She’s not a number, not a file. She’s not another task on a list to be crossed off.

She has feelings. She has concerns and cares- just me and just like you.

It’s amazing to me a place dealing with such catastrophic issues can show such a lack of compassion to their patients. It all seems like business.

This morning, we’ve sat to wait in numerous waiting rooms. We’ve signed into five different waiting areas.

The one request my mom has had was to see *HER OWN* chest x-ray.

You wouldn’t believe what we had to do to see the chest x-ray. We’ve been asking for weeks and told finally this morning, if we wanted to see them, we would have to change doctors.

You know, I’m not above that- I think I would want to find another doctor but, I’m not the patient here, as I’m aware.

I finally got Mom tucked away into the treatment room, I came back out to the waiting area and started to pray.

The nurse came back out and asked if I wanted to come back to Mom’s room (I’m not allowed to stay with her during treatment).

As we approached the room, she began to say that she didn’t know what to do about this chest x-ray (I guess Mama had asked her). All of the sudden I stopped in the hall and began to to weep. She asked why I was crying and I just looked at her for a moment. “Are you kidding??!!”, I wanted to ask. What I did say was that I didn’t understand why they couldn’t show some compassion to this woman who had ministered to her own family and friends selflessly for her entire life, and was now being denied to even see what she is being told is taking her life. I reminded her people grieve and deal with stressful situations in different ways- she needed to see this disease she was fighting.

In the end, they took us to a patient room where the physician’s assistant came to sit with us. She answered all the questions her doctor has seemed, at times, to be too busy to answer.

So, *I now have a CD with ALL of her scans.*

Was that really so hard?? I should have prayed over all of these things from the very start. Why do I forget so easily….

This is what we know today-

Mama has been dizzy and weak this last three weeks. This didn’t happen with the last treatment. As it turns out, she has also lost 14 more pounds. They told her to take the meds they gave us several weeks back- I think this visit made her realize she needs them. I think, if she’ll eat more, we’ll have a little better time with the symptoms next visit.

She is having slight tachycardia this morning. They are giving her more fluids today and are scheduled to do the same tomorrow afternoon. This too, should help regulate her heart rate.

We didn’t see her chest x-ray, though they tell us one lung didn’t change, but they *did* see a shrinkage of the disease in the other lung.

The very next visit, we are scheduled to come a few days before so we can have a CT scan to see the lymph nodes and other parts of her body that are not seen with just this x-ray.

Her tumor markers were 13 on her first visit. Last visit, they were 12. We’ll learn this week’s level tomorrow. They did warn us not to be too concerned if we see them rise slightly. They don’t worry unless they see a dramatic change.

Overall, good news.

Please continue to pray for her and for our family as we minister to her.

Thank you for the continued encouragement, letters, and the packages she receives from time to time. They mean a great deal to her.

We have been blessed!