if you're tired and you know it, clap your hands

i'm writing this late thursday night, well after jenny has gone to bed. i love going back and looking at our blog, especially all of the incredible comments, prayers, and scripture that all of you have written to us. it is especially encouraging, and i hope and pray that you know God is using you to witness to us as we go through this experience.

it has been exactly one week since jenny's first chemo treatment, and it has been very interesting, to say the least. wanting to be real as we continue our battle, i wanted to update you with a few things that have happened, so that you may know how to better pray for us.

as you know, nausea was the fear jenny had the most about chemo. she didn't want to get sick, and thankfully, nausea has not been something we've had to worry about. however, side effects of nausea medication turned into a bit of an adventure. shortly after her last post, jenny started having some muscle spasms in her neck. spasms shortly turned to clenched muscles, that were causing jenny to have some uncomfortable muscle movements in her neck and back, and it was effecting her breathing. after calling the on-call doctor, we ended up visiting the emergency room for a few hours while they figured out what was going on. they quickly learned that it was her nausea medication that was causing it, and switched us to something else. for many of you, this will be the first time that you hear about this, so we apologize. please pray that this new medicine will continue to work for us without any more complications.

again, we went into this thing thinking that nausea was going to be our main enemy, and if we beat it, this would be a breeze. i don't want to say we were naive, but extremely hopeful might be a better way to put it. for the most part, it hasn't been too bad. however, fatigue has become a huge issue for jenny over the past week. she wants to work (if you even knew how bad she wanted to go into work every day you would think she was a crazy woman). she wants to hang out with people (me included, although i don't know why because she's seen enough of me the past three weeks to last a lifetime). the simple things, getting dressed, going up and down stairs, and just walking around the store have become very tiresome. she just wants to be her normal bubbly, encouraging self, but it is so hard when you don't have any energy at all. please pray for renewed strength and energy day in and day out, so that jenny will be able to complete whatever goals she has set for herself that day. it will require her to be realistic with her goals, and that will be challenging for her because she is so driven.

for the most part, i spend most of my time thinking, praying, and asking for prayers for jenny. but, jenny would be quite frustrated with me if i didn't ask for prayer for myself. most of you know i'm in school again, and obviously it is very hard to keep motivated and interested in school while all of this is going on. i've just done midterms, and one test i did great on, and another, not so much. on monday i'll be taking a test that will have great impact on whether or not i get into the nursing program, and i ask that you pray that God will grant me focus to study this weekend, as well as great recall as i take my test on monday.

again, thank you so much for your prayers. we are doing EXCELLENT here as we continue to fight. do not take this post the wrong way, thinking that we are down right now. we want to be honest with what we think and feel, so that we can show how much God is doing in this fight, and how much He continues to use you to lift us up. without Him, we cannot imagine going through all of this, and we continue to feel blessed more and more each day as we learn more about Him, and as we draw closer in our relationship. we love you all, and we thank God for you. --john