw. I don't cry much, but I did today.

I told Rhonda last time that I just wanted to sit in the chair and take the chemo for her. But I can't do that. She has to have some of the most powerful chemical poisons known to man pumped into her body five more times. She has to have the dread and the pain and the sickness. And there's nothing I can do about it. I hate this feeling.

Dr. George Truett, for decades pastor of the great First Baptist Church in Dallas, killed his best friend in a hunting accident. He grieved over that for the rest of his life. He used to say, "Be good to everybody, because everybody's having a tough time." It's the truth. We're having a tough time. I don't know how we're going to keep going another 2 1/2 months.