In the Fear of God and With Faith and Love, Draw Near
The words in the post title are the extremely meaningful words spoken by the Orthodox priest as he comes out of the altar carrying the precious Holy Mysteries of Christ in the chalice as we who are Orthodox Christians come forward to receive His Body into our bodies. After a full year between blog updates, I am not planning to proselytize in this post, but these words of the priest are so incredibly appropriate because when one is physically deteriorating in cancer, and drowning in pain, one must fear God, and draw near with his or her whole heart, otherwise the battle is meaningless. And 2024 has been the most physically painful year of my life. In late 2022 I described a potentially miraculous treatment called Pluvicto, a targeted radioactive therapy that was just being made available to metastatic Prostate cancer patients. I was to be one of the first 10 or so to receive it at UC Davis and after many delays and a PSA that was shooting up to a high of 43.5, I finally received confirm...