I finished my oral antibiotics on Friday, the day after Thanksgiving.  I flew from Illinois to Connecticut on Saturday, and by Monday I was starting to feel sick again.  I woke up Tuesday morning with a worsening cough and a fever, and went to the cancer center to see my doctor.

My temp was 102.0, I was coughing up green phlegm, and I was just feeling terrible in general.  My doctor did a quick exam, and decided to put me back in the hospital.

So I drove home, packed an overnight bag, and a friend drove me to the hospital.  As I sat in my new room waiting for the nurse to come in and start my I.V., I looked out the window at the sunset and cried and told God (again), “I know you say you love me, but this doesn’t feel like love.”  Cancer, chemo, radiation, vomiting, fevers, and pneumonia do not feel like love. 

Over the next 24 hours, various specialists came to see me…oncologists, pulmonologists, infectious disease doctors…and they all said the same thing.  “You’re immune system is so fragile right now.” 

Two days into my hospital stay, my test results came back.  I have an infection called MAI, mycobacterium avium intracellularae.  It’s a rare infection that usually only end- stage AIDS patients are susceptible to.  Somehow, chemo wiped out my immune system and MAI was able to set up shop in my lungs.

But even after I started antibiotics for MAI, I continued to get worse.  The pulmonologist decided that I most likely have a bacterial infection on top of the MAI, and started me on a new set of I.V. antibiotics. 

As she was ordering the antibiotics, the pulmonologist said again, “You’re just so fragile right now.”

Fragile.  It’s a good word for me right now.  My immune system is fragile.  My health is fragile.  My hope that I’ll have a life beyond this sickness is fragile.  My faith that God loves me is fragile.  My joy in spite of these circumstances is fragile.  And I feel powerless to do anything about my fragility…except to pray, by God’s mercy, that I do not break.