It’s been about a week and a half since I last shared memories of Lynette’s cancer journey. For the late summer and fall of 2016, the protocol for her was chemotherapy infusion every three weeks. A week after infusion, she’d have lab work done and we’d have an office visit with Dr. Hightower. After every third infusion, she’d have a scan. One obvious result of the chemo was that the very angry looking discoloration of her left breast began to disappear. That was certainly a good thing. Along with the positive developments, her appetite was affected. I remember one Saturday that I made five or six trips to the Rouse’s near our house in an effort to find SOMETHING she would eat. She was on anti-nausea meds, but she often had little appetite and food did not taste the same to her. We worked on that for the whole sixteen month journey.Also, of course, her hair began to fall out. Lynette had very curly brown hair. Cosmetologists always LOVED to experiment with it, while she was reluctant to let many people touch it. We found someone she trusted to cut her hair in 1996 and Lynette stuck with her for the rest of her life. As it became clear that her hair was coming out, she decided to go on and shave her head. Sarah was the one who actually wielded the razor. While I don’t think it was particularly traumatic for Lynette, that particular day WAS traumatic for Sarah. Lynette had read and heard of people who were able to continue to work while doing chemotherapy and her intention was to go back to work fairly soon. The Herceptin was, I think, a more powerful chemo drug than those some other folks take. She was more wiped out than she was expecting to be and simply was not able to go back to working the way she was used to. Also, one of her primary areas of ministry at St. Paul was Congregational Care. That meant she was the one who did much of the shut-in and hospital visitation. A sort of crisis day came on the day she was scheduled for a visit with Dr. Hightower and a St. Paul member was a patient in the Memorial ER. She asked Dr. Hightower if she could visit him in the ER. Dr. Hightower said “ABSOLUTELY NOT!” The chemo was compromising her immune system and spending time in the germ factory that is a hospital emergency department was the worst thing she could do.In early December Lynette talked this over with our District Superintendent. He recommended she apply for Disability through the United Methodist Comprehensive Protection Plan. That process was remarkably pain free (comparatively speaking) and she was approved for disability starting January 2017.I have some other comments about the Fall of 2016, but will share them in another post.