Good Questions

This afternoon I had to do something that I haven't done in a few days - lay down and pray my stomach back to sleep.....

My stomach and gastro seemed to be happily buzzing along towards normalcy and health again as long as I obeyed the "Live-Strong Alkaline Diet" laws and took my two times a day Zantac.  Tuesday, I decided it had done so well, I could ignore the diet.

I think my guess was off by a few weeks.  It's madder than a hornets nest in there.  Or disturbed wasps.  I'm hoping that like some crazy Monopoly board, I am not sent back to square one, missing all my chances to buy up good things along the path.

While laying in bed trying to recover a stomach lining and subsequent gastro health, I realized it has been days since I have seriously been on Facebook or checked emails or, well, done any blogging.

I had 208 emails staring me in the face when I opened it up in bed.  Some are pictures I have sent myself from my phone hoping to use for my blog, but cannot download them.  Or upload them.

Other emails are "sales" that I have tried to block - in particular Victoria's Secret - and they never give up.  They seem to believe I need that 'push-up-bathing-suit' that I don't think I would have worn when I was 35.  Daily, they faithfully think of me and kindly send me the latest update on swimwear, intimate-wear, short sexy dresses - you know - because I have never bought from them in the past, but for some reason, they think I just might, just might this year.  

Their marketing department is not doing its homework.  

Even google knows what ads to pop up beside my emails - "Cancer Centers of America".  There's no escaping on the internet here folks.  Unless of course Victoria's Secret gets your name.

Besides, my late-night wide-awake times have been spent following a young guy that is in South America climbing mountains.  I could not be distracted.  It was so awesome that he started a blog and gave people like me such a diversion and pleasure in reading the ups and downs of mountain life that I could not pull my eyes away.

I had no idea.

I read his elation as he made it in-country.  His disappointment when he came down with altitude sickness.  Then his subsequent "made it!" post.  The views were pretty awesome and the colors and strangeness of a different land - simple eye candy.  Especially since I knew this strong guy when he was a wee baby.

I have been trying to figure out how many finger exercises I would have to do to rock climb like him.  How long it would take me to acclimate to altitude.  How long it would take me to get into fighting shape to climb that high that long.

I have a pretty good idea, so I read his blog instead.

When his mom visited me a few months ago after I had been in treatment for maybe two months and I felt barely above surface, we were chatting and she asked me a question that totally threw me off.  She asked,  "If you could go on a vacation, where would you go?"

That thought was so far out the hemisphere of my thinking to that point, that my brain stopped and I could not answer immediately.  That was something I had put away with my hair brush and business-office clothes.

I wasn't going to need that for a while.

And yet it touched something so deep inside me that every time I think on it, something at the bottom of the deepest well inside me wakes up and touches me and tells me that it's ok to think about it.  It gave me hope that she thought I was going to go on a vacation again, and that she thought it was ok to think about it.

In the deepest of the deepest valleys, there was someone asking where I wanted to go when I would get out.

***

The ladies I used to work with long ago brought me in a meal the other night for all of us to share together.

We had a party!!!


We have done "get-togethers" a couple of times a year for a long time.  We used to do progressive dinners each year at Christmas, until we realized the fact that there was no easier way to call in a winter storm that covered State Route 89 with six inches of glazed ice each December than to circle a day on the calendar.  Every year.  So we relaxed a little and moved these get-togethers to the summer or fall.  They all have beautiful homes and gardens, and it is wonderful to see those, but better yet, it is wonderful seeing them.

They taught me how to think outside of my box a long time ago, and they taught me how to laugh.

Some of the most hilarious moments in my life were spent around a surgery table with my lunch in one hand, taking inventory with the other, all the while talking and laughing hysterically about something that I don't even remember sometimes - I just remember the laughter.

When I first started at the vet clinic, these women all came as a bundle deal.  I was in a painful time in my life and felt so alone.  These women knew pain better.

And they taught me how to laugh it out.

They taught me so well that to this day when I feel stress and doom building, I say something stupidly funny - because I am not a natural comedienne - but something stupid, that makes people relax a little and laugh.

Because, I found, on top of prayer, that's the best way to deal with stress.  And doom and gloom.  And those incredibly hard things in life that can break you, but on the other hand, can be seen as crazy bad but lead to laughter whenever I spend time with those ladies.

The same Shirley that called me one day and said she was cleaning my house - no questions asked - she was just going to come in and do it when I maybe needed it most; that same Shirley emailed me and said they were showing up Monday night with food.

It was quite an evening.

Sometimes, we laugh so hard at some stories that you spit your drink out.

***

Before that and since then, I've not been around people that worked so hard.  And didn't complain about it.  Veterinarians do not get insurance kick backs, they don't have poor pets covered by Medicare, they work for every dime they earn.

Sometimes I wish I could step back in time and be there now because nobody would quite  understand as well the fact that the hair on my arms surprisingly fell out again this past week.  And my eyelashes, but not so much my eyebrows.  It's curious to me how it all happens, and they would be curious as well, and I know we would end up laughing about it.

Or, I know they would marvel at how my gut can bloat.

Probably while looking at intestinal parasites under a microscope.  You have to multi-task there - if you are going to laugh, it has to be between rooms, or while filling a script, or while looking at greatly enlarged nasty things.

But it never stopped any of us from laughing when the hard things in life hit really hard.

I wish I could tell the stories, but cannot.  They are mostly confidential.

It's really a hard day of work.  You hit the ground running, and you jump back in your vehicle to go home, with barely a breath in between.

There are hard things.  Loved pets being euthanized.  Tremendous work loads that any other business would have triple the amount of people attending.  And if you take it all too hard, it piles up and could cover you.

But, there were some insanely hilarious things that happened there, and there are a group of ladies that get together and can talk about it to no one else but each other, and we laugh out loud again.

I knew then, and I know now, that God gave me that gift of friendship with those ladies all those years ago, because He knew what I needed then, and what I need now - joy and laughter.  And realizing that life is still full of hilarity even when difficult.

But it happened the other night as well - I took them out to show them Scott's garden.  I showed them the peaceful place we sit and have our coffee most days.  I showed them what we were going to be eating soon.  I showed them the flowers that were blooming.

I told them how we had planned to move this, do that, build this and then had not been able to due to an inadvertent series of unfortunate events.

Then one of them asked me, "what are you going to do next year, then?"

It wasn't because they did not understand the seriousness of my disease.  In fact, one of them is a cancer survivor.  They have all been around the medical field and have a pretty good idea what I am dealing with here.  So I knew the question was not out of ignorance.

It made me pause and smile, again, because someone was thinking that I should be thinking about this.

Maybe, next year we will tear off that railing and add a deck.  Maybe, next year I will tear out that one bed that isn't looking so good and the wind blows over the tall flowers every time.  Maybe we will think about, pray about going *somewhere*, wherever that might be.

Don't get me wrong.  You don't want to go around using that as "THE QUESTION" to ask those in the midst of a life battle with cancer.  But, for the ones that have openly asked me what I was planning for next year, I just want to say, it was so nice.  So good to pause and think about.  Because I had not for ever so long.  

It's so easy to spend so much energy on the here and now and the battle that I am fighting now to purposely not think of anything future.

It's so nice to know others are not thinking that way towards me.

They are asking me about planning our garden for next year.  Or wondering where we might go on vacation.

It makes me pause and smile.

***

So we have tucked a couple of days away to "go somewhere" before my surgery.  But - we didn't plan anything.  So if you all have any "drive-able" ideas, let us know.  I'm not so swift on the hotel planning websites these days.

But it is so good to look forward to something.  And to be reminded to do that when in the deep is an awesome thing.

HOT!!

HOT!! HOT!! HOT!!

We are greatly regretting not taking my brother Curt's advice when we were building our house long ago and put in central air.  There are fourteen days a year we regret it greatly, and the rest of the 351 days we get along just fine.

This is day one of fourteen, I'm thinking.

We are not "green" so much, as I think it is more due to the fact that I always worked with people who were hotter than me, consequently causing me to freeze all day, and it would take me two hours to warm up when walking outside into the hot, humid air late in the day.  And, air conditioning has always made me sick.  Like, summer-cold type sick all summer, so we just kind of decided we wouldn't need it.

We like the windows open, and fresh air.  We like to "feel" the seasons.  And trust me, we are certainly "feeling" summer today.    

Plus, we failed to take into account that we had always lived in houses with lots of trees surrounding them.  We finally got a few to grow and the one central maple is providing awesome shade now - but not enough to keep a house cool yet.  We measure it each summer by how much shade it provides - like, after five years, it was "a two person shade tree"; then a couple of years later, you could put the table under it and be shaded; now, I'm thinking the whole family could squeeze under it and be good.

But, today, I'm pretty sure we change over to the air window units.

***

It is amazing how much better I feel for some long stretches of time.  (Long stretches of time for me equals a couple of hours.)  Wednesday was not such a good wake-up day, then we spent the day in the car driving in the bright sunshine, and it just kind of all came undone.

After my appointment, we were so hungry that we ate at Steak-n-Shake -- not such a wise move on my part.  I should have stuck with my sterile plastic spoon and tub of peaches.  But, that steak-burger and french fries and chocolate milkshake were so good going down, then sadly, it suddenly occurred to me that my wailing stomach is still boss.  

It was the first time in a long time we were able to do fast-food for me.  Scott watched me with mixed anticipation.

I still should not eat dairy.  Or that much quantity in one sitting.  Or that much grease.

But, even though I am less than half the woman I used to be, I am feeling better.  I feel like I have topped the hills in Southern Ohio and am looking at the whole range of Appalachian mountains ahead, but I am topping hills at least now.

Still tired as all get out some hours of some days, but feeling better.

If only my stomach would agree.

***

Scott had four ton of stone delivered while we were gone yesterday, and decided that today - the hottest day of the year - he is wheel-barrowing it back to the garden paths.

He .  is . crazy.

But he has the garden in pretty amazing shape.

If I could figure out my issues with google blogger I would post some pictures.  Blogger and I are no longer friends.  I could not even correct the hi-liting issue on the last blog entry.  It might have something to do with the fact that at least three security services are trying to take over 'Dell' here.

Computers and I have issues when my brain is working well.  Now, I'm just trying to glare at it, and make it go away with wishful thinking.

Apparently, I also have issues with my cell phone, which I still consider 'new' to me as I got it the night before I started treatment in January.  We were driving by the Verizon building on I270 on our way to stay over at Kristi and Cal's and I am talking to a Verizon rep in Washington state.  A rep that I think was taking advantage of the laxer marijuana laws on the west coast.

I haven't had enough brain power to just sit down and call them back and really learn the phone.  What might be even better soon, is that I just march my half-brain into one of their stores and have them show me how to use it, and update it, and sync it, etc, etc, etc.

It has been handy for Scott and I to use for Solitaire games while waiting in medical facilities.  We trade off the small computer and the phone to keep us distracted.

Honestly, what in the world did patients do ten years ago while waiting whole days???

***

We read some disturbing things online last week while looking for something, something to take care of chemo-headaches while waiting on my doctor to call back.  There was a German study on Taxol that I could not peel my eyes off of.

It wasn't so positive.

Then, the Bible reading for last Sabbath was pretty much all on trust.  Trusting God in the midst of chaos and trusting that He will work.  Sometimes, some awful things happen in those same passages as well, and having Stoneburner blood coursing through my veins, I'm not one to think that throwing my brain over to "positive thinking" is everything Norman Vincent Peale leads one to believe.

So I'm mulling over if we as a nation believe that trusting God is just positive thinking?  I know it is God's grace that is holding us and keeping us now, but sometimes that lands a little askew when it is a phrase thrown out there as an 'encouragement' for those in the valley.

As I'm thinking this over on a little bit deeper level now, I want to know what is really the bottom line truth - do we just bop through life and throw out 'truisms' and not really understand what trusting God is all about?

I don't have any answers, but listening to 'Ray' again last night helped me develop what I have believed for a long time, and cannot put into words - sometimes God's will sucks.  Or better rephrased, sometimes we in North America expect that God is not about suffering.

He is.

If we were to plop ourselves in any church other than North America or another nation that has decent medical care, most of us would be mourning a child we had lost.  Or evil we had seen with our own eyes.  Or, making big choices about what we believe because it might cost us some pain and suffering or even life itself.

All I know, is that sometimes we make it too easy and easily accuse others of lack of faith, when really, faith might be more about walking through the "sucky" times when you can't put a positive spin on it - and still believing.

Some believe we have been through enough bad times already.

I don't even compare to what some suffer in China.  What some have suffered in Africa.  What some are enduring this moment in a lot of circumstances that are anything but pleasant, but they know God is right there beside them.

And I don't know how I even got here, so I will blame it on the heat.

But I know God is good all the time.  I know He is mighty.  I know He hears and He heals.

I know He is good whether I am freezing in Siberia or sweating in Ohio.

And more-so than I will ever know.  









 

Regenerating

Yesterday, I woke up and told Scott that the one feeling I had been missing forever so long, was finally breaking back through again - I felt like my cells could actually, maybe, hopefully - regenerate.  I felt like my bone marrow might be alive after all.  I felt like maybe if I expended some energy, I might recover to expend energy again.


I haven't felt that way in ever so long and it felt really, really good.


For the past long time - even before chemo - I just felt like if I expended energy, it was not going to be replaced.  When they told me it takes white blood cells five days to replenish and a lot longer for red blood cells, I kind of already knew that in my bones.  Even before I knew my diagnosis, I had felt that way - if I used up my energy - it would take a long time to replenish it.


Then with chemo, my body just would not, could not replenish that energy that starts deep in the cells and bone marrow.


I was like the Hebrew nation over ran by it's enemy armies during the time of Judges - hiding and laying low, not daring to come out of the caves.


But yesterday, there was a strong inkling that something was alive in there after all.  And replenishing.


Scott and Scotty worked on a project that we had actually started last summer - replacing the boards on the raised beds.  We have two sides to our garden - one side is Scott's and is all vegetable.  Those boards were replaced last summer.  My side is all perennial flower beds and had not been finished last year.  So they completed them yesterday.


They look really awesome.


I stood at a back upstairs window and remembered the first six raised beds we put in ten years ago - they were made of too-thin white oak boards I had purchased from the Amish sawmill behind Cinnamon Lake for one dollar - that's right - $1 for each board because they had planed them too thin.  So, I of course, thought them perfect to put in dirt.


They did survive almost ten years.


2003 was the year that Scott had several knee surgeries, so I did some of the work myself.  It was also the year that our son was in Iraq.  We had such a knot of fear in our stomachs that whole time he was gone, and working outside was a good way to get away from the news on the television and internet and radio.


He was in Fallujah when it was falling apart, and those people shown on TV were not all that fond of any American soldier in their vicinity.  I remember watching those from Fallujah, see their hatred, realize my son was in the midst of that, and I could not watch anymore some days.


So we went outside.


Scott was on crutches most of the time, but he was right there with me laying things out and determining how we would do this, probably to make sure I left some room for vegetables.  We didn't realize how much "dirt-hauling" we were setting ourselves up for. 


It was more than a couple of 'truckfuls'.  


But, watching them yesterday, made me start to cry - even on the best recovery day yet.  Not because they were working on my side of the garden and doing what I had wanted for a while, but I was overcome with emotion because out there in our "recovery" garden as we had called it in 2003 - recovery from surgeries and recovery from the emotional fallout of having our son in harm's way - but out there was that same son, working with his dad, to please me with something beautiful.


Perennial flowers only give us one thing - beauty.  I don't harvest any of them to use.  They take a lot of work that Scott has taken over this summer.  We just love them and the beauty of one bloom and then the groups of blooms.  They relax us and regenerate us.


But it was even more beautiful to me to watch that son out there that we were not sure we would ever see again while building those raised beds the first time, but there I stood looking out into my backyard and was watching him repair them.  It was beautiful to watch him working with his dad, out there strong and doing well.  It was beautiful to me to look down at them in the garden then look over and see two sleeping wee ones that are getting suddenly tall and skinny, and know they are a gift from God the Father above.  They would not be here, if he had not come home.     


It was all pretty miraculous.


And it was my best recovery day yet.


***


You might glean that I am spending time in the book of Judges in the Bible.  I have actually made it almost to the end of the life of David.


I love David.


Along with reading that, I am reading the historian Josephus.  I am pretty intrigued and even though moving along slowly have opened my jaw in downright amazement at times.  I have read that the writings of Josephus are accurate on archaeological reports, but what has been fascinating to me is how he "fleshes" out the stories I have read for so many years in the Bible.


And don't worry, I am keeping in mind that Josephus is not the inspired Word of God, but nevertheless - I'm liking him.


This morning I read about Absalom, oh Absalom!, and was reminded again how even the one's that God loves and directs and blesses can end up on the road to calamity because they want to overlook *things* in their own lives.


David lost his kingdom for a bit and was shamed and lost two sons because he didn't take care of evil and sin that was right under his nose.


He ignored it so, that his son Absalom thought he needed to step in and correct things.


Oh, it's still hard to read even though it is thousands of years later.


So it made me ever so thankful to God this morning for my children, and I prayed that hopefully our kids would think on our sins and know that we are repentant and forgive us, and remember our times of standing against sin and protecting them, and be glad.


***


I am still drinking my one half cup of coffee each morning, and since yesterday morning at 6am, I am having two good days in a row.  Which is crazy.  Crazy good.


And enjoying a lot of blessings surrounding us, and resting and eating doing just a little bit more and loving it.


Yesterday, I played with elephants and cows and sheep and polar bears and dinosaurs - all placed on one farm, then put a pair of snippers in my hand for half an hour and I am not needing to take whole days to recover energy lost.


***


This is a Psalm that David wrote when fleeing from his son, Absolum.  For my brain exercises, I replace "foes" with "cancer" as well as "enemies" and "wicked".  It's kind of all the same thing in my brain in a lot of ways.

Lord, how many are my foes!
    How many rise up against me!
 Many are saying of me,
    “God will not deliver him. ”

 But you, Lord, are a shield around me,
    my glory, the One who lifts my head high. 
 I call out to the Lord, 
    and he answers me from his holy mountain.

 I lie down and sleep; 
    I wake again, because the Lord sustains me.
 I will not fear though tens of thousands
    assail me on every side.

 Arise, Lord!
    Deliver me, my God!
Strike all my enemies on the jaw;
    break the teeth of the wicked.

 From the Lord comes deliverance. 
    May your blessing be on your people.


Psalm 3  

A song and a prayer

The OSU James Cancer Center / Stephanie Spielman Center prides itself on "teaching their patients".  And they do an awesome job of it.  You can hear them teaching a new cancer patient every week somewhere in the halls and rooms and beds and recliners - they are telling it all over again and again.  And they will patiently tell that same patient a lot of the same information over and over again, along with the new information they need that week.

After this past week, I am a slow learner it appears.  

'They' teach you about chemo at the beginning so you know when to expect "fallout".  Carbo hits you pretty hard on day 4, day 14 and day 21  making your hemoglobin and platelets just wash out and look like they were consumed by mustard gas - because maybe that is part of the compound of carbo.

At least with my treatment schedule.

Taxol hits you day 2, day 7 and day 14, and then for however long it wants to linger around, washing out everything.  The compound that makes up Taxol is non-soluble in water.  In fact, after reading the following quote one feels a bit - well I am not sure of the correct word here so I'll just let you read:

"Taxol is given into a vein, but in order for the body to absorb the drug, it must first be dissolved in a solution. Taxol's history began over forty years ago. It was found to be virtually insoluble in water. It had the solubility of a brick. The compound wouldn't dissolve very much in any solution. Without a way to get it into a cancer patient, what good was it? It was discovered that something Taxol would disolve in that "might" work in a reasonably "safe" intravenous solution in humans, was an elixir made of castor oil and marketed as Cremophor EL. It was the "only" answer. However, this castor-oil carrier is suspected as the culprit behind the misery which includes nausea, vomiting, joint pain, appetite loss, brittle hair and tingling sensations in hands and feet (neuropathy). The much ballyhooed drug was no panacea."

And yeah, I am reading more, and my reading comprehension was just fine on this article.

'They' keep teaching you this over and over because they know your brain is not working so well, and that you won't remember.  'They' also want you to be prepared and know that if you have had week after week after week chemo treatments, that you are being hit with all those treatment side effects sometimes on the same days.

It's a cumulative effect and I have had some pretty hard day 14's that include day 21 and day 7; or day 21 that include day 7 and day 14 as well.

Each Wednesday they ask me my energy level, then look at the calendar, point at it for me, and tell me "this is because you had Carbo 21 days ago, Taxol 14 days ago, and Taxol again 7 days ago".  And, you've had nine Ro treatments in that same three week period.  When you feel like that, "go to bed for a while" 'they' say.

'They' don't want me to forget to allow my body time to rebuild.

I forgot.

I clicked my heels together after my last Ro pill a week ago Friday and wished myself anywhere else, gave myself time over the weekend to recover, then felt much better by Wednesday, but Scott was still suspicious that my body just might quit with that last chemo round.  Me too, a bit. 

Then they released me from chemo.  I felt better on Thursday and spent some earnest time on the treadmill.

I was on my way to Oz, with the wicked witch nowhere in sight.

I even did a slow, slow, slow - what some might call laughable in most circles - jog for a quarter of a mile.  It felt good to just start getting my body back a little.  It felt good to not have to fast and take the Ro pill on Thursday.

I was done with chemo, thought Dorothy hopefully.

The remainder of Thursday morning was then spent sitting outside and cautiously sipping my first three sips of coffee in six months, and relishing the smell, the taste on my tongue.  I was sitting in the shade with Scott, but looking towards the sun.

Without sun glasses.

I was making plans for Friday - Scott and I were going to tear out a flower bed.  We might need to buy a new plant.  I have a million things I want to get done.  I was rolling.

They have warned me and warned me and warned me about wearing sun glasses.

I woke up at 4:30 the next morning with a whopper of a migraine headache.  Like lay in bed with two pillows over your head for a long time type migraine.  Like I thought the right side of my brain was caving in migraine.

I think the wicked witch caught up with me.

Then I woke up Saturday morning with my right eye a little swollen, and was short breathed on the stairs every time.  Um, yeah genius, that's what happens on day whatever heck the day number was after several treatments of Taxol and Carbo and Ro.  

I am thinking they are going to talk really slow to me the next time I am down there and enunciate each word so I hear them and comprehend and remember this time around..... They might even bring in some flash cards to help me out with it all.

Flash cards that say something like "bright light" and on the back it says "sunglasses".  Cards that say "chemo" and on the back it says "limited sun exposure".

Flash cards that say something like "hey stupid, hang your sunglasses by your special SPF-outside-hats"........

And don't forget that hopefully last carbo kiss around week three, because it won't forget you.

***

Today was a bit of a mile marker - I went to the "plant" part of Walmart, and the "plant" part of Home Depot - and then even went inside the store - just to look at summer things.

I have almost missed summer it appears - it's all on clearance.  I normally like to go inside both stores and sit and feel each outside chair for "cushiness" and determine if it would last for twenty years like our Martha Stewart Collection has that we bought in 1992.  So I thought, hey, I need to see what's new this year and I find that Walmart was selling it all at huge discounts.  Home Depot hardly had anything left.

It was a bit sobering. I had missed winter clearance, spring clearance and now summer clearance as well.  

While I was slowly walking around Home Depot outside, looking at plants that might have missed a few waterings, Heidi called on my cell phone.  We chatted a bit, then she said she wanted to plan "just a day with me", and I told her that would be awesome.

Then she said "I really miss you mom".

Missing summer clearance sales is nothing.

***

When Heidi was a senior in high school she blew off high school and did "Post Secondary Option".  She went to college and got most of her gen-eds under her belt.

She loved it.  She had worked as a waitress, had saved money, bought herself a car, made her own car payments and now she was able to drive to Wooster to Wayne College for her senior year.

She got her schedule and was pretty pleased with it - she got Fridays off.  She looked at me and said "Mom, why don't you see if you can take Friday's off and we can go places??"  We both like to comb through thrift stores or garage sales or such and find things we absolutely cannot live without and take home and love.

We both love to get into a car and see where we end up.  And eat someplace we have never been before.  And if we get lost, it's ok, there has to be something to see or do or eat or buy where we are at as well.

Plus, she has a better sense of direction than I do.  Even if lost, we would have found our way.

She loved to drive her little car everywhere.  She wanted me to come along.  I remember I wanted to so badly, but didn't think we could afford it.

There have been so many times since then I wished I would have responded differently.

Wished I would have gone with her to my Grandmother's grave in southeastern Ohio.  Wished I would have driven with her to Lake Erie and sat on the beach for the day.  Wished I would have gone and explored the neighborhoods of Columbus with her.  Wished I would have taken the weekend and gone with her to visit her sister at OU.

I wished I would have.

I had a sneaking suspicion with her gusto for adventure, that it might be one of her last summers at home.

I was mostly right.

When she transferred to OSU two years later, and got an apartment with two other friends, it was a year long lease.  And my Heidi-girl, would not be back home again.

We always think there will be more time some other time.

***

For some reason Heidi and I were driving home from somewhere in her car the summer after she graduated, and she said she had a song I might like.  She was into "vintage" music - mostly meaning music from my generation.

She played this song for me.  And I made her play it again.  And again.  And again.  The whole way on County Road 620.  The whole way to our home.

Because I knew she would be gone soon.

And this song said so well how a mum feels riding down that road with their child.

So, I am going to recover some blood cells, then I think Heidi and I have some thrift stores to get to.  And some cheesecake somewhere along the way.

And not put off any more special requests.

 

Coffee time!!!

My husband and I had a long awaited date this morning.  We have talked about this date almost non-stop for a few months.  We have envisioned it pretty much like it happened - the sun was "morning-new" and shining.  It was hot.  We were in the shade of the trees we planted a long time ago and begged to live.  Not many did.

We, we - he and I both - had coffee out in our garden.  Together.

I drank half of a half-cup of that forbidden drink, and it was so, so, so good.  My stomach was not so sure, so I did not finish it, but I smiled for three hours after that first sip.

We looked at each other and smiled, almost down right made my toes giggle.  He knew what I had waited for, for ever so long.  I looked at our pink perennial geraniums and remember planting them years ago, and liking them because they did well in our clay soil and multiplied.  They are dispersed everywhere now, and I looked at those blooms and smiled because we have looked at them every summer for probably ten years now.

Together. Out in the garden.  Drinking coffee.

Ten years ago, we didn't have the time to sit and talk to each other.  Ten years ago, he hit the pavement running as soon as that last bell for summer break rang in the school halls - he had things to pay for - like weddings and that first college tuition check that lets your kids back into school. Ten years ago, I was up and gone and driving to work watching the sun break in my rear view mirror a lot of mornings.

While he was recovering one summer from yet another surgery, he used to text me and tell me how the sunlight looked in the garden at that time in the morning, and how the birds were doing, and what the temperature outside was.

The last couple of years we have spent a few more mornings together out there.  And treasured it sweetly.  We knew it was a sweet time in our lives.  We knew moments like that don't last forever. We knew that we had waited for that for a long, long time.

We've had bad times.  I won't pretend like we haven't.  Even if I did, I have three kids that would line up as witnesses telling you what it takes to get to that point in life in a marriage.

Realizing that, we treasured this morning all the more.

And we are still celebrating.

Even though my hemoglobin is telling me I am dead tired.  But, even though I am having bouts of "just lay down and don't move for two hours" I am having "spurts" again, so I "spurt", then hit the wall and rest, it's kind of cyclical like that.

They have given me blood transfusions for higher hemoglobin, but I've had enough of other people's blood coursing through my veins - and even though I appreciate very much what the Red Cross does to get me that blood when I need it - I haven't liked it, so I was glad the discussion did not come up yesterday.

So, I'm kind of up to two hours of daily activity now.  That includes brushing my teeth multiple times.

***

A friend of mine from our House Church emailed me last night and said she was so glad I was done with chemo.  Then she told me that since I had started chemo, and had given up a lot of things like coffee, she had given up chocolate ----- what????!!!!

I couldn't believe it.  I couldn't believe how many times she had said "no", waiting, waiting.  And praying.  They have been incredible in their care for me on this journey, and then this - I didn't know what to say.

I'm still not comprehending it all.

But, this morning in the garden was good.  Lay down and recover is good.  Not having to worry about getting my blood work up enough to get back into chemo next week is very good - I can just stroll down recovery lane at a nice leisurely pace.

Imagining Linda eating her first piece of chocolate after six months - incredible.

Drinking coffee with my best friend this morning after six months of waiting - priceless.

Chemo Done!!

Today was monumental.

It was the last day I rode the elevator to the fourth floor of The Stephanie Spielman Comprehensive Breast Cancer Center.

It was the last day I signed in at the desk and got my wrist banded to compare to my chemo compound from the pharmacy.

It was the last day that I took off my shoes, my coat, my everything I decently can to get to my most honest weight so the pharmacist can make up my chemo infusion and chemo pills accordingly.

It was the last day that I sat in a room and wondered about blood results, wondered about my lower blood pressure, wondered about my temperature, wondered about steroid fallout.

It was the last day that I met with my study-nurse-manager Julie - there were a few tears.  We have become friends along with her helping me every step of this journey.  I found it incredibly difficult to tell her good-bye.

It was the last day that I answered 86 questions to three different people to satisfy the study I am in.  Was in.  It's all done for now.

I AM DONE WITH CHEMO!!!!!!

For now.  I may revisit the chemo floor after surgery, but for the next, oh say eight weeks, I am done with chemo for sure.

Take that Space Monsters.

I don't know how to react.  There is a part of my brain that is almost afraid of being finished with chemo for now.  That part of my brain is saying "DANGER! Will Robinson, DANGER!", because weekly chemo has been the only thing keeping my savage beast of a cancer in check.

It's now five weeks until surgery.  They want it to be four  This cancer has a proven history on how fast it can multiply from one little cell, to like ten times the population of China in a nano-second.  There's that one part of my brain that is a little concerned.

BUT, the rest of my brain is screaming "I'm done with CHEMO!!!!!"

No more carbo bags being delivered to my room with my name printed across them under the words "DANGER - NUCLEAR DRUGS".

No more staring at those study drug pills on the third dose day, and wondering if my stomach will really accept them.

No more Taxal.  I will still deal with the fallout from that, which includes - but is not limited to - neuropathy, headaches, vision issues, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, but my liver and spleen are not going to threaten to pack up and leave me in a nasty divorce now each Wednesday.

They almost had the stomach in on the deal.

*******

My blood work was pretty dismal again today.  Dr. Mrozik and Julie came into the room and said it was low, lower - but they still wanted to do a manual count - just to be sure.  If it still came back low after the manual count, they told me I was going to be "released".

Released from chemo.

Kind of the same thing as being released from prison I imagine.  Or being lost in space and finally sent home.  Or maybe kind of like walking out of Iraq after a long deployment.

The manual counts came back only a little higher, so they told me I . was . done .  All because we didn't want to lose the surgery date in July.

Slow down and soak that into your chemo-sensitive-sun-rejecting skin pores, Karen.

I missed my last treatment.  My stomach and gastro track and liver and all other innards are standing up and singing the 'Hallelujah Chorus' -- and I do not mean that irreverently.

They really are.  

I don't know how to close the door and say "done" on this.

*******

The last weeks of Taxal have been mind altering.  My brain has been working even more oddly.  My vision was getting worse at times.  I started having headaches.  I cannot be outside in the sun for more than three minutes.  The last two weeks, a rather severe blanket of depression fell over the whole area.

I could feel my body stepping down a long slow descent and it didn't like the terrain one bit.  I could feel it looking around for any foothold, anything that might bring it back up a step or two, and it could find none.

I know now that God is in the descending as well as the deep.

They told me I cannot have that Panera Bread Fuji Apple Salad for two more weeks.  My blood needs to recover, or I "could still land in the hospital with an infection"....... So two more weeks of bacteria-free food, then I am thinking I might gain twenty pounds.

Which is good as I have been losing a pound a week since my stomach decided to ulcerate.

I've already told Scott the various salads I am wanting:  plain old cole slaw; bok-choy salad; garden grown leafy green salad; fennel bulb salad - it's a long list.  My personal kitchen chef is going to be a little busy.

He is even growing some super cancer fighting Swiss Chard - we have no idea how to prepare it, but it is supposed to knock down cancer, so he bought it, planted it and soon we will harvest it and eat it.

It is hard to believe that I am that close.  It is hard to believe that already my body is doing something it hasn't done for quite a while - desiring certain foods.  It is hard to believe that my taste buds will be coming back.  It's hard to believe I'm at the end of that never-ending tunnel; that vast and dark and lonesome space adventure; that deep, deep valley, that I despaired of ever exiting.

*******

Today, I thought about my first chemo injection.  It was in a chemo room at OSU main campus in a wing reserved for the first trial phase of new drugs.

Scott was sitting in a chair at the foot of my bed and he watched them insert the IV cath in both arms; he watched them draw eighteen vials of blood; he watched them hang up the bag full of chemicals that had all kinds of danger warnings posted all over it.

I watched him and he was watching it all, taking it all in.

They started the IV drip, then piggy-backed the chemo drug onto it and that's how it started.  It didn't hurt that first day at all until the steroids kicked in.

But when that chemo IV started to drip, I knew our lives were forever changed.  I looked at the IV bag, looked at Scott, and there was a tear coming out of his eye.  There was nothing else he could do but pray and watch.  And feel.  

Today, after the doctor and nurse had left explaining the situation, we were alone in the room again.  They gave me a "cadillac" view - the corner room full of windows.  The view to the north gives you a view of the new OSU Hospital wing we have watched being constructed for six months; the view to the southeast sees the downtown Columbus skyline; the view directly out my window was a busy street beside of a busy highway, but next to that is a peaceful bike path that I have watched the whole six months.  I've seen it freezing, leafless and bare; then watched the new leaves, new life happening during the spring months; and now it is a shady path that I see walkers and joggers and bikers share and it looks so serene.

I looked at all of that, and remembered how many times I have looked out those windows wanting to be anyplace else other than where I was at, but at the same time so glad I was at a place such as this; I looked at all of that, then looked at Scott, sitting in a chair with the sun behind him, looking at me, and there was such a relieved smile on his face.  And a tear.

We walked out, hugged everyone, thanked them profusely, both sides saying how much we were going to miss each other, said our good-byes, and looked at each other again before getting on the elevator - we were both tearing up, yet so wildly relieved and happy.

Those people on that fourth floor have become so dear to us.  So lifesaving.  So giving and loving and helpful and encouraging.  And they were so happy and smiling all the while, while working on the toughest wing at any hospital.

It's been a long journey, a descent into a deep valley, and now we are climbing out.

*******

I have listened maybe a thousand times to an audio message about meeting God in the desert.  It tells about how the children of Israel left Egypt and slammed into a desert.  They were hungry and thirsty and felt betrayed by those who led them.  They were so miserable, they wanted to go back to slavery.  Back to Egypt.

This audio gives good insight to a God that met them with their every need.  I wasn't sure I had the courage to stand beside a large body of water with my enemy breathing down my neck, and walk through the waters staying dry, to the other side.

I have never seen manna in the desert until now.  I never knew what it meant to have only God to sustain you and yet live in a community of help.  And love.  And hugs.

As usual, I am still processing.

But my body is singing praises to the One who has seen us through.

This part.  We have made it to an oasis.  We have made it to the rock that spurts out living water.  We have made it to the shade and can see the valley opening up finally.

God has met us.


http://www.followtherabbi.com/uploads/assets/audio/milkandhoney.mp3

What if?

Long ago, a little boy said to me, "your words hurt my ears".

It wasn't because he had been naughty and was being disciplined.  It wasn't because he was being told he was watching too much tv again.  It wasn't because he wasn't allowed to play outside until midnight.

It was more because of the harsh realities of life.  When those hard things in life, whether emotional, spiritual or physical cannot be made to look better, feel better - when they are put into words - they hurt.

Words like, "I don't know why people change sometimes".  Words like, "yeah, there are a lot of hurt people in this world who like to hurt others".  Words like, "it hurts really bad now, but maybe, just a little less tomorrow".

I think now, he and his sisters would say "your words hurt my eyes".

So, sometimes, I write about things that are not so sensory painful.

***

But not today.

These chemo combinations they give you, can cause you to reflect on a lot of things.

One being, well, mostly living.

But this past week, thinking a little on the last six months, I wondered: what would happen if we treated evil and sin in this world like we treat cancer?

***
Someone asked me the other day if I had it to do over again, would I have done the study and put myself out there with the three days a week Ro chemo regimen, on top of the usual weekly IV Taxal, and the "for good-misery-measure" every three weeks Carbo thrown on top of all of that.  Would I have done the study drug again?

Would I do it all again for six months?  Would I succumb to the "chemo-blast" and lose those first three months to nothing but medications and pain and trying to recover and hurt and basically living  in a fog that is in a lot of ways mostly memorable, but wholly not easy to recall??

Would I spend these last months with a bone marrow that was a bit fussy and mostly refused to recover; depleted blood cells that isolated me from any germ, and most human interaction; deep channels of weariness and some despair - would I do it again?


I would like to say "yes - in a heartbeat".  But, in all honesty, I would probably take three minutes for consideration this time.

If it meant that I was given a chance at beating this, I'm pretty sure I would say the same thing again - "how do I sign up?"

I would get back on that boat to Haedes.

Really, there wasn't all that much of a choice in the whole thing.

It's hit me pretty hard this week, reading a little more on my disease and realizing that if not for my aggressive treatment my life would be a completely different story right now.

You might put it under the column "hopeless".

But because I fell into the hands of some that treat aggression with like aggression, I'm here typing.

I did not get on that boat with the intention of coming off feeling better, feeling like my life had been enlarged, feeling like I had done the right thing.

I got on that boat for only one reason and that reason was that I had caught a glimpse of my enemy.  I was alarmed and rightfully fearful.  I had enough knowledge and enough people telling me what this could do to my body.  My life.  

And it had a whomping head start.   

My enemy is predatory in nature, and wants to consume me.  It is fast and deep and cunning, to the point that you have to take drastic measures to overcome it.  This enemy is evil to it's core and wants nothing but my suffering and hurt and ultimately, it wants me.  All of me.

I couldn't just hand that over to it.

And God of all things was standing at the door saying "you can't quit this".

I have quit other things when I didn't like the looks of the battle lining up.  I have shrunk from the battle line not wanting to confront or try to conquer or keep in the battle - I have walked away from such things before.

But with this, this foe, you cannot quit.  I wake up in the night feeling as if I had wrestled a strong alligator and was losing.  I wake up at night in pain and want out of the prison.  I wake up at night with a start and wonder about time, my body felt so depleted of any life giving help at times.  And, so short of breath.

But knowing this enemy, I could not walk away, I could not step back, I could not stand down.  It had to be faced and fought and even though we have won some battles, the war is long from over.

I really had to look this evil in the eye, and do what had to be done to overcome it.  To fight it to the end.  To stay in the battle even when I was too weary to move.

It's a fearsome foe, and is one that I cannot sadly pretend away.  And in some ways, the cure is harder to withstand than the disease.

But, there is no choice.  It has to be purged.

***

What if we treated evil the same way?

What if your local child predator was sent to "cancer" treatment for six months - and that was only the beginning?   Because we thought a child's soul more important than cancer cells?  Because we really believe that evil spreads like leaven?  Because we really know that we can change lives by confronting hard things?

What if the biggest bully you know - the one that makes everyone feel ugly and worthless and despair for wanting to live - what if they were sent to a center to remove that blackness from their lives?

What if - what if - the sin I find in my own life, hiding out in a corner of my soul, the sin of pride or prejudice or arrogance - what if I woke up one morning and wanted to have that sin taken care of seriously, and could go for treatments that would eradicate it?  What if you could have it sought out and destroyed before it destroyed you?  

Cancer is the closest thing I have encountered that I can equate to pure evil.

This was the one time in my life that I could not show up, clumsily fight it, then walk away when the heat started to scorch me.  I could not pretend like it was a lesser battle, I could not pretend that I could throw up just anything in it's path and that would be enough, I could not pretend I could win with flimsy battle gear.

I am in this for the whole war.  And I know I cannot afford to fight it with substandard measures.

Yet, when it's life altering, life crumbling evil, we react differently.  

***

The medical community winces every time they hear this evil one's name.  It's that bad.  But they don't back down, they meet it on the field with everything and every ounce of energy they can muster.  They study it and know it and want it fought and they want to win, even when presented with overwhelming odds.

One of my oncologists told me once - knee to knee, face to face, eye to eye  -  that he has been in school for twenty-seven years for this one moment in time - to help me fight this vile, evil enemy.

Twenty seven years.  Hard studying.  Hard memorizing.  A life dedicated to knowing everything you can possibly know to beat an evil enemy trying to overtake one of your patients.

What if we treated evil and sin the same way?  What if we send it to a specialist to do everything we can to make sure that evil is removed?

I am finding my little forays into studying evil something of a joke.  I find it hard to spend twenty-seven minutes in prayer and study on any given day to meet my mortal enemy.  Let alone, twenty-seven years.

Seemingly, I don't take it all that seriously.

So we use the big guns on cancer, all of the technology, all of the brains, the most extreme methods made known to man to fight and hopefully win - we do all that for cancer, and spend less than twenty-seven minutes on evil.

Which mostly doesn't take lives, more likely "just" the souls.  

I have given up a lot of my life and spent lots of money to fight this one evil.  I have allotted my time to nothing else.

These battles are so similar - the evil cancer and the evil that hurts our souls are maybe twins separated at birth. Yet, I have treated them with immeasurable irregularities on the one hand, and concise strategic plans on the other.

So if I had to say would I do it over again, I would not want to, but knowing my enemy would realize I have no choice.  And I know my enemy on more than one front now needs a lot of work and study and preparation and pain and suffering and hurt and toil.

There's no pretending with cancer - you better know.  And there should be no pretending with our ancient foe - evil.  Whether societal evil, personal evil or any of the long list you could place there - any of it should be taken seriously and fought on an even more difficult level than cancer.  

With this enemy - this fight - there's no playing around with it, there's no choice.