My Journey

This morning I rise to say farewell to 2014 and as I bid my year it's finale goodbye, I am reminded of all that I am grateful for, there are those who I love who breathed their last breath.  I shall always remember them and who they were. These beautiful people brought more to our family than anyone can imagine. I love this group of mismatched individules that make up the whole of us, we stretch from sea to shining sea for we as a family are so much more than "one" could ever hope to be. Family is the greatest gift I have ever experienced. Each member has stepped up when needed and become something greater than they really thought possible because they loved individuals so much they wanted to make a difference in their lives. When we are part of a family and we learn to love, we become something beautiful. I have been fortunate to love and be loved by truly ordinary but great people. I have family that lives hundreds of miles away that love me like I was raised next door. I have family that I live among that bless me with love daily.  I have friends that love me like family too. I reflect on this year of losses and count my blessings to have been in the company of such great and ordinary people. When one reflects on the best life lived, I do not see wealth as a marker for success, I see those who loved and gave of themselves as the wealthy ones. When counting my blessings I am the wealtiest person I know because I am loved by many, so as I see it 2014 has given me more than it has required of me and I am grateful for the losses cannot outweigh the blessings I carry into this new and beautiful year ahead. Tho ones I love have passed on they left me with gifts of love and wisdom that I shall carry into eternity! Farewell to a year of joy and sorrows, a year of love and devotion, a year of change.

My Journey

The journey I am on leads to being bald for a period of time. I have taken a proactive stance and had my hair cut to prepare. The moments leading up to my hair cut were emotional, I was feeling everything possible. I contemplated not doing it and letting my hair fall out long and golden on the pillow when the chemicals demanded it. This whole experience has been somewhat grueling in respect to the things it has required of my body. I have met each demand with a measure of grace and fear and the decision to cut my hair was the best way for me to have any sense of control. So I got a short and very sassy hair cut and love it. There was a child like liberation that came when I saw myself looking like I did as a kid with a fresh cut pixy, I think I saw my youth looking back at me in the mirror and I like it.The things you must do to insure you have good days in front of you is not for the faint of heart but it is also much more than the physical demands it places on you. This journey is one of the heart and soul too. My soul has been magnified to me and I know that what matters most in life is what I feed it. Our bodies will decay and fall apart but our soul it is eternal and it needs nourishment too. The external things are being stripped away from me so I am looking inward and I am making friends with my heart and soul. My life is just a brief time in the worlds history so I must get busy living no matter what I face because time waits for nobody and my body is telling me you don't have much time left so make today matter! I am at peace with letting go of the physical because I want the deep richness that comes from living a life centered on eternity.

My Journey

It is Christmas Eve my favorite day of the year, all the hustle and bustle of shopping is done. Today we gather together for the Joy of fellowship with the ones we love. This year I am preparing this evenings dinner in memory of my dearest Beth Wulff, this was always her night to wow us with a beautiful meal. Christmas holds us all captive for a moment, it slows the world down and helps us feel the importance of those around us. We celebrate the amazing gift given that very first Christmas morning, our Savior as a baby, surrendered to humanity. I am thankful for His gift to me, He gives me strength to accomplish so much more than I am able. All of the trappings of gifts are nothing compared to the beauty of the family coming together to let go of the year gone by and embrace all that is new before us. This year as I celebrate my joy shall abound for this very moment in time, is all I have, there is no real promise of tomorrow only this moment and it is a beautiful moment. I am full with hope for myself and the ones I love, the difficulty of yesterday is behind me and I am at peace. This thing called Cancer has helped set me free from unrealistic ideas about how perfect everything should be and now I am able to enjoy the simplicity of a life well lived. My prayer for you my friend is the joy of the best gift ever given resides deep in your heart! Merry Christmas my loved ones Merry Christmas!

My Journey

Just recently I have started clinching my teeth again and it is such a pain, literally and figuratively. The internal conflict about receiving chemotherapy when I never thought I'd never ever consider it has my mind working overtime.I have always believed in supporting the immune system and letting it do the work and in truth I still believe that. Today I find the body and its cells are much more complicated that I had thought. I believe sometimes conventional medicine has the upper hand. I also think the prospect of making sure that there are no future reoccurrences outweighs the fear I have concerning taking chemo in the here and now. My doctors have made it clear women are being cured of Breast cancer because of all the understanding gathered over the past 30years. Thirty years ago I would have had a Masectomy and been sent home to recover and five years later it would reappear in a new place and the battle would start new. The Cancer I have is a grade three and invasive, I had it in two places in my Breast but in truth I am very lucky......none in my lymph nodes. So come the New Year I shall begin four months of chemotherapy and will be given a drug called herceptine that will continue for the rest of 2015, so in truth this time next year my celebration will be grand as I will have done all I and my doctors know to do to fight this disease. I will be in this battle with supplements and diet as well, doing everything I can to give me every fighting chance. I need to be surrendered to the process and at peace with my decisions so this jaw of mine will stop the chattering.

My Journey

My first encounter with oncology happened Thursday. I entered the Cancer center and headed to the desk when off to my left a woman about 20 years younger than me was ringing a bell to mark the completion of her treatments. That moment was so beautiful and touching that it made me weep. My life has changed in a radical way and I am better for it. My fears all still stand before me and hers are now just memories, I felt absolute Joy for her, she is now free to live unencumbered from medical procedures. Everything imagined doesn't come to fruition and for that I am grateful. The mind has a way of weaving stories that make life so much more and so much less than reality. Me , myself, I am putting all my effort in this present day. I have no promise of tomorrow, Cancer threatens my future but not my today, so I got to get busy living and enjoying each moment present.The relief I saw on that beautiful young woman's face shall be mine in a year if God sees fit to allow me that time and in truth Cancer or not we do not have a promise we shall be here tomorrow, or next week or next month, we all need to live like life is short and fill it full of love. I have been so bust doing things I thought important that I have missed many opportunities to fellowship with people who need encouragement. I am letting Cancer teach me how to become the better version of myself, praying that my beauty radiates from within so that come December 2015 when I am ringing that bell I will inspire someone to believe they too can overcome this giant hiding within!

My Journey

The will to live well must be at the forefront of all that moves within us. Living shouldn't be just us numbering our days on a calendar but loving exchanges each and everyday. I think hardship no matter the form is an opportunity for change. Each soul enters the world with a number of days, from conception in their mothers womb to our last breath, it has been appointed. How we live those days matters. Joy and sorrow shall find us, marriage and divorce will happen, births and deaths shall be and our response to those events shall make us the people we were meant to be,  if we are yielded to the one who set the stars in their place. We can fight against everything that moves or we can make peace with our life and the events that happen. Living life with no agenda, living a life of liberty that is the moment we become a better version of ourselves. Laying down our false sense of entitlement, to anyone or anything or even time, will help us accept all that comes our way as just part of the journey. When we lay down all our posturing and become yielded we become something beautiful. When we accept that living well includes hardship, we gain more than we could ever possibly lose. Today may find you suffering but you my friend have the upper hand because you get to choose your attitude and therefore how you get through this junction in a life well lived.

My Journey

My journey has been long and arduous. This journey of compromised health began years ago. Three years ago the battle I fought was harder in many ways.  I was having migraines that wrecked havoc on my humanity. I was so hormonal due to menopause that my mind was fragile and I was holding on to anything I could for dear life. During this time I prayed for relief but I felt more compromised than ever. The hardest battles are the ones that get into the mind and soul. I felt the battle was for everything I held dear and I know it was. The battle then is much like the campaign today ..... Letting go. Then I had to let go and find what I could that grounded me. I had to let go of ideas and preconceived notions about who I was as a woman, wife, mother, daughter, sister, friend and I had to find me again and take care of the girl I had lost over the course of my lifetime. Today I have found her and she is my friend again and we are okay with facing the world breastless  because we are so much more than Breast. Today I am of a strong mind and therefore wise enough to know I am more valuable than my body parts. My mind is my greatest asset but rest assured even when my mind was compromised there was a part of me that kept trying to right my course, my soul.  I shall feed my soul for when everything else is struggling the soul leads you and carries you to places that restore you from within. That soul hungers for fellowship with it's Creator and therein lies the place of true restoration. My soul hungers and thirsts for fellowship with God and it is that relationship that makes me right with the world, nothing else, just me and the God of my understanding!

My Journey

Joy is my companion as I journey threw this unexpected turn in life. Joy is not what I expected a Cancer diagnosis to give me but joy is manifesting itself in my life. Joy at the prospect of celebrating another Christmas with my family. Joy in each and every moment with people who stop and take time to give an encouragement to me and those who love me. I am lifted by love, lifted to a place I have not seen in a long time. Those I love wear a look of worry and concern I no longer can carry. No, today I must rise above all that tries to weigh me down and look up for my healing will come from above not below. My healing will be multidimensional, I shall not only be recovering my health but my mind as well as my spirit. I am forever changed, body, mind and soul. The byproduct of all that is taking place in my life has made me a more grounded human being. I shall hope to carry out of this experience Joy that flows direct from my heart to others. I shall walk with a new confidence that says I am able to overcome because I trust in the unseen hand of the living God for it is He who sustaines me and fills my heart with hope and joy. My words may be hard to understand but they are full of joy and great expectations for I now know life is precious in a way I never fully understood before. Joy is internal and flows outward like rivers of living water, it has the power to clear out the mind and the body of any unclean thing, so here I am and I have decided to swim in these waters as long as God will permit. Wonder who else I will meet in these abundant waters?

My journey

Everything changes and everything stays the same. Circumstances change with time, we age, our children grow up, our parents grow old and we are here in the midst of all this change trying to make sense of it all. Life gets so busy we stop laughing and loving and enjoying each other. I believe if illness has a good side it is the fact that we are forced to stop the madness of life and embrace those we love and be still, in the moment. I am going to make the most of my recovery, I am going to enjoy these moments of one on one with each person who crosses my threshold. I hope to keep pressing toward my healing while holding near and dear these special moments that present themselves to me. Fear has no place in my recovery, I will shout it down when it tries to rise up against all the beauty going on around me. I can say I am blessed for love abounds and where love abounds there is strength. Change is happening and I am being changed for the better, how about you?

My journey

The nights can be long and quiet and unforgiving, when one cannot sleep, thoughts hard to control. I have decided the most redeeming thing I can do is pray. I pray the prayer of thanksgiving for everyone I love and care about. I call on God for mercy and understanding. I pray for wisdom and peace. I ask for the courage to face another day and thank him for the rising of the sun. I pray all my experiences change me for the better. I pray nothing on earth compares to all that is heavenly except for the love of those around me. My prayers help me grow strong and free, free from ideas and agendas, free to love and be loved. I surrender this feeble life I have over to the God of my understanding and ask him to enlighten me to his ways, so I might not dishonor him and his love for me in any way. In the darkness of the night I can feel the love of God piercing the darkness but only after I have stilled my mind from the cares of life.  Prayer has purpose and it is powerful, prayer can move the mountains of despair within if we ask God to help us in our time of need. Prayer has changed me and I am better for having an  ongoing conversation with the God of creation. Nights can be long and full of wonder if we are yielded and full of hope.

My Journey

Cancer is a scary word, it can make a grown man cry and bring families to their knees. I wonder what it is that our bodies are trying to teach us? Is cancer just defective genetics or environmental disturbances or emotional traumas? Many are the questions and all too few the answers. I think cancer has its purpose in life just as any illness but I think what makes it so hedious is the stealth way it comes in and then the wreckage it leaves in its wake. I am processing the destruction cancer has done to my body and trying to remain detached and analytical but as soon as I can no longer hide behind these bandages, the ugly truth will look me right in the eye. I  am also trying to learn what cancer has to teach me about living life. I am thankful for the gift of self acceptance, I have always been secure in my own skin and that makes me think of others who can only see themselves as physical beings, their journey is so much harder than mine. Funny how many people this disease affects other than the one who carries it. We often see great emotional trauma in families and upheaval and again I can be thankful for all the love and support I personally have received. Yes, cancer is a hard diagnosis but if we allow ourselves to surrender to the process and pray for wisdom we can gain more than we lose.

My journey

The darkness of morning gives me time for reflection. Quiet time to think of all that has passed in just  a matter of days. My life has been threatened by an invisible giant taking cover in my body. Never would I have ever expected that it was even there were it not for the blood that weeped from my Breast. The weeping of my Breast was a cry, it knew it carried something of great danger and it cried because it wanted to warn me my life was at risk. Had the cry never happened the danger would have increased and most certainly could have taken my life. My breast made the ultimate sacrifice so I might live and for that I am grateful. The breast are the one thing that makes a woman able to care for her babies with nourishment, they are a life force and mine wept to save me. I named my girls when I thought of losing them (Thelma and Louise), they are the truest of friends for all they gave me and mine. I shall remember the 17 year old Brad when he touched them the first time, the tension and pleasure he derived was remarkable and pleased me as well. I shall never forget the first time I layed my own child at my breast to nurse and found the power of the life force within, 3 babies found life giving nourishment at that place on my body above my heart. Those sweet breast did nothing but serve my family and they can rest at peace knowing they did good. So today I shall let go and say farewell my dearest of friends, go find your rest and know I shall always remember our years together in my youth and now I can even boast of your beauty as tho you were superstars, the way we pay homage to our deceased loved ones.

My Journey

Yesterday I experienced the victory of the battle and the scars of warfare. Victory came in many forms, gifts of friendship and flowers, food and love pored out on me. My day was beautiful and hard. Recovery is difficult at best because it is hard for the mind to understand injury, the mind says if there is life and breath then there is reason to get up and get on with living. My living  got even better when my surgeon called to inform me that my tumor was bigger than they though but all 4 lymph nodes were clean. My future looks promising, how is that for the light piercing this darkness. What does one do after such good news? I grew stronger in my will to survive and I faced the wounds in the mirror. The good news is I didn't have to face them alone, my husband and sister helped me uncover my chest to see what warfare looks like. I must say I felt faint when my Breast were gone but there was something satisfying to know that under the remaining flesh there was no Cancer and the scars shall be reminders of how strong I am when I call on God and trust His wisdom to guide me through unknown places. I shall always remain the thankful for my surgeon, Dr. Dudus and all his encouragement and skill, he saved my life as I know it. I am proud of this life I have and intend to live it fully for as long as i have breath in this body, sweeter is the victory that comes at such a great cost.

My Journey

Heard a song this morning that spoke to my heart, the Christmas version of Hallelujah. Today my heart cries out Hallelujah for I have been through surgery and I am doing fine. The pain level is manageable with ibuprofen, no narcotics because I have so many lifting me in prayer. I am strong because you love me, I am strong because you have prayed for me and even at my weakest point I am able to overcome my fears because God is with me. I find my joy comes from somewhere deeper than I ever knew possible. There is a joy that passes all understanding when you find what truly matters in life. The loss of my Breast cannot compare to regaining my life and time with those I love. So today as I recover from surgery I shall take time to sing Hallelujah from the depths of my heart for all the gifts I have been given are of an eternal nature and my heart cries out hallelujah for each of you.