The Living Saga of Garvin Smith - Are you Dying to Read It? Part 8

Rebekah is really interested in me losing my hair from the chemo. At first she was going to support me by shaving her head, but then her friends convinced here that that was too drastic an action to take. She then decided that if (when) my hair falls out, she would dye her hair "flaming red." She is so excited! You know Bekah - looking for ANY excuse to change her hair!
While the actual Rituxan chemo was painful (see previous posts) they have other fine chemicals to ease the pain. However, it's after the chemo regimen that is also interesting. I continued to get weaker on Thursday and Friday. I continued to work and move furniture to our house as best as I could with the great help of Hyrum. We always wondered why our first seven children were born within eight years and then Hyrum came along almost five years later. But now we can see the wisdom of God and His tender mercies and charity toward his children. There is NO WAY we could have moved into this house, while undergoing chemo, without the great help of Hyrum. God, who knows all things from the beginning, prepared a way for us to accomplish this move by having Hyrum born so much later that the other children.
As I said, I continued to get weaker on Thursday and Friday. Some other side effects of the chemo are congestion and diarrhea or constipation, depending on what drugs one actually gets. My body just doesn't want to expel its waste so it builds for days. This becomes so painful that I have developed a new appreciation for women who bear children. I can't even imagine their birthing pains.
So consequently, I don't necessarily want to eat. Nothing in, nothing out! This is probably not good (no food, no energy) and I grow weaker. I am starting to look like an elephant: big, but with gray sagging skin, no muscle tone, etc. This is a result of losing fifty pounds in about eleven weeks. Our initial, preliminary diagnosis of lymphoma was on January 15, 2010. I have started to do some small amount of exercise (believe me it's a minuscule amount) to help me get in some shape of health. Days when I eat, I look and feel pretty good but suffer major constipation pain. Days when I don't don't eat I don't look or feel so good, but I have no constipation pain. Just one more set of "horns of dilemma" to navigate in this life.
the good news is that the swollen lymph nodes that I could feel in my neck and groin have all but disappeared as hordes of B-cell lymphocytes are being killed and expelled. I will be very interested in seeing what my lymphocyte count will be Thursday, April 8, when I have my next Rituxan treatment.
I was a little concerned that this post may contain "too much information" but, hey, you don't have to read it!
Thank you for all your prayers, concern, love, charity, help, and support, that you have provided me and my family through this period.
It's going to be a wonderful Easter Sunday, where we celebrate the resurrection of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Words fail to express the level of gratitude I have for my knowledge of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the great Plan of Salvation, the great Plan of Mercy, the great Plan of Love that is so freely given by our Father in Heaven.

More to come . . .