dying to live: ggt!!!--part 6

i am dying to live.

i might have written about this from a different angle before, but this statement has a new meaning for me...

for 7 days straight, 24 hours a day, i received aggressive chemo treatment back in november. about 30 days later i received 3 more rounds of aggressive chemo over 5 days. i will again early on in january and again in february of 2013.

chemo kills all the bad cells that are in my body, in the same way that pesticide kills weeds in a garden. unfortunately, even with all the advancements in cancer treatment, we haven't found a way to only kill the bad weeds. chemo also kills the good growth, wiping out the good with the bad. every round of chemo--basically the injection of pesticides into my body--brings my body to a zero state of immunity and there are great risks of infection that my body isn't equipped to fight in that state.

i am literally dying to live.

this statement has a spiritual element, of course, because every day we need to fight off the bad that threatens to destroy our lives. the devil, even if you choose to believe he doesn't actually exist, he be out ta do bad stuff--cause harmful addictions, create painful relationships, ruin healthy homes, make good people do bad things...so everyday we ought to be doing all we can to protect ourselves by putting God and good first...it's easy to get distracted when you think you are invincible, but diligence and vigilance ensures a better rate of success and survival :-)

aside from the spiritual, in another life versus death battle, every day i am dying to live as my body goes through the process of having all the bad weeds overtaking my garden wiped out, along with what healthy, good growth was there. brought to a zero state of immunity, my body, my mind, my spirit all have a choice to make: fight or flight. diligently and vigilantly stay the course and get the seed packets out and start sprinkling...or tossing by handfuls!...or pack up the gardening tools and miracle grow and give up.

i choose life.

i choose the struggles and the victories of every seed planted and the chance for new growth and life.

because in this process--with every round of aggressive treatment, with every day i wake up, with every side effect that i can see when i look in the mirror and those i can't --i am reminded that my life requires death. my living requires dying. the bad has to go so the good can have a chance to regrow, stronger, healthier, in copious amounts, able to take up all of the soil in my garden so that the bad doesn't stand a chance.

and in this process of dying, as it were, i get to see the miracle of growth when the nurse or doctor hands me a piece of paper that has higher numbers on it today than it did yesterday...i get to see the miracle of growth in my garden when zeroes in my blood count become tens, and twenties, and fifties, and eighties, and higher...i get to see the miracle of growth when the little fuzzy hairs on my bald head stick it out after a round of chemo and are a half of a milimetre longer...i get to see the miracle of growth when cultures and chemistries and scans and procedures come back negative or positive when they need to depending on the test because the killing and planting has been successful...

i get to see the miracle of life after death on a regular basis because i am dying to live. 

and this garden, this mind, this spirit, this body chooses life.

because God's got this!!!