I spoke with an assistant at Mayo Clinic today regarding my alternative treatment for thyroid cancer. The treatment is called ethanol ablation, and you can read my brief explanation in my last blog here. It’s been another month of running around the hospital systems in Chicago, gathering my various pathology slides, imaging CDs, reports, etc., to send to Mayo for review.

Right now it appears my treatment will be two days back-to-back at the end of May (28-29), and I am so thankful that this will be after finals! They plan on doing the treatment, but I found out today the doctor I was referred to is not the one administering the treatment, but instead a resident doctor. Little surprises like this make it difficult to prepare and know what I’m getting myself into. 

Another hiccup in this process is that the hospital with my team of doctors will stop accepting my insurance in three weeks. It has taken two years to feel as though I have a team who has my back and knows me. Thankfully Mayo takes my insurance, and my surgeries are at another hospital that accepts my insurance, but my endocrinologist and the team that regulates my medication and treatment plan is now out of the scope of my insurance, and this is very difficult for me to stomach. Please pray for some direction with this.

Law school has been the most challenging experience of my life–emotionally, physically, intellectually–and there have been many days I just don’t want to be there, many days where I feel like I don’t belong. At the same time, however, I am so sure this is where I am supposed to be. Thank God for my internship this semester, and the incredibly gratifying work I’ve experienced at Equip for Equality through advocating for those with disabilities and their right to be free from abuse and neglect. Without this, I don’t know if I would see any light at the end of the tunnel.

There is one month of this semester left, and I can say I survived 1L year of law school, despite surgery in the middle of the first semester, biopsies every couples months, ultrasounds, body scans, PET scans, blood work, and immeasurable exhaustion. One month until I can say I made it. Thank God.

Easter is this weekend, and I can’t wait. Jesus is the reason I have hope.

Your love it beckons deeply, 
A call to come and die.
By grace now I will come 
And take this life, take your life.

Sin has lost it’s power,
Death has lost it’s sting.
From the grave you’ve risen
Victoriously!

Barrister’s Ball (law school prom)