I could have saved America a whole lot of money this past year and narrowed this whole campaign down to a few things - the first on my list being Interstate 71, north of Columbus.
In Morrow County, specifically.
I have traveled 71 quite a bit the past five plus years and more, and have flipped my brain in many different directions trying to understand why, why, why! Morrow County has not had to finish their widening project. You can be cruising along at 76 miles per hour, and suddenly there is a mad dash by three lanes of loaded traffic merging into two lanes at the Morrow County line. It slows considerably depending on the time of day, and many times after a bit of two-laning it, you can come over a low hill and see nothing but red lights for miles ahead and pray you stop in time.
Then you pray the semi trucks behind you stop in time. I once had a semi truck screech it's breaks and end up on the shoulder beside me. I was able to lean over and wave at him and thank him for saving my life.
Scott pretty much has the scene set each time we travel to Columbus together this past year - it takes about 23 minutes of driving before I start my diatribe.
"Every county from Cleveland to Columbus - except one - has had to widen their part of 71 - tell me Ashland County is not a poorer county than Morrow. Tell me Medina County did not work night and day to finish their part."
He looks sideways at me and says "It's probably not their fault."
"Someone should be made to pay for the misery Morrow County is inflicting on daily travelers."
He sighs. My statements vary little each week.
"Every statehouse official in Ohio should be made to travel through Morrow County each morning".
I usually tie it all up with my favorite road conditions statement: "Morrow County should be kicked out of the state of Ohio".
Adding insult to injury, in case you don't slow down enough, or have to come to a complete stop in that 25 some mile stretch of interstate, Morrow County closed one lane this past summer. We might have been able to speed up to 27mph for say, over an hour of stop and go traffic.
The reason, you might wonder? Accident? Super drugs bust? Car on fire? No. Morrow County was sandblasting their name into an overpass.
They are proud of their miserable two lanes of unfinished business.
Yeah, get that right: just in case you are angrily sitting in traffic and wonder which part of Ohio has been unable to finish their share of widening 71 to three lanes for say, oh the last decade, they sandblast this answer into an overpass so you all know.
And close a lane of traffic to do it. On both sides.
The first presidential candidate to stand on that overpass and announce to the country that he was willing to make sure some of the billions of dollars of infrastructure repair was going here - this twenty seven miles of misery, full of accidents, peril and usual 37 - 53mph speed limits - the first one to fix that problem would be getting my vote.
But no one has passed this talking point to either candidate it appears.
And just for the record, don't think I haven't noticed that five miles of that wretched parking lot on 71 belongs to you, Delaware County.....
***
Along with wanting to start a petition to kick Morrow County out of the state of Ohio, there's steam coming out of my ears when it comes to health care issues as well.
So far, neither candidate has addressed the issues of insurance coverage completely controlling your health care. If you don't think it is true, step into my classroom sometime - I can school you a little.
There is so much angst going on in the medical field and health insurance companies are certainly fueling a fire that we may not end up having enough water to put out if there are not some huge changes made soon.
There's a lot to talk that I want to hear, but have not heard come out of either candidates mouth - and I have been waiting for it - but if your local doctors office has to sell out to a corporation to be able to afford updated and correct insurance coding software, we are in trouble here folks. When your doctor cannot order a simple complete blood workup without spending twenty minutes on the phone explaining why that is needed to the insurance companies - it changes the way we do healthcare.
And ironically, a simple complete blood workup might have shown my cancer even before a mammogram would have - and I am assuming treating a stage 1 cancer is much cheaper for the insurance company in the long run than treating a stage 3, but we have to walk through the river in haedes just to get a couple of hundred dollars for a blood workup approved.
I have been offering up the vein in my elbow bend the last five years pretty regularly checking thyroid levels - so much so that it was scarred enough to not be of much good use for chemo when I started. And amazingly to me, we couldn't put onto that thyroid testing "she's fatigued still even though her thyroid levels look better - do a complete profile and check her white blood cells and lymphocytes"??? I'm not pointing a finger at the doctors. I'm pointing a finger to all that is over-regulated federally, and over-guided by insurance guidelines.
Remember all those "unnecessary tests" that were the talk of campaigns a decade or more ago?
I could have used one of those last year.
I for one, do not want politicians and someone sitting behind a desk at an insurance company determining what is unnecessary for my healthcare. That's why I go to a certified doctor.
And I have to say, our insurance company has been pretty good about the whole thing after a diagnosis is reached. It's the before - the months of not feeling good, knowing something is wrong, and the running of test after test to find out what might be happening - that's the scary part, and the part that could leave you hurting more.
I for one, have become a great fan of "unnecessary tests", thank you.
***
Scott says he can always tell I am feeling better when I start to complain about my port again. It's very close to the skin, palpable, and is usually blue. The thread that goes into my jugular bugs me when I sleep. It wasn't very well placed - if I wear a bra, the strap sits directly over it, making it very irritated.
I haven't felt better enough to complain about it yet this past week, but along with Morrow County, it's a sure sign that I am much better than I was just a short eight days ago. In fact, this past week has been incredibly better than all the weeks of chemo since September 7, put together.
I suspect someone was fasting and praying for me.
Our House Church has been going through a series of looking at individual words that are commands. Such as "pray", "love", "bless", etc. I have been following it at afar, as the house pastors send out homework assignments.
The current word to look up in the original Hebrew, then Greek, then whatever other tags might be put onto it to encourage you to look at it in a light you may not have seen it in before, but this weeks' word is "fast".
I know from the first two rounds of this chemo and the misery of the first five days of dealing with nuclear-medicine-chemo-fallout, then days 7-14 of those first two rounds handed me pretty miserable infections when my blood work dipped it's lowest - I knew then that it was not going to be an easier chemo like I had hoped. When I kind of crawled out of bed and had a few good days, then went right back for the next chemo round, I was just hoping to not be doing my personal best time here, I was hoping to just stay in the race. Just get across the finish line.
I had the Neulasta Injection the first two rounds as well as this past one, my third round, so I am familiar with its capabilities. My original hope that it would "bounce" me back better and faster, were greatly diminished with the first two rounds under my belt.
But I woke up Monday morning feeling notably better. So much better that on Tuesday morning I cleaned off our desk that was like a two day job. So much better that Thursday, I straightened up the basement after some storm damage and then got into a full blown clean out on the clothing rack that's our "rotation" rack. (Don't be too impressed - it's not done yet...)
I haven't felt like that with chemo since I started the first part of January. Granted, I am taking a lot of breaks, and resting much when climbing stairs to be kind to my heart, but I have been amazed.
And I cannot get over the idea that someone(s) fasted and prayed for me. I don't know who, but I know that after the most miserable chemo week-plus ever, Scott prayed over me on Sabbath, and I still had a lot of fallout to deal with on Sunday, but Monday - was like a different Karen woke up.
I called Scott at school and told him "I've never stepped out of a worse chemo feeling this much better".
I feel God impressing on me, that many were praying, and He heard. Those days after my last chemo - especially days 4 and 5, I just laid in bed and kept repeating a Psalm I have been trying to memorize: "Be merciful to me oh God, be merciful to me, for in you my soul takes refuge In the shadow of your wings I will take refuge until the storms of destruction pass by". Psalm 57:1.
Mostly all my lips kept murmuring out loud were, "be merciful to me oh God, be merciful to me"....
When I first made my trip to Columbus way back on January 4th, my nurse friend framed some terminology and questions for me after talking to some of her doctor friends to prepare me for my first visits. One of her paraphrases was "ask them *this*" or said another way "how high of a window will I want to jump out of after this treatment?"
I thought about that a lot last week, and if I could have found an elevator to crawl onto Day 4, I'm not sure how much I would have wavered on the 113th floor window......
But Day 11 - suddenly my body turned to the better. It might have been because Scott and I had a long talk about stepping back up to our "A-game" - hand sanitizer all the time again, no fresh fruits or vegetables again, using paper-towels in the kitchen instead of dish towels - our basic germ warfare that we had implemented in my first six months of chemo.
It might have been because I was kindly reminded to get back totally on my alkaline diet by a friend's comment on facebook. Your brain doesn't work so well on chemo, and little reminders help. And it has helped - I am back on the alkaline wagon, saving my acids to eat at night only.
It might have been that those acids that I saved for evening, were some pretty darned good baked goods by one of Scott's teacher friends. He mentioned to her that I had said that a pumpkin roll sounded so good.
She sent one home with him two days later - and it was wonderful. I had not been eating many fats nor carbs and my body just seemed to latch onto that wonderful slab of pumpkin goodness.
She sent home pieces of apple cake, and a little bit of peanut butter fudge. And I truly believe my body was needing those bits of fat and carbs to start rolling again.
It could have been all that making me feel better, but as I said, I have not felt this much better after a chemo treatment ever. They tell me my bone marrow has been damaged in my past and that has much to do with my recovery aptitude.
So honestly, I don't expect much. I set my sights on getting through this, I have been given good opportunity to do everything I need to do to get better, and that is what I concentrate on. I don't expect to feel like Mary Poppins floating down on her umbrella. I'm not expecting to burst out into song. I'm just setting my eyes forward, and plodding through, wanting to do every thing I can to cross that finish line.
And then, surprise, surprise, I am given a week of "bonus". And the voice that cannot sing well, has sung a song of praise to my Creator. And the brain that was not very clear, is thinking enough to memorize seven more verses. And the body that was barely able to move a few short days before, is energized and strengthened beyond expectations.
I have not been able to bounce back like that after chemo *ever*. I didn't feel "strength" come back to me until seven weeks out from Taxal and Carbo and Ro - and that was with a surgery thrown in that time frame. I felt better three weeks after surgery than I did three weeks after chemo.
So this all together to tell you, I feel like the breath of God was breathed anew into me, and I believe it was more than earthly actions alone.
So God bless those that run marathons and remind me to stay in the race no matter what; God bless those that bake and bless you with their goodness; God bless my husband for stepping up our germ-warfare-game-plan, keeping me in a germ-free bubble that we hate, but are willing to endure to get to where we need to be.
But most of all, God bless the fast-ers and pray-ers. You have blessed me beyond what you may ever know.
***
I go back Friday for what could be my last chemo treatment ever, hopefully, and just the thought of it makes the acid button in my stomach pump. I am not looking forward to the fourteen days after that chemo. I don't want to have the "chemo-mouth" - the mouth sores and the saliva in your mouth feeling like a metallic-maalox ick for up to five days or more. The inability to taste, but the hyper-ability to smell everything you do not want to inhale. The "long-goodbye" the chemo leaving your body produces in your gastro track. The extreme weakness. The side effects of the anti-nausea drugs that convert your brain into a quivering mass of hopelessness.
I don't look forward to any of that, but it keeps me so humble. I get so irritated at stupid things like roads, and politicians, and insurance companies -- and chemo of all things - poison poured into my body - humbles me and reminds me that I need others praying for me, I need loved ones looking after me, I need friends to encourage me and nourish me and lift me up when my legs don't even want to walk.
It reminds me how close any of us could be to the brink of mental illness, and how we need to uphold and support those that struggle with drug side-effects not just for a week or so, but on a continuing basis for life.
It reminds me of how my soul must look at times with accumulated sin stacked up in it, and I can almost visibly see it and realize my depravity and my need for a Savior and God's cleansing power.
It makes me wonder how big God really is. If I can take quotes that wonderful people send me to remind me that there is a world out there that is caring and kind, but if I read those quotes from different religions, different perspectives, different cultures and still feel my soul connect that quote to me to God - how can that be?
God has set about me a community of caring people that have literally lifted me out of my bed of suffering this past week - and as a bonus - I had hugs from a group of people that almost made me cry in front of them - really, what is this all about? Roads? Politicians?
I don't think my journey of seeking God is over by a long-shot.
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