This morning, I removed the bandage that Dr. B. applied on Friday, after draining my wound (I'm still the English patient). The swelling has reduced somewhat, but Dr. B. may have to drain it again later in the week. It feels like a bad sunburn, coupled with bruising, but hey – when you go through the war, a soldier expects to get injured. I need to exercise my arm more in order to stretch the scar tissue. I stretched it the wrong way today while putting my arm in my coat, let out a scream and sat down to recover, thinking I had done something to it. Still intact. Need to be more careful, I guess. I have slowed down to slow-mo in everything I do; can't imagine I would ever be doing everything SO slow!

So much has happened to me today, that I need the night to process it, and will write more tomorrow. I want to tell a story about two "BELIEVE" angels I received today, and how God used them to give me hope in this storm (and some other things).

I'm in a waiting game: calls from the hospital for all the x-rays and scans I will have before starting chemo, a call from oncologist Dr. R., and another visit to surgeon Dr. B. (have I written that she's the greatest?). I'm sure Dr. R. will be great as well (someone very special told me that I will love him, too. D. S., the special dietitian visited with food this past Saturday, and told me she will be my oncology dietitian. She is "waiting for me" to come to the unit. I was so blessed by that.) God is placing people everywhere to help me get through this 'adventure.'

Today, I have been pondering Acts 28, where the Apostle Paul was bitten by a snake on the island of Malta. Paul shook off the snake and went on with his work. The people on the island saw it happen, and expected him to swell up and die. Yet he did not, even though the FACT is that if one is bitten by a poisonous snake, serious things happen inside the body. Why didn't the snakebite kill Paul? Because the TRUTH of God was working – God was not finished with Paul yet, so the snake had no effect on him. Paul SHOOK the snake off his body, and went on with the task at hand – building a fire.

I have been bitten by the 'snake' of cancer – people are watching me, expecting me to die perhaps, but if GOD isn't finished with Deborah MacDonald yet, the effects of the 'snake' will not harm her, and she will continue on with the work assigned to her – building fires on some remote island, perhaps.

Night.