Ep.330: Cancer, Chemo, COVID, and Wildfires.

Hello, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray With Me”.

The effects of my chemotherapy were just wearing off when I got . . . COVID. 

Chemo and COVID, not exactly a marriage made in heaven. One evening when my COVID fever crept beyond 39 degrees Celsius, I checked myself into Emergency. They poked and prodded and took statements and extracted blood. Finally, they sent me home at 2:00 a.m. saying, “Come back if your breathing gets difficult and painful.”

After a restless sleep, I phoned the COVID hotline. A doctor prescribed the new COVID drug Paxlovid. Pills morning, pills evening, fatigue all the time! Oil-sludgy tasting tongue. Tingling feet. It was like chemo all over again. But only for five days. Small mercies?

Paxlovid didn’t kill or heal my COVID, it just slowed it down while my body built immunity. When I finished my pills, I got a COVID hacking cough and runny nose. My taste buds quit working, an improvement on the sludge, but not an outcome that made me happy.

A week later my home test kit declared me COVID-free. My taste buds and sense of smell started to recover—just in time to experience the smoke-filled air of Alberta wildfire season. A record 23 out-of-control wildfires burned thousands of square kilometers, creating 20,000 refugees. 

Edmonton air quality, normally one or two on a scale of ten, jumped beyond ten. My winter of sickness progressed into a spring of smoke-filled air.

Let’s pray. 

Our father, my tomato seeds grew stems with smooth, generic leaves, and then replaced them with pointy tomato leaves. 

My life is at the generic stage. In the dark soil of cancer and chemo and COVID, bits of your word germinated and grew timidly into the smokey air of my life. My garden has produced weak stems and immature leaves. 

What plants are you growing here, as you dirty your hands in the soil of my life? Are you breathing my smokey air and tending the tender plants?  

Paul said, in all things for the good of those who love you. May my heart respond to your love. May my life mature in your care. Bring your seedlings to a rich harvest.

Amen. 

I’m Daniel, on the channel “Pray with Me”.  

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