Wednesday One Word

I know that on Wednesday, it's suppose to be Hodgepodge Day, but Joyce had some excuse about travelling, house cleaning, getting together with friends and being generally busy with life.  She gave herself a "Snow Day" and so there is no Hodgepodge.  The perfect  time to type up my One Word post on Joy.

I have Joy in the husband of my youth. Come July 1st we will have been married for 41 years.  We are High School Sweethearts and we still act that way. We still hold hands in public and often show Public Displays of affection.  I still light up when he calls my name and my nick name, SWMBO. It stands for "She Who Must Be Obeyed."  He has been the care giver to me in the past and he does not leave when the going gets hard.  He sticks close by and takes over. I cannot imagine going through this alone.  How do people do that?? He has given me over 41 years of Joy.  He is my rock.

I have Joy in my doctors.  Dr. Shah has said to us more than once that he doesn't treat lab results but he treats the whole person.  Do they have fight still in them? How do they look? How do they sound?  He decided to continue with Chemo even though I have a kidney infection and am on antibiotics for it.  I'm so glad that he did that.  This whole Chemo thing is exhausting and the thought of posponing it for a week was depressing.  I'm glad he opted to keep on target and press on.

I also have Joy in my Primary Care Physician, Dr. Nguyen, who keeps looking for problems that may come up but problems that I can't feel.  He is the one who found the kidney infection and got me on the antibioticis. He explained that with my current compromised immune system, I cannot tell if I'm sick, so that is now his job.  We have a plan for me to call him if I suspect something is wrong and it's his job to find it.  He has a very strong accent but I must say I am learning to love this man.

I have Joy in our oncology nurse Lisa. What a ray of sunshine she is!! She tells me I'm not nuts when I ask her if my Chemo Port (called Pebbles becasue she is one bump in the road to recovery) can pop out of my skin and be rejected by my body.  She told me no, it does move however as I stretch and bend and that can make it feel like my body is rejecting it.  She always laughs and teases us.  She is kind, loving, and remembers what we like and need from week to week and gets us answers when she doesn't know the answer right away. She is a must in this walk through Multiple Myeloma Cancer.

And most importanly I have Joy in Our Heavenly Father - God!  He put all these wonderful people in our path. We trust Him, so we trust those He sent us to.  He is with us every step of the way and although I have some days of depression, anger, frustration and pain, I Know that I am in good hands.
On those days when I'm feeling down, I remind myself of these things and I find my JOY again.