Side effects showed up today

The good side effects showed up today as Pam spent the middle of it in the hospital getting her PowerPort. What are some of the good side effects of cancer? Stronger and deeper relationships. Stephanie Elder and Pam shared the chair (and she blew our minds). Lisa Benson made sure to have Pam again, giving her the attention only a close friend can. "Kitten," stage name for Kathy since she didn't want me using her real name, came in to check on us. She has been checking on us since she began in the Ambulatory Surgical Unit 12 years ago. Jeannine Vote and Rachel White made it just in the knick of time to hang and encourage. Rachel then slowed everything down as she covered Pam with the most incredible prayer.

This wasn't brain surgery today. It was just a little plumbing job that will make administering chemotherapy a whole lot easier. And it stings a little, and it will leave a mark, but ya gotta do what ya gotta do. You can see it, sort of, in the last pic with Lisa, right before we left the hospital. Pam actually does amaze me. I have officially lost track of how many procedures/surgeries she has gone through. I used to be able to count the scars, but anymore the surgeons try to go in through old scars for new procedures, so I can't keep track that way. In the past four years I would guess Pam has had 9 or 10 procedures/surgeries (THIS JUST IN...the number is actually 12). Turn the clock back to before cancer and you can add in another dozen (or two) or so. I could never count how many IV sticks she has had. Blood transfusions...she has been there, done that. Office visits, easily in the 400-500 range (she has had 20 since mid Nov. 08, 4 appearances since Monday this week alone). We have friends who are doctors and doctors who see her so much they are now friends. Same with nurses obviously.

The bad side effects are horrible memories and fear of them lurk on the horizon. But God is so good and He has done an amazing job of balancing those bad ones with equal and/or better good ones. We can be thankful. Pam is thankful through all of this.

Today's kidwatchers Amy Crose and Stephanie Farris.