There will be a day.....

I had appointments yesterday.

I sat in the almost empty waiting room just after noon, and planted myself in front of the noon news tv.  When the Columbus news team wound up their broadcast, I asked for the channel changer from the front desk girl, and made her laugh when I told her sideways that "life was too short to waste it watching soaps".... no, I think it much better to waste it watching HGTV.

They appreciate my dark sense of humor there at times....

I was called back for my port flush, and chatted a bit with the lab lady, who, because we were in the middle of Ohio's most thriving metropolis, thought she could surprise me of all people by telling me that she used to show dairy heifers at county fairs.

I told her I used to work in a large animal dairy veterinarian practice.  She laughed.

I know, it's amazing how my conversations can turn to the craziest things at times.

I was sent back out to sit in the waiting room, which was close to empty compared to what it usually looks like, and found someone sitting close to my seat, blandly watching HGTV as well.  She had a husband with her, who looked like a lot of the husbands I see there - loving, tender, tempered with the "shadow of the valley" over them.

I smiled and said "hi" to her.

We chatted a bit and I found we shared the same oncologist, so in the back of my mind, I knew one of us would be waiting longer than our shared appointment time.

She had all of her hair, and I saw her port tube hanging out, so I asked her if she was just starting chemo.  She smiled and said "no, I'm just finishing".  She told me she was a "recur", was stage 4, and "it was just a matter of time".

She was doing a 'maintenance' chemo.

I looked at her husband, who nodded and smiled sadly, I looked back at her, and the tears just showed up on my cheeks.  

I told her I was sorry, then she was called back.

Two more ladies showed up and planted themselves in front of the tv.  The younger one had on a scarf, no eyelashes, no eyebrows.  Without wanting to, I could hear she was talking to her kids on the phone.

She was called back to the lab and I talked with the other lady that turned out to be her mother.  She told me her daughter had started with breast cancer, then found out she had uterine cancer, then found cancer in her spleen, liver and bones.

Her mom said "she knows what she's looking at.  She's the bravest person I know".

I looked at her mom, and the tears were on my face again.

I told her I was so sorry, and then her daughter showed up in the doorway and waved her to come back with her.

Quiet again.  And it's good, because my mind is leaning towards overload.

Three ladies walk in, all with solid heads of hair, so I think I am safe, finally.  The middle lady starts to talk with me and tells me she is from Findlay, Ohio.  She tells me she has come here for a second opinion.

She tells me her doctor had told her she was end stage four, and there was nothing else he could do for her.

My brain is screaming by now - WHAT ARE THE CHANCES??!!

She had beat breast cancer, went in for reconstruction, and at the reconstruction site developed thick hard tissue, that one doctor had told her not to worry about.

I listened to her story, gave her a piece of advice, something like "if they offer you a study, jump in", then she was called back.

I sat out there alone again, crumpled.  I always thought it odd that with the dozens of times I have sat in that large, open waiting room, that I had never met anyone stage 4.

Apparently, they schedule them all on Monday afternoons.

Now I had met three, and heard all of their stories.

They were all "recurs".

I sat there and opened my grieving room door, and grieved for these ladies that had so much life to live, lives that were going to be ended soon unless the Lord intervened with a miraculous healing.  I thought about my high chances of recurrence, and grieved.  I thought about the woman who had been talking to her kids on the phone, giving them instructions on snacks.

While sitting in those waiting rooms I have encountered so much courage, so much hope, so much grief, so much laughter in the  midst of it all.

I was thinking about them on my drive home last night.  I wish there was more I could have said to them.  I wished them, prayed them, encouragement and light and love and courage to face their battles.

A song came on the radio, and I cried as I sang the chorus:

    There will be a day
    With no more tears
    No more pain
    No more fears

    There will be a day
    When the burdens of this place
    Will be no more
    And we will see Jesus
    Face to face.

This is what I wished them to know most of all, and what I wished I had said to them.

http://youtu.be/k8gkDiTvloc
   
***

It seems everyone has a cancer story.  When my blood counts climbed up a little after chemo and I started getting out again, I was obviously a chemo patient to anyone seeing me - no eyelashes, no eyebrows, heavy warm hat, and of course a skin color that did not look altogether alive.

Some people would see me and look away.  Some had a look of grave astonishment.  Some would smile and I would wonder how they knew.

When my son was doing some work in our house for us, he asked me if I could go to Home Depot to pick up some items so he wouldn't have to stop working.  I called ahead and asked them if I could pick up these items at the back door as I was still avoiding germs and they complied.

I went inside and waited with the cashier.  She told me about her boyfriend's mother that had died of cancer last year.  And of her third cousin once removed that had died of cancer.  And she started to tell me of another one, but my supplies finally showed up.  I paid for them, then she kindly requested someone to carry them out for me.

He was a young man who told me his father had fought cancer for ten years, and then died.  I stood out there in the parking lot, in the rain, which hid the tears on my cheeks for him, and told him how sorry I was for his loss.

He told me not to be sorry, his family was immensely grateful for the "ten extra years".

I smiled at him, thanked him and he told me he would be praying for me.

Sadly, these stories are a dime a dozen.  I cannot tell you how  many people have approached me with their cancer stories and their losses, and it appears they usually tell me because they need someone to understand their sorrow and grief.

Cancer truly does exactly what the experts say - it starts small, then completely takes over the lives of those it invades with ugly cells and tumors and dying tissue, and it seems to have the same effect on everyone around those inside the battle.  It is painful to the patient, and from the stories I've been hearing from those needing to tell them, maybe more painful for the ones watching.

And although I treasured the fact that they felt they could tell me their deepest sorrows, I wanted to put up my hand and stop them - I was still in the battle, and while in the battle you cannot, or at least I know I could not, count the losses just yet.

My coach-husband said it's similar to the teams that used to want to share meals with visiting teams before a ball game - he felt that was impossible.  You have to get a game face on and get ready for the battle.  You have to get a mindset "on", and keep it going.

It's not that I did not want to hear those stories, it was more that they brought me to a point of realization that I could not be at in that particular time - sometimes you lose the game.

Any coach will tell you that you cannot enter into that thinking while in the game.

A delivery man that found me outside one cold December day, told me too many details about his grandmother who had died of cancer, then said "ma'am, heaven is really something to look forward to".

I could not agree more, but not the words I needed to hear the day before my bone scan looking for new lesions.

But then, someone carries out some supplies for you because they see you could barely carry a pencil, and tells you that they were so grateful that their loved one fought, and that they were so grateful for the extra years, and you are glad and sorrow with them but also rejoice with them.

***

When I was taken back for my appointment, it's just like running into family I had not seen for several weeks.  They all smiled at me and said how good I looked, and they all wanted to know how I was feeling.  When the nurse in the exam room sat down in front of the computer to "chart me" and asked me how I was doing, I told the her I was feeling "lucky" after just talking to three stage 4 women in the waiting room.

I then saw Dr. Mrowzik's new fellow.  We chatted for a while as he dug a little deeper.  I asked him about my brain function and told him I was getting a little tired of ending up on the wrong exits, even if by doing so, I was re-learning most of the state of Ohio.

He laughed and said I had had quite a "one-two punch" and to just give it time.

Then Dr. Mrowzik walked in, and I just leaned over and hugged her.

I hug her every time I see her because I know that she is the reason I am sitting on her exam table one and a half years after my diagnosis.

Her heart seemed a little heavy, and I guessed maybe more than one of those waiting room ladies were her patients.  She shared her concerns with me, gave me three weeks to "lose some pain" before more scans, then told me to cut down on sugar.  She knew I had not had hardly any carbs for so long, and I told her that I had been on quite a "binge" lately, so I need to cut a lot of it out.

Then I told her I was still craving beef, and she recommended that to be cut down to once a week.  When I relayed this information to Scott, he asked me why.  And I felt ridiculous because I never even thought to ask.

Dr.Mrowzik told me my brain function would probably continue to improve, to just give it time.  She then laid her hand on me, and said in her sweet Polish accent, "you went through so much dear Karen, just give yourself time".

I felt the tears again, and smiled at her.

***

I unexpectedly showed up at home last night.  My brain had my schedule quite confused, so when I thought I was going to be gone for a couple of days, I ended up instead driving north between the orange barrels once again with an unopened suitcase in my back seat.

While I was driving, I thought about the stage 4 ladies; I thought about the dear granddaughters I had spent a lot of time with recently; I thought about Dr. Mrowzik and how God had granted me more life.  I thought about other stories that had been shared with me, and how this horrible disease has taken so much from so many people.

I made a conscience decision on the way home - that I would continue to wake up and bless God for each day I am given.  I would continue to hold each moment close for the blessing it brings.  I would continue to push, and re-learn, and manipulate my brain to come back around with some things.  I would continue to pray that God would remove each black ugly cell of cancer from my body, just I am begging Him to remove each dark, ugly, angry root of bitterness that sprouts up time after time.

I, more than most, know that the time is short.  Six weeks is a short time.  Ten years is a short time.  Eighty years is a short time.

But as I thought about all of that on the way home, I thought about how good it was to be pulling down my street, how good it was to hear the gravel under my tires in our driveway, and how awesome it was to see Scott open the front door in surprise and pleasure when he saw me heading up the sidewalk.

It was so good to go home after that day.  It was so good to get a warm welcoming smile and warmer hug.

And I pray that those ladies I met yesterday along with all others, know that pleasure - not only here on this earth, but beyond.  I pray they can visualize a heavenly door opening, and someone greeting them *home* - a place where they know they can feel completely loved, completely peaceful, completely hugged and cherished.

A couple of weeks ago a friend read to us the verse from Hebrews, stating that we are a "peculiar people", and I connected to that on so many levels.  I feel especially peculiar as of late - I feel like I have one foot still in recovery, one foot still in the land of fears, and yet one foot stepping into sunshine and warmth outside on our patio-morning-coffee-area that is full of green and blooms now.

I feel a peculiar "not of this place", alien feeling, and yet knowing I am still of this place.  I can't describe it - but the "surface-living" that we all reside in here on earth out of need, hasn't come back yet, and I feel like an outsider watching life.

And yet in feeling peculiar, there is such depth of feeling, depth of faith, depth of hope, depth of fear of evil.  But most of all, feeling "chosen of God and precious"....

⁴ Coming to Him as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed by men, but chosen by God and precious,

⁵ ye also as living stones are built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.

⁶ Therefore it is also contained in the Scripture: “Behold, I lay in Zion a chief cornerstone, elect, precious; and he that believeth in Him shall not be confounded.”

⁷ Unto you therefore who believe, He is precious; but unto those who are disobedient, “The stone which the builders disallowed, the same is made the head of the corner,”

⁸ and, “A stone of stumbling and a rock of offense,” even to those who stumble at the Word, being disobedient, unto which also they were appointed.

⁹ But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people, that ye should show forth the praises of Him who hath called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.

¹⁰ In times past ye were not a people, but are now the people of God; who had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy.

working together

I am still struggling with the "depths-of-despair" debris floating around me.  So I made it through some pretty tough chemo regimens - no depression.  I made it though surgery - no depression.  I made it through more chemo, more scares, more set-backs - still no depression.

Give me five weeks of easy going radiation, and I can barely scale out of the 'despair-hole' enough to see sunlight.....

I suspect physically, my radiation got together with my inept bone marrow and are having a bit of a party on my dime.  I suspect mentally, radiation kind of clouds up your brain even more, for a while at least.  I hope it is indeed "for a while".

Physically and mentally, I can see it, grasp it, deal with it.

What I cannot deal with oddly enough, is the other fallout from radiation - the start of lymphedema.    Apparently, radiation can "trigger" lymphedema.  Because as I've told them 156 times, "I didn't have this swelling before", and they tell me that yes, radiation damages things even further.  So the corded lymph gland I was dealing with all along, is now an angry-corded lymph gland.  I just asked it to do more than it is capable.

It was at full over-worked-underpaid capacity before radiation.

Now, it's a surly employee.  Like it says "mess with me at all woman, and I can just quit on you".... Or as the case is, swell.

My Physical Therapist says my muscles have "memory" and so after they work on me, I am to 'not jerk', or 'lift' or sit in front of a desk for longer than an hour or do anything other than my stretching exercises with my left arm for 48 hours to keep my leftover lymph glands struggling to work make everything swell up again.

My mind and lymph glands are having a full out little hissy-fit fight within.  My mind says sarcastically "H. E. double toothpicks NO! we do not want my muscles and lymph glands "remembering" how to swell.  Why no, that would mean they would have to get busy and work!"...... My leftover lymph glands that have had to take on the brunt of the work of fifteen lost lymph glands say "fine!  you want to know how hard we are trying to keep things moving here - we can stop any time!"

And my arm swells.  And the chest wall beside that arm swells.

I would lay awake at night designing a tight-bandage-shirt that would be tight in the under arm area, tight around the shoulder and chest wall, as well as being a tight sleeve.  The sleeve they gave me only caused the very upper part of my arm that was not in it to swell.

I was pretty sure I had a million dollar idea.

So my favorite PT in the whole wide world, who has magic thumbs that loosen lymph gland cording and unfreezes shoulders told me to stop at Dick's Sporting Good's store and get a compression shirt.  Long sleeved.  Two sizes smaller than me.

Somebody already made that million.

While I struggled in the dressing room to put on this tight rubber band (and yes, visions of watching my mother put on her girdle did come to mind immediately) my arm would shoot out because I wasn't strong enough to stretch it enough to get it over my head.  So folks waiting outside would hear a "woomph" on the side of the wall as my hand would break loose from the spandex and hit the wall, coupled with some mumbled *words* that I hope they don't remember; plus a lackluster sales staff, all added together made Dick's one of my least favorite stores, ever.

Scott had to help me get it on that night.  If I were in a funnier mood, I might have laughed with him, but as I stated above, this abyss doesn't so much allow errant laughter.

But I slept in it, and it was the best sleep I've had for a long time.  She also gave me a foam pillow to keep inside the shirt under my arm to further compress that swelling in my arm and chest wall, and it's been my friend ever since.

She told me I was having muscle spasms in between my rib bones, behind my shoulder blade and in my upper arm, which was news to me, because all my body has been telling me is that there is NO muscle left anywhere.

But that lady can stretch a corded lymph gland like no one else.  She can release a muscle spasm like no one else.  I told her I loved her, and wanted to move onto her street - next door.

All the PTs are pretty awesome there, and they have brought me a long ways, all of them - my range of motion in their opinion is "awesome" - I just can't get the lymph glands that were cut and those left to cope back on board the bus.

But then I see Fazio, and my lymph glands and spasming muscles give up the fight and melt under the pressure of her thumbs and fingers.

For a bit.

***

This whole journey through *cancer-land* has been long and arduous and crazy and -- so, so blessed.  I would not wish this on my vilest enemy, but I so recommend it.  Many, many things, issues, beliefs have been brought before me, forcing me to examine them, turn them over, and file away for future use, or discard.

Like, I didn't realize when I was walking through life that "this is it!"  I always thought I had more time, or another time to "become", or "do", or live razor sharp on the edge.

I didn't realize that this was it.  You only get one decade to live your twenties.  You only get one decade to live your forties.  You only get one chance to enjoy and envelope your children when they are young.

You only get "it" once.

All these comments about second chances, second go-arounds, second anything are mostly not true.  Yeah, you get a second chance when you blow it, when you are wrong, when you realize the proverbial error of your way and try to correct it - you might call that a second chance, but in all reality, it's not.

In all reality, there are no "do-overs" in life - life is more like Ebenezer Scrooge second-chance-wise.

When we realize that we have lived carelessly, or worse, "disengaged", and are mindful to change it, we don't get that wasted time back.  We don't get to rewind.  We don't get a clean slate - just like Ebenezer, we have to realize our hurtful ways, our wrongs, our regrets, then set about correcting them.  But you don't get to do it over.  You can start anew, you can turn over a new leaf, you can decide to live differently, but that's about it.

There's no do-overs when we look to the bottom of the bottle.  Or barrel.

And for the most part, I lived my family life with that fully in mind.  I loved raising a family.  I loved being home with my kids.  I loved the different stages, the growth, the nurturing.  I diligently read and learned all I could to make myself a better mother, a better spouse, a better family-person.

I loved it all - well I did eventually have teenagers (wink, wink), but taking it all in a bundle deal, I did love it all and deeply grieved it when it was all over.

But, um, if I want to be flagrantly honest here, I was not so *engaged* in my work life.

I viewed work as something I needed to do to put food on the table.  None of the jobs I took were my "chosen profession".  I took them to get paid.  I viewed it all dispassionately.  After reading my Bible and realizing that I needed to "do my work diligently as if I were working for the Lord", I did try to do that.  But it was still, something I *did*.

When I was a lab technician for an orthodontist, many days over lunch I found myself reading his medical books on the shelf in his office.  (Secretly -- I was there alone two days a week... smile)  I loved the exactness of my work there, but not so much the same thing over and over and over again.  So I of course did the thing that comes so naturally to me, I pulled books off of a shelf and read them.

I can identify 6 different mouth cancers because of that study.  But other than learning about springs in retainers and the laws of occlusion, the laws of sterile, which wires to use for which mouth appliance, my formal education there was a little limited in my eyes.

Then I went to work for the veterinarians.

These people have almost a whole day's work done before most people drink their first cup of coffee in the morning.  Before 8am each morning, surgery animals have been dropped off, blood drawn for their pre-surgery workup, any concerns addressed and the day started.

We could be drinking our third cup of coffee waiting on the blood machine to spit out results.

I counted up one time, and I think that even though I may have missed some, I had worked with over 20 different veterinarians during my fourteen years there.  So I more easily recognize all different levels of professional.  I more easily recognize all different levels of knowledge.

Some doctors are brilliant but don't know how to share that.  They usually end up being surgeons - they don't do well with patients but do their job superbly.  Some doctors know the best thing for your pet and yet will allow themselves to be talked down by a client and not follow the best course of treatment or prevention - all under the umbrella of "saving them money" or "the client refused it", when in all reality, they couldn't sell a beehive to a field of clover, and that clients dog is in danger of rabies or heartworm or whatever it was that the client printed off the internet to support a crazy argument.

I've seen them all - all types of doctors maybe - and realize now how lucky I was.  Because, it makes me listen to doctors differently than other folks.

But even more-so, because, sometimes, if you are really, really lucky in life, you get to work with a doctor that is both brilliant and loves to teach.

And that's not an easy thing, because as I mentioned, it is a long busy day, and there is just not time to teach others what it is they desire to know.

But my education started in earnest the first day I started at the veterinary clinic while Dan Fulk still owned it.  I learned how to say veterinarian.  He told me "it's 'veter' - like 'better'".  The accent was not on the "vet" part.

His wife Carolyn taught me how to keep their books - this was before computers and spreadsheets.  Another veterinarian there at the time kindly told me that she had missed some of the 'accounts-education' and showed me how to run the tape that they used to balance the accounts once or twice a week.

I think more than a few times, I lost several years off of my life tracking down twenty-five cents.

Shirley, the other lady that worked there on evenings and Saturdays, showed me how to mop, clean all the cages in the cage room and do up sterile surgery packs like a woman possessed on steroids.

She is old enough to be my mother, but could run circles around anyone, any day.  You have not lived until you have seen little Shirley muscle a contrary big dog recovering from surgery out of a cage, get him happy and on a leash wagging his tail for his owner to take home.

And trust me when I say this - it was pretty impossible to become bored.  The daily routine varied greatly - which helps my greatly ADD brain stay engaged.  One day I would be settling accounts, the next day watching the anesthetic machine during surgery.  One day I would be sending out collections letters, the next day checking culture plates to determine infections.  One day I would be double checking the scheduling, the next day I would be ordering drugs.

Or, more than likely, and more honestly, that all happened in one day.

I learned so much.  Even now, seven years after I left that job, I still kind of know what an elevated creatnine level means, but better yet, when looking it up I have a good working knowledge of the whole picture.  I can meander my way through blood work results and get the general idea.

Before the invention of smart phones, the veterinarians would radio back in and ask me to read them the blood work results.  I got to the point of knowing what their heavy sighs meant on some reports, and what their relieved voices meant on other reports.

And I oddly found my "gifting" in life - I found that I have a nose, or an art of smelling - that some envy.  I could tell you when one of the veterinarians coming back in from farm calls had worked on a cow with ketosis.  I can smell it.  I could tell you when a culture plate smells like strep - or a person's breath.  I can smell it - whether it was incubated in a little oven on a culture plate or in the warmth of someone's tonsils, I could identify strep.  My family always looks at me kind of dimly sideways on this, but in the veterinary field I was told that I was pretty remarkable.

Few people understand this, so I walk through life with my excellent gift of nasaly (nosely?) identifying different medical maladies mostly unappreciated.  (imagine my hand to my forehead, followed by a heavy sigh)

I worked with a couple of guys that loved to show me things - before I was diagnosed with nerve damage, lymph nodes, cancer, all those good phrases that have been thrown my way this past year - but before I heard these terms at OSU, I knew them.  Better yet, I had seen a lot of them.

I've seen a nerve thread.  I've seen intestinal tracks - both healthy and damaged.  I've seen cancer growths removed and cut up and put in jars and sent off to labs.

When they told me last winter that my digestive track had taken quite a hit with my nine months of chemo, I pretty much knew what it probably looked like.

But even better than the medical information, I finally had something that I had not experienced before - a "work-family".  I found that when you are sequestered into an office, a building, a business with the same people for long hours every day, you can learn to watch each other's backs.  You can learn to support each other.  You can learn to help each other out.

Because if you don't, most of your work-life is spent in misery.  And if most of your work-life takes up more than 8 - 12 hours a day, it is most of your life.  

I had never worked in that type of work environment before.

There were some ladies at the large animal veterinary clinic that have forever changed my life.  For the good.

They are what I call *my-ag-ladies* - not only did they work at the clinic, but they also had farms and businesses related to agriculture that is kind of a different world from the rest of working America.

You will never wake up earlier than these folks.  You will never work harder than these folks.  You will never understand the value of good business principles more than these folks.

They can work earlier, longer, harder than anyone I have met in my life - and yet still have the best life.

I have never laughed harder than when I worked there.  I have never seen life through a prism of helpfulness, goodness, right-thinking than when I worked there.

I have never been stretched further in my intellect, than when I worked there.  As I stated before, I was intellectually lazy when it came to my work/jobs.  Any initiative or idea I had previously in a job was either scorned, envied, stolen or just plain old beat out of me.

But here, suddenly, I had to "wake up", use it, know it.

Under new ownership, Fred leaned on me pretty hard sometimes - and it was for good reason - I was used to being intellectually lazy.  I had worked hard - you had to there - but didn't get a lot of pats on the back for initiative.  I was used to just giving enough to get by and get paid. Used to not flaunting any "smarts" because I was a woman.  Because I had not gone to college and therefore had not earned the respect to attach to those smarts.  Because it had not done me any good to intellectually excel in a job until then.

And by then, I had become pretty good at being status-quo.

Fred didn't care about any of that - all he wanted were results - and he respected me enough and gave me the needed push to get out there and do what I was capable of doing.

Finally, I had landed in a job where there was not any discrimination on any level, in fact I was expected to do more than I knew what to do.  And I did it.

Mostly.

I remember my amazement when I left the veterinary field to find in my new job that there were four people working to do the same thing I had been doing.  The veterinary field is like that - you stretch your money, stretch your people, stretch it all to get the best medical care around without any insurance paybacks, no medicare, no medicaid.  The total cost has to be covered, and you learn to do it cheaply with excellence.

While I was learning the ropes of a new position within the clinic, there were some awesome, wonderful women that hedged around me, protecting me, helping me, supporting me, and always, always encouraging me.

Shirley says often how she "has never worked with such a good group of honest, hard-working women that got along so well together".

There were bumps.  There were some fallouts, but on the whole - I could not agree more.

Connie taught me how to laugh.  I would come into work some days totally downtrodden with the cares of my life - which were pretty heavy at times - and she would tell me "Karen, God has not forgotten you".

I was pretty sure He had.

Then she would tell me maybe fifteen hilarious stories, and we would laugh and laugh, all the time getting large portions of work done.

She taught me how to laugh during grief, how to keep walking when you want to dig a hole and live in it, how to grapple with rage at the hurt someone has poured over your family and give it to God and sort out the right and wrong in the whole matter.

Then Shirley would come in for the evening hours and we would all take some minutes to talk if we were able, and Shirley taught me more about sticking out the longevity of life, than anyone I know.

Margaret was in our office often with her business, and we would all spend time talking, empathizing, kneading each other's brokenness at times.

Throughout it all, Carolyn would stop in and talk.  She knew our work and sometimes would help out or stand beside us in the pharmacy or at the sink while we washed up surgery packs and tell life stories and events.

I still laugh remembering the time she helped me stamp over two-hundred statements needing to be put into the mail in short time.  I told Shirley she licked stamp after stamp and never missed a word.  She can weave a story with great skill and has a strong sense of wrong and right coupled with great empathy.

We all had pretty extreme hurts and life-torments to live with, and live through.

And we all laughed like hyenas most days.  We had to, otherwise we would all just cry the day away.

We knew intuitively we all had to hang together, or we would all hang separately.

These ladies all had beautiful homes - like Country Living, Southern Living and every other magazine you just drool over has nothing on them.  Their taste is impeccable.  We would plan a progressive dinner stopping at each home over Christmas each year, so we could see each home decorated.  It was such great fun, and usually the biggest snow storm of the whole year.

They were "ag-ladies" - a little bit of snow and ice didn't deter them one mile.

They were all sincere gardeners.  Well, almost all.

When I was going through some traumatic life-events, I started digging flower beds.  I told my kids that "digging helped take out my meanness", and they mostly agreed.

I didn't have money to hang out in greenhouses to get great plant starts for these gardens.  And come to find out, I didn't have to, my ag-ladies set me up better.  They would bring me starts and tell me how to plant them, and when I killed some of them, they would bring me more.

I still have a red-twig-dogwood bush that Shirley started for me.  I have four more started around our home because she taught me how.  I have oregano plants from Connie that I have dug up from house to house to house in all of our moves and carried with me.  I have some day-lillys that came from a tiny start from Margaret, and some columbine and our all-time favorite - ***** (sorry - for three days I have been trying to remember this flower's name, but can't....)

We have beds full of blooms and I remember these friends fondly every time I gaze on them.

I didn't realize the treasure I was obtaining all those years ago.  I didn't know that the people, the work, the learning would impact me for the rest of my life.

***

During my radiation treatments, the ladies decided they were going to drive me.  Since I stayed most of the week in Columbus, each Friday one of them would show up in my driveway to drive me down and back for almost four hours, just for a twenty minute treatment.  I was doing so well in radiation, I didn't think it was necessary, but they insisted.  And to tell you the truth, round about Friday morning, about 11am, I was so glad they had.

I was tired.

Scott wanted to know if they were on time.  I told him they were my "ag-ladies" - they were early. It was some of the best one-hour-and-forty-minute drives one way I have ever had.  I remember Carolyn pulling up to the STOP sign when getting off of 71 on our way home commenting "wasn't that the fastest Columbus trip we've ever had?"  And she was right, the talking, the catching up, the laughing, the love all bundled up to make the trips so easy.

Except for Shirley - she truly drew the short-straw weather-trip-wise.  The first trip she took me down it rained heavily part of the way, and the other part had really poor visibility.  Like, everyone on 71 even slowed down.  The second trip, we encountered 4-6 inches of snow once we hit the Delaware exit above Columbus.  Apparently, Columbus city had decided to not plow or salt until the snow storm was over.  It took us over an hour to do the usual twelve minutes on 315 - everyone was going 25mph.  Thankfully, because the lanes were an invisible mess.

We drank coffee after my treatment hoping to see at least one snow-truck before starting back.   There was none.  So we started back in the same maze of nothing but white roads loaded with snow.

People asked me if I was scared.  I tell them they have never ridden with a woman who knows how to drive a tractor, drive a truck, drive a herd of cows, if they have to ask that.  She has lived through far worse in her life and is pretty unshakable.

Not to mention, she can even drive a pretty hard antique deal as well.

Even though I could travel the road to OSU/James/Stephanie Spielman Center with my eyes closed, I missed pointing out the exit to Connie.  And this is just a credit to a steady-handed-driver - I yelled when I saw that exit sign out of the corner of my eye, and her steering wheel didn't waver one centimeter.

When I started driving myself to my treatments in January in Columbus, I missed more than a few exits, and had developed a bit of working knowledge of the roads in Columbus because of that.  So I instructed Connie to take the next exit.  She did.  I had her turn the wrong way.

Two more times.  We ended up in Hilliard, and proceeded to drive back around...... I apologized profusely, especially with the whole idea of $3.85 a gallon gasoline swirling around in my brain, and she laughed.  And we laughed, and drove on.

It was so good.  They were so good to me.  They don't view miles - they view trips.  Some of them had to drive farther to get into my driveway than most people drive five days a week in their work commutes.

***

When you work with people like that, your life changes.  I know their kids even though they don't know me.  I know their spouses, even though they don't know me so well.  They know my kids, my spouse better than my own family does.

We have shared each other's hurts, each other's calamities, each other's torments, cried with each other, and laughed with each other.

Someone remembered the times that I brought my son with me to work.  He had become quite adept at skipping school, and I had told him that when he missed the bus he was not going to get to stay home - I went home and brought him back to work with me.  He sat in the backroom with his school books and drew cartoons.

But they remembered those days and reminded me how Fred and John would walk in and find him and say "Oh, Dude, not again!"  They all understood it was a phase, and something we were just going to get through, and while he grew to like school better than a storage room at the clinic, they all accepted him as well.

There were a lot of life-events like that, and since I was the one with teenagers in the home at that time, these people helped me pick through that briar patch of life, and enjoy the fruit along with the thorns.

Each of them had lived through something harder, something more painful, and because of that I was not left to wallow in the "why me?" syndrome.  I could not face them and live in self-pity.  I could not wish my life away.

We all make our life choices, and many times don't want to live with them.  These folks showed me how to live with them, and make them advantageous no matter what they looked like at the moment.

***

They all took me on a road trip last week.  We had the best time and I sat in the vehicle in the front seat with the warmer and was named "navigator".  I glared at the Garmen woman speaking to me and told them honestly what I thought about her. They didn't think I was dumb or lacking or anything but "there".  They were ok with the chemo holes in my brain.  They laughed, we all laughed, and we shared our knowledge on such things as GPS units, of which I had none.

But since they had made sure I got the heated seat in the front, I was handed "garmen-lady".....  It immediately took me back all those years ago to the time when we had all helped each other before, talked it out on how to do it best, and just did it.

It took me back to the point where they had all before showed me how to do the job quickly and well, and how to be an actual *participant* in my work-life at any given moment.

My reticent lymph glands and muscles could learn a few things from them....

Like I said, I never realized you don't really get to have a second chance.  You don't get to work the same fourteen years over again.  You don't get to develop work relationships with those people later.
 
I didn't realize at that time that "this was it!"  I didn't realize that God had developed a working family about me that was more than a group of people I saw everyday, they were a hedge, a help, a support, a group of folks like no other.

And I am so glad that I was "awakened" enough to realize it some then, and even more-so now.  We don't see each other often, but when we do it's like we were working together just yesterday.  We all know each other's hurts and pains, and we all know each other's delights and glory.

And to be honest, it doesn't get much better than that.

That group of people taught me a lot about God's idea of community, caring, helping, and supporting without ever sitting in a pew.

They lived it.  And I was one of the lucky ones that got to be there.



    

The third cup

I went out for a walk this morning.  It was cold, it was windy - like I knew on step number three that I regretted not wearing my snow pants - but I figured if my friend Donna can get up extra early to do her workout, then I better quit pouting and slink out of bed a few hours later and get my butt outside moving.

It was pretty invigorating.  I'm having what I think might be some cartilage problems with my knee, or maybe a loose tendon or something, but I keep walking until that says "head home", and it felt pretty good.

And stop the presses on this one - I even ran a few poles.  If truth be told, it wasn't anything like running - more like a faster walk, or a slow, slow jog - but I did it to elevate my heart rate a little.  I just wanted to see if I could still do it.  And I did.  Then my port-vein started to yell again, so I stopped.

And I smiled in my little victory.

After physical therapy on Tuesday, I had a port flush.  They graciously squeezed me in because I forget to call and schedule such things - and I was given one of my favorite chemo nurses.  We talked a while and caught up on how each other was doing, then I had her feel my port tubing that goes into my jugular - it hurts when my blood starts pumping.

Ports are such wonderful inventions, but I have hated mine since day one.  It wasn't placed well - it gets in the way of bra straps.  It sticks out quite a bit - in fact sometimes if I am in a thin shirt I will tap it and say "beam me up Scotty" when no one but Scott is around.  It bothers me when I sleep - it feels like it kinks if I lay on my side.  It has been even more troublesome since it was included in a mammogram last year - yeah - think about that one for a while.  It's placed right at the edge of the spot they need to "grab" - and they either have to not include it and miss some flesh - or grab it and squeeze it in the iron grinder press.

The mammogram technician assured me it wouldn't bother it.  Then, when it was indelibly pushed into my skin for all time and I was pretty sure it was going to pop through, she noted that I didn't have enough fat to protect it...... I could have told her that before.

But because of the way my brain works, I haven't been such a big fan of this thing.  I did the first three months of chemo without one, so I reasoned that I shouldn't need one.

Then, "they" told me that chemo ruins your veins.

Oh, that makes perfect sense.  So pump it right into my heart and jugular then with a port.  I see.

So I lay in bed at night feeling my blood pump through there and wonder if it is clotting around the tubing in my jugular where I feel it most, and if so, will one of those little clots break free when I run or exercise harshly.

This is a side effect of the "half-assed-medical-knowledge" brains, of which I have one.  You know enough medically to think of such things, and don't know enough medically to reason it all through.

So I pointed it out to Leah, my good-chemo-nurse and she felt the kink in it, but thought it might be  instead a suture holding it in place, and that it might be causing me to feel it more when I was exercising because of course, my blood was pumping harder then, trying to squeeze quickly through a vein crowded with a tube and suture in it.  She said to be sure and show it to my doctor again, but she noted that she had another patient who was a runner and complained about the same thing.

Whew.  Relieved, and glory-be, she compared me to a runner.... I've been a pretty solid couch potato for quite a while, and here I was just bumped up the fitness ladder a bit because I was out walking at a decent clip for my condition.

For a couple of years I used to go out every morning at 5:10am sharp and do a mile loop.  We don't have any street lights here in Cinnamon Lake and it was downright dark some mornings.  I was starting to recognize constellations for the first time in my life.  I loved the feeling of getting fresh air pumping into my lungs.  I loved the release of endorphins when it was all over.

And honestly, that's about all I loved about it.  One barely twilighted (twilit? spellcheck doesn't know what to do with this word...) morning, I jumped over a snake warming itself on the road.  I thought it was a stick until as I was stepping/jumping over it and I saw it move.  If you knew how I felt about snakes, you will understand the outright lies I had to tell myself to get myself back out there the next morning.

In fact, I lied to myself pretty regularly over the whole idea of getting up, slapping on some clothes and running shoes and getting outside in any weather, any temperature and start moving.  If I could hear the wind whistling and knew there was going to be snow on the ground, I told myself I would just go to the STOP sign and turn around.

Two-tenths of a mile is better than no-tenths.  

At the STOP sign, I would tell myself in the bitter cold icy wind, to just go to the speed limit sign which was two-tenths of a mile further.  When I had completed four-tenths of a mile out, I knew it was useless to turn around and to just suck it up and finish the mile loop.  

On those mornings I would come back in with ice dripping off of me and tell the still-sleeping-Scott to feel the ice on my coat.  I would do a pretty loud "warm-down" and tell Scott a few times that he had a pretty tough wife.  I was downright unbearable on such mornings - I had conquered the elements to get in my whole one mile loop.

I neglected to mention the fifteen lies I had told myself to just get out of bed and get around the loop.  No, uh-uh.  I went all "coach" on Mr. Coach himself, and told him how glorious it felt to conquer the weather and the dark and the wind and sleet.

Especially, when I was back inside a warm house.

So, I know I'm being kind of wimpy now.  I know I can get outside and get moving even in two inches, four inches, three inches of snow.  I know how to lie to myself enough to get my body out there.

Now, I have to lie to my port site as well and tell it to just calm down.  Calm down and play nice with the rest of my groaning body.

I just have to do it.

***

We had a snow day on Monday.  I know about a million school kids were awake and cheering and happy as all get-out, but I wasn't so much on the cheerful side with the whole thing....

But then, that blasted wet snow that showed up in late March had two little people I know very happy.  They showed up in our front yard, and proceeded to build a huge - like gigantic - snowman.

It was like all of the elements came together to create the perfect snowman building day.  It was wet enough to stick well together.  It was deep enough to roll big balls.  It was the perfect temperature - not freezing ice cold.

The amish kids around our neck of the woods all thought the same thing - there were about 56 amish snowmen all complete with old straw hats erected the same day.

The snowman in our front yard had a carrot nose.  And a hat that was engineered by Popop - my candle holder that was sitting on the front porch was placed on his head.  Popop thought it was ingenious; Chloe, Zoe and I were a bit dubious.

But there was a lot of laughter, a lot of rolling up of big, big balls of snow, and while three very heavy huge globs of snow were being stacked on top of one another by two big guys in the front yard - two little girls suddenly decided they were "reindeer" and promptly started playing "reindeer games" and pranced about in the deep snow.

They wiped away some snow in our driveway and found stones to make his eyes and smile.  He looked friendly as all get out.  Then, he got the red sheet that is used for odd projects wrapped around his neck for a scarf.  He was that big.

I don't think we should have snow in March, but if we do, this is the way to spend the day.

They came inside, we had hot chocolate with lots of marshmallows, because we have extra bags of those on hand due to the fact that one never knows when Melvin the Moose or Ballou the Bear who greatly loves marshmallows and can eat them quickly, will show up.  We sipped and sat and watched the well-fed-birds out the back window.

Chloe snuggled up to me and said her ear hurt.  I put a warm dish towel over it and asked her if that made it feel better.  I found her a heating pad and she laid on the couch with it.  She asked me to sit with her.

There are few things sweeter in life, than slowing down on snow days, that turn into sick days, and sit with a little one on the couch and chat a little while she - a little dramatically - holds the warm heating pad on her ear.

Then she fell asleep.

Zoe and I made a recipe I had been wanting to try with them - little bird's nests.  It was pretty easy, but pretty amazingly cool when finished.  She was pretty pleased with the outcome.

As we formed the "nests", she looked keenly at the malted-milk-eggs that would go next into the nests and commented that we would have "robins nests", due to the blue eggs   Then the white eggs would be a "chicken's nest".  Another color was going to be an "eagle's nest".  Then she told me she wanted an eagle as a pet.

I looked over my glasses at her, but she was happily naming the eggs in the nests and encouraging them to hatch out.....  She has spent maybe two years of her short life of nap times studying bird books - her favorite being Popop's that is heavier than our Bible that she lugged around for bedtime reading every time she was here - but she knows more about birds than I do about gardening.

We then went up and "played baby" for a while, and then Chloe woke up with a fever, and they went home.

The house is so quiet after they leave.

***

A couple of weeks ago I stayed with Addy and Millie-bean for five days while their mum and dad went on a business trip.

I told their folks I was pretty sure I could do the kids, I just wasn't sure the house would be standing when they got back.  They packed the refrigerator full of prepared food so I wouldn't have to think too much about accidentally cooking something that would engage their allergies and/or intolerance to wheat products and tree nuts, so I was going to do just fine.

And we got along really well.  I went to bed each evening right after their 8:00pm bed time.  In fact, I might have been sleeping before they closed their eyes a couple of nights.

On Friday, we planned to pick up Addy close to noon after kindergarten, then load up the car and head up to Cinnamon Lake to get Popop in on the fun.  Addy was especially looking forward to this, as we had promised her a play-date with her favorite "oe-s" - cousins Chloe and Zoe.

Then, it started to unravel some.  While Addy was at school, Millie and I loaded up the car with most of the items - and there ended up being many even after I had told them to "pack lightly" - but apparently "babies" had more suitcases and carriers and seats than anyone.  During a quick lunch, I was standing at the counter chatting with them across the island sitting on stools happily munching down lunch, when suddenly - Millie in mid-word disappeared.

It was like a cartoon - she was there one moment - and the next thing I knew - SWOOSH! she was gone.  She hit that hard tile floor like a bag of potatoes.  She cried.  We cried.  I knew she was hurting and felt so bad for her.

Then she looked at me while I was holding her, tried to smile and said "are we ready to go?  Popop will be waiting on us!"  She limped a little, but put the proper blankets over her baby's carrier to make sure she would be warm and well cared for, and we packed up, snapped up, locked up and left.

Then, realized we forgot something, unsnapped, unpacked, and unlocked.

After snapping again, packing again, locking again, realized we had forgotten something else.  I felt a little bit triumphant as I at least had the car in reverse this time.

This happened FOUR TIMES.  FOUR TIMES we forgot something.  The last time I even almost made it Polaris Parkway and seriously struggled in my mind trying to decide if I could just lie and say "NO! THAT NEW TEDDY BEAR SAID HE WANTED TO STAY HOME - HE's DOING A STAY-CATION - HE DOESN'T WANT TO COME ALONG WITH US!! YES, HE TOLD ME THAT!!"  But I weighed out the miles and miles and miles of anguish against the two miles and three red lights of turn around time, and decided to go back.

Plus, by that time, we all had to go to the bathroom.

The whole one hour and twenty minute drive, which just turned into two hours with the multi turn-arounds, Addy talked non-stop about her planned play-date the next day with her two favorite people in all of Cinnamon Lake, except of course for Grandmum and Popop she informed me sideways - her cousins.

"What time do you think they will be at your house tomorrow morning, Grandmum?"  I told her she was in kindergarten and should not be reading clocks yet.

I smiled when I told her that.  I did.

"We could have a big breakfast and invite them down for that!"  I looked at her sideways in the rear view mirror.  These girls wake up with the first ray of sunshine when they stay at my house, and I was trying to remember what time sunrise would be, and then turned over in my mind if we would we be ready to take on four gleeful, happy, screaming girls at 7:10 in the morning....

Addy's mind is non-stop.  You can see it in her eyes.  You can almost visibly see the atoms around her body moving as her brain is whirling.  "I KNOW!! I KNOW!!  We can play at your house, then we can go down to Chloe and Zoe's after lunch!!"

That was a good plan.  Better to share the delighted screams with others.  And who knows, Grandmum might even sneak in a nap on that plan.  

And that's how Addy and I ended up spending the afternoon in the ER at Wooster Hospital.

Everything, everything went according to plan.  We got to our house, made careful gluten-free pizzas so no one would have any reactions, read our bedtime books, and went to bed nice and early.

All of us.

And as planned, we woke up extra early for a Saturday morning because not so much the non-sunlit days of February, but more because of the rackus bathing activity of the 3,428 birds Popop feeds taking baths in the spouting on the house eaves.

Most mornings, it's a nice way to wake up.  But this Saturday, I was ready to shoot those dang varmits.  Please, give me time to get coffee at least before the Shawnees let out their war-cries!!

The birds were especially excited because the 20 pound bag of bird seed that had been purchased by the man of this house and sat on the front porch for two weeks, had been finally ripped open by something, and they were having a downright pagan-feast-festival at 5am in the morning.  Eating and squawking and bathing noisily together all outside the window of two tired girls.

No need to worry about what time the sun was going to show up.  If ever.  Heck no, we have Wild Kingdom living the wild, rapturous life outside our front door, kicking it up on my dime.  

I mentioned to Scott that he might have put away that bird seed, giving us maybe another hour of sleep.  Neither one of us, neither one of us even thought or remembered what had happened the last time Addy handled that bird seed a year ago - you know the bird seed bag that comes from Walmart labeled as "BIRD SEED" but has walnuts in it for some reason.

Addy is allergic to walnuts like some kids are allergic to peanuts - read: "exposure = emergency".....

So as we all played inside, and yelped and yelled and screamed with delight and played and played and argued, made up and played some more; as we prepared lunch with the idea that then they would all move the party to Uncle Scotty's house and we all had a good time, the sinister bird seed was splayed across the front porch from rollicking-good-time-loving-birds, just waiting, waiting.

And as they left, the girls all saw the multi and many birds on the front porch eating the bird seed and they all took their gloves off and got more bird seed and put little piles all over the porch, then the yard, "so the cute little birds could eat".  I pointed out that they were pretty fat already from being over-fed, but they continued to put out little bird seed piles.

And as I mentioned, NEITHER ONE OF US EVEN THOUGHT ABOUT THE DANGER LURKING......

I stayed at home and started to clean up, and Scott called and said that Addy's lip was pretty swollen - they thought she had fallen - it was that kind of big swollen.

Instantly, INSTANTLY, if finally hit me - THE BIRD SEED..........

My body, that had been planning on taking a nap and was already beginning to shut down, suddenly went into hyper-alert.  Scott brought her back to our house, I dosed her immediately with a double dose of Benadryl, and upon seeing her lip swollen alarmingly realized what my fifth turn-around should have been - THE EPI STICK!!

I had forgotten it.

I said some things about feeding free-loading-birds and was a bit upset that we had the same bird feed on our front porch that had caused a reaction with her the year before, then Addy started to cry and I told her it wasn't her fault, and we snuggled up on the couch and I turned on a movie.  I kept checking her throat every five minutes, and it looked red and swollen a little, but wasn't changing.  I didn't know if she had some sore throat with her cold, or if is was an allergic reaction.

I gave her another dose of Benadryl after an hour, when her lip was still not changed.  I waited another fifteen minutes, and when the swelling had not gone down, I decided we better wait out the rest of this closer to a hospital..... Even if it was not going to get worse, I was concerned about re-exposure, and even though we had all washed and changed clothes and Scott had cleaned up the front porch - what if there was one little drop of walnut oil somewhere, and she touched it, then put her fingers in her mouth again, there was a possibility that it could get worse....

We loaded up and even though Addy hates, hates, loathes doctors and medical facilities, she got in the car and she and I drove away.  I was going at a good speed, and we were half-heartedly singing our "travel-songs", when I noticed Addy playing with her lip in the rear view mirror.  I reminded her not to put her fingers in her mouth, and then realizing her anxiety and that she was so not wanting to go but being good regardless, I asked her if she was ok.  She said a shaky "yes".

I asked her if she knew what the doctor was going to do, trying to prepare her for the usual looking in her throat and ears routine.

She nodded her head, and asked me "are they going to give me a shot?" and I told her I thought that it was too late for that.

Then she asked, "are they going to cut off my lip?" 

I about drove the car off the road.  I about cried.  This little girl had got her coat on, got into the car seat, buckled up, road twenty minutes in the back seat with no one to hold her hand, thinking the whole time that they were going to cut off her lip......

Someday when Addy is needing to be reminded of this, I plan to tell her what a brave, strong girl she was when she was six years old.  How she totally overcame her tendency to kick and scream when thinking about doctors ahead of the idea that she wanted to be good for Grandmum, who was still not looking so good or strong.

How she decided to maintain her emotions and rode along nicely when she thought they were going to cut off her upper lip.  

I didn't need to lie to myself this morning to get up, get out and get going.  I thought about Addy dutifully putting on her coat and allowing me to take her in the car when she thought she was going to be permanently maimed.

***

Our house church celebrated Passover with a Seder this past Monday.  I am becoming increasingly tired and wished I would hit the "end" button with the radiation leftovers, but haven't yet.  I considered begging off, because I start to shut down and need a "nap" - or siesta - whatever you like to call it, around 3:30pm.

But I learn so much from my grandchildren and realize that I need to get back to some of the childlike thinking they embrace.  If Chloe could be outside and make a snowman when she was feeling worse and worse with an earache, that ended up being strep the doctor thought, but if she could make herself feel good enough to not miss out on the fun of playing in the God-given-gift of SNOW!, then who am I to back out of evening activities.

I keep reminding myself that I need to "be there".  Not miss it.  Get going.  And hopefully my body that seems to not be liking the radiation fall-out, can just tag along and get over it.

Although Scott and I both agree it's probably not a good idea for me to be driving late afternoon and after....

But, if you have never done a Passover Seder before, I strongly suggest you do.   There are four glasses of wine that go with the Seder to drink during the course of the evening feast.

So I'm sitting through the reading of the Haggadah, rolling contentedly along, not falling asleep, not yawning - because of my awesome cup of coffee supplied by our gracious hosts - when suddenly we get to the third cup.  I listen and almost choke.  Immediately, tears are in my eyes.

It's me.  I'm the third cup this year.  It's me.

This is a quick googled explanation of the cups:

Many reasons are given for drinkingfour cups of wine. Here are some of them:

When promising to deliver the Jews from Egyptian slavery, G‑d used four terms to describe the redemption (Exodus 6:6-8): a) "I shall take you out..." b) "I shall rescue you..." c) "I shall redeem you..." d) "I shall bring you..."

Or this:  

Wine cups and wine (or grape juice): Everyone at the Seder has a (usually very small) cup or glass from which they drink four cups of wine. Traditionally, the four cups represent the four biblical promises of redemption: “I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will rid you from their slavery, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm, and with great judgments. And I will take you to me for a people . . .” 

But, if you are doing this Passover Seder with one eye on the Exodus, and one eye on the last meal that Jesus shared with his disciples before His death, it takes on even  more meaning.  The third cup is what the Christian church has taken to be their communion.  (Notice, Jesus does not drink of the fourth cup.  He says, He says, that is yet to come and He will not drink of it until that day.  hmm.....) 

But I sat there in my own little isolated thoughts while reading my Haggadah along with the leader, and whammo, God says LOOK!  This is you!  

I have felt this whole journey with cancer amongst other things, has been one big magnifying glass showing me what is the equivalent to sin in our lives, my life - cancer cells.  Last year during Passover I was insanely aware that the leaven - that at Passover represents sin in our lives and needs to be sought out and removed - was a close kin to the cancer cells in my body that my doctors were diligently, harshly seeking out and trying to remove.  

Ray Vanderlaan paints a wonderful picture of how his Jewish friend does this with his own family.  To remove the leaven from their home is not just a typical cleaning day.  They hide little bits of bread in the couch cushions.  They hide it in different places, then the children are taken around and shown how important it is to rid the home of leaven, even making sure there is none hiding out under the couch cushions, under a rug, etc.  

Once the leaven is found, a rather big production is made of removing it and taking it and throwing it into the fire.  Then, there is a time to tell the children how that leaven is just like sin in our lives - it can grow and be found everywhere.  We can drop it in the furniture.  We don't even know it's there sometimes until we purposely seek it out.  

We need to diligently seek it out and remove it.  

I was all about that last year - I knew the keen comparison between what my doctors were doing to find and remove my cancer, was very strongly linked to the idea of leaven.  

Consequently, I remember that the first and second cups of wine made perfect sense to me last year long after Passover - I was taken out of the land of slavery, I was rescued.  I was brought out from under the burdens of the Egyptians.  

This year, I was smitten when the third cup was read:  I was redeemed.  Or maybe for me, better said "I am being redeemed".  It's the last cup that Jesus drank.  There is suffering attached to it.  There is the idea that the plagues of Egypt were sent to redeem the Hebrews - God brought them out.  

The Four Cups of wine used in the Pesach / Passover Seder primarily symbolize the four distinct redemptions promised by G-d to the Hebrews as told in Shemot or Exodus 6:6-7. (1) "I will take you out of Egypt", (2) "I will deliver you from Egyptian slavery", (3) "I will redeem you with a demonstration of my power", and (4) "I will acquire you as a nation". 

Or maybe this last one is the best descriptive for me, this day, this Passover.  (3) "I will redeem you with a demonstration of my power".  

There are times this next year that I know will be nail biters, that will make me cry, that will be fear-filled, and I don't pretend to have any promises from God that I am healed and all will be super good for me.  

I am learning to live with that.  

But the other night, God tapped me on the shoulder and reminded me what had happened this past year - and if I am headed for the wilderness, do not, do not, do not do as the Hebrews did - don't forget what great and awesome power God has used to save you with.  Don't forget He can and will see you though it all - no matter where the journey leads.  Don't be unbelieving like the people were when the spies came back and said the land God has given us is big and fruitful, and the people are big but we can overcome them.  Don't be fearful and live like God cannot do great and mighty things.  

***

So, of course you know, I am getting my coat on, letting myself get buckled into the car seat and even though I am wondering if my lip - or worse - is going to be cut off, I am going along for the ride, talking with God the whole way.  

Because I love Him and trust Him, and know that He has taken me out of Egypt, rescued me, and most of all redeemed me with His mighty arm.  

The muddy pouts

I sit here and listen to my song-play-list because I read too much.  Actually, I am reading less than I ever have in my life - so it's not that I am reading too much - but more that I am reading certain subjects.  Because of the overload of information on the internet, and the overload of wrong information on the internet, I have purposely limited myself to only a few cancer websites - one of those being the Triple Negative Breast Cancer Foundation.  Today, their posting started with information about a new study, which is a rabbit hole I throw myself into freely most days, knowing the usual impact it's going to have on me.

Always, always, somewhere in the study information, is a paragraph like this:

..."The median survival for metastatic triple-negative breast cancer patients is historically nine months." ... 

I know my doctors are closely watching me this next year.  I know there is huge danger lurking about in the corners of my body cells.  I see them hiding out - hiding their Nazi sympathizer flags - just waiting for the right moment in time to unfurl them from their windows again.  I know the lovers of chaos are nearby, even though I am rejoicing in my recovery.

It's like living in a nice home two blocks away from a violent ghetto - you know one day your good body cells could easily meet up with ones that hate you and intend evil for you.

It's like living two doors down from Saddam Hussein - you can live a good life, but know the plastic-people-shredder is being used every day, and one day it may be your turn......

Sometimes, I can read through those phrases quickly.  Sometimes, like today, I have to sit and think a little, grieve a little.  I have to lean back in my chair and step out of the role.  I usually turn on my play list and turn my eyes off of the screen in front of me, and onto a God in heaven that hears me.

I think about friends that have prayed me through the worst of this valley and say to me "God has healed you - we are praying against recurrence" and I trust them to do that for me.  I think about the known medical facts and the cautions that all my doctors have given to me "to get here fast" if I think anything is amiss.

I think about the facts, the ice-cold, hard, sterile medical facts.

Then I think about a God that can do the impossible.  That has done the impossible.

These last few weeks have truly been a time of great enjoyment for me.  I am so glad that God has brought me through this journey without resentment and the other baggage you can so easily pick up - the things you can pick up that use up so much energy.  Anger.  Hurt.  Pain.  Resentment.  God has protected me from those - made a path through those as they popped up this past year - so I don't carry them now.

The first two weeks after my last radiation dose felt like I was walking in ecstasy.  It felt like I was moving about in the most beautiful garden and every sense was alive and I could not drink up enough with my eyes - the look of pure delight in my grandchildren's eyes is a field of beautiful blooms uncontested.

My ears delighted in every sound made - the voice of my son talking about our new "project"; the voice of my daughter finding her way after some difficult medical news of her own; my eldest daughter telling me the good news of a wee one's growth - it was all so musical to my ears.

The idea that I was here - here on this earth - to live in this moment, this point in time, took on enormous meaning to me.  With the word "metastatic" in front of the words of my diagnosis, there was no guarantee that I was going to be here this February to celebrate a "last day of treatment".  It didn't guarantee that all the days, weeks, months, then a year lost to legal, honest medical poisoning was going to give me the bonus of living beyond.

I remember asking God, begging God one day in November to not let me die without hair.  One would think that after eleven months of not having hair would make it not matter so much - and one would be correct.  You get used to it, it's not all that important after other news you absorb within your treatment.

But the last go around of chemo was so hard, it made me so sick, that I wasn't sure I was going to make it through.  I wasn't sure I wanted to continue.  I wasn't sure I could walk through those doors and do one more almost lethal injection of poison after the first three months of this series of chemo left me pretty close to dead.  I looked skeletal   I looked as hollow as I felt.  I couldn't think, couldn't cope, couldn't exert enough energy to move much.

I looked in the mirror, saw all of that, remembered the couple of times that I had awakened with a gasp because I was afraid that my dream of falling, my dream of breathing too little was real - I remembered waking up and taking deep cleansing breaths to remind myself that I was still alive; but that day I looked in the mirror and I asked God to not let me die without hair and eyelashes, because I wanted my husband and children to remember me alive - not skeletal.

Looking back, it was probably not my most "spiritual" prayer.  It was one that was earnest and heart felt, and it made perfect sense at the time.

***

My journey through radiation was a bit of a puzzlement to my doctors and myself - the further I got away from chemo, the more I kept feeling better and better.  Traditionally, medically, radiation is supposed to knock you down a bit.  It's supposed to make you feel fatigue, and your skin is supposed to go a little crazy because it has issues with being baked.  But instead of the downward swing - I kept feeling better.

Come to find out, part of that reason was the fact that I am on thyroid replacement meds.  During radiation they hit at least half of your thyroid or maybe most of it depending on your lymph node involvement causing it to cough a little and maybe stop working.  At best, for most people, your thyroid has to take time to readjust to radiation taking out some or most of its working apparatus.  My thyroid was "killed" several years ago - and I already rode that thyroid roller coaster through hell - the extreme highs and lows and the great need to find stable footing to rest your body function on - all that I have already been through.

And sadly, there are those around me that remember that craziness.  Literally, craziness.

Having done all that a while ago - making me the star pupil in radiation - my thyroid wasn't coughing, it wasn't shrieking, it wasn't dipping and spiking and causing all kinds of issues because it couldn't.  I didn't even have to get on the roller coaster - instead, my body could take the leisurely water ride in the inner-tube down this river named "radiation-poisoning".

My thyroid replacement pills that I have rued so many times causing all kinds of c.r.a.z.y emotions, body turmoil, clouds, fog and dust, had been adjusted multiple times - already taming the beast.

I'm the only one graduating the radiation program in my group that didn't need to have a TSH level done in a few weeks - well I just did, but it was through my endocrinologist, not my radiation doctor.  

While watching the other ladies step down a little bit each week, I have to say with a little bit of rapture, it was refreshing to not be on that train.  There were side effects - one does not escape radiation poisoning ever - but my thyroid was not invited to that party, making the party a lot more fun.

***

And please do not misunderstand - this is NOT to say I have escaped the whole radiation fallout.

The whole fatigue thing has caught up with me - I can literally fall asleep if I sit down or lie on the couch at any point in the day.  If I sit down to look at facebook - whammo - my eyes are closed, I'm asleep.  Open up email - whammo - I don't even get the first one read.  I leave a window open when I drive.....

And this is the most tremendous thing of all - it's the first time in fifteen years that I have not needed sleep meds to give me six hours of sleep at night.  So all my time online replying to emails, texting, etc, due to insomnia are actually used to well, um, sleep!

It's quite an idea my body is having a difficult time adjusting to.  And I'm having difficulty fitting correspondence and such into a day not suited to sitting.  Because apparently sitting in front of a computer improperly is contributing to my muscle and everything else damage so says my physical therapists.  I looked at facebook last night for the first time in quite a while, and I've missed a lot there friends!  I have 252 emails to weed out and some of them that I shared with Scott last night made us laugh quite a bit - I need to catch up if for no other reason than to take time to laugh and marvel each day.

And see what's on sale at Old Navy two weeks ago......

***

We did something very impromptu President's Day weekend - we went and stayed a few days with friends.  One day longer than we originally planned.

So there! sluggish brain that thinks too much and not enough about making decisions.

It was the best medicine.  Their home is calming, clean, and just comfortable.  We ate out, went to Ikea, then went to an antique mall that not even I, the great junk-store-shopper-extraordinaire could make it through - it was huge.  Like massive.  Like if I spent four months there I would still not have explored every stall, every dish, every fifty year old coffee pot.

It feels so good to get out.  It feels so good to sit in a restaurant and not have to wonder if their possible lack of good kitchen hygiene could be my ultimate undoing.

When I saw my oncologist a couple of weeks ago, she sat down beside me in one of the patient chairs and asked me how I was doing.  I leaned into her because I know that she is the one soul on this earth that has held my very life in her caring hands this past year and more, and I told her quietly, "I think the chemo is slowly leaving my body."

"I think I am on the road to recovery".

She smiled at me, and said "yes, yes you are".

***

So as I sit here a bit sedate with the "short-life-of-metastatic-triple-negative-article" information and remembering the words of my doctor this week explaining to me again why they do not want to remove my port for a good long time, I listen to my "fighter-playlist" that has been my mainstay a lot of days, and reflect some on my journey.

I am at high risk for recurrence.  I have done everything I can to not have recurrence, including two different study drugs, radiation, extra chemo, etc, etc, etc, and adding that all up makes me less likely to recur.   On the other hand, this type of cancer has a strong desire to recur - especially within the first 11 months.  So every swelling, every bump, every odd thing that happens on my body this next year is greatly examined, studied, and considered for further tests.

While I know that my body was declared "cancer free" at the end of treatment, I also know that there are errant cancer cells just waiting to bust out and wreak havoc again if given the chance.  You don't have to delve too deeply into history to see that truth in any society once war breaks out or the good, beneficial social systems break down -- there are loads of evil "cells" just waiting to burst out and take over.

Apparently, my body is akin to Germany and Japan directly after WWII - needing to tread carefully while it starts to rebuild and seek out the evils that caused such demise and smoother it out.  Smite it.  Knock it out.  No Nazi flags in post-war-Germany.

I truly believe that God has set us upon this life to "journey it" - to walk it, to start at one point and not stay there, but to get on, get walking, get involved in your journey.

That means you have to own your journey.  All of it.

One of the things about North American Christianity that has bugged me for years and years and years and years is the fact that we cannot "do suffering".  We cannot "do hardship".  We cannot walk dark valleys and scale treacherous mountains - and if we do - if we must - we don't talk about it until we are over the difficulty and can look back and smooth over the precipices, smooth over the bogs of deep muck and life-sucking-mud, smooth over the soul-questioning, soul-seeking doubts and fears and emptiness.

We don't talk about it all until we can nicely tie it all up with a pretty pink bow.  It all needs a good summarization - a "testimony of faith", a "bragging" point of almost prideful, willful "this is how I did it" - kind of sounding like you led God, not like God led you.

We don't talk about the huge unattended and sloppy manure pit that had to be cleaned out and hauled away.  We don't tell how deep the manure was in the barn and how difficult it was to get that out of each stall.  We don't talk about the nasty, deadly odors that occur along the way - none of that gets much mention.

We just point to a sweet smelling barn that flows with wonderful beds of fresh straw and the sweet aroma of hay in each feeding trough.

But because we cheat the story, because we don't tell it all, and we certainly don't tell it unless we can tie that pretty pink ribbon around it - we cheat the One leading us on this journey.

We just put nice clean smelling barns on the farm tour and neglect to tell how much work is involved in the process.

If we don't tell the story of the trenches, we cheat the One leading us in battle of the total victory.

And I don't mean you get so entrenched in the slop that you cannot take joy in the moment of awakening each morning, realizing you are still alive.  I don't mean you live negatively, with hostility and resentment.  I don't mean you live your life feeling cheated because you don't get what others have.

I do mean, we each have our own journey that God has started us on, and if we cover it with pretty ribbons and refuse to let the enormity and the horror and the wretchedness of parts of that journey to be told, then we cannot fully claim to have arrived on the other side because we have denied the fight.

It's like saying we went to war and the sleeping arrangements were fluffy, soft beds - when in reality we all pretty much know the best they might have had was sandbags, or a bunk if you were lucky.

Every story about war that I have read - whether the French and Indian War, or the battles in Iraq, all have one recurring theme - you not only suffer in wars because of fighting and bullets flying about, but you suffer because of hardship as well.  Eating and sleeping and bodily care all are part of the story - because the worse it was and the more it is told - the more we marvel at the feats accomplished, and the more we weep at the suffering.

The more honest the soldier about the truth in the trenches, the more we like and admire their stories of their journeys.

No matter the outcome of the story - if it was victory - we rejoice.  If it was defeat, we sorrow with them.  If it was horror, we circle around and hold close.  If it was difficulty, we thank God in heaven above that He kept them.

And grieve for those not able to tell their stories of their journeys.

Not so much when it comes to the North American Christians.

From what I hear, it appears we are only to tell the stories that make everyone rejoice.  And even then, if you cannot tie it all up with a bow to make it look nice - don't tell it.

Because we cannot tell how awful it was, we cannot tell how much we suffered, we cannot tell any of it and if we do, it must be tied up with a cutesy little bow that says "oh, it wasn't so bad, it was all for good", and it sounds so fake that we walk away from them and don't want to listen any longer.

We cannot say "God set us on this journey, and I don't have all the answers, but I know that I know that I know that even in the awful, even in the stench, even in the bloodiness of the battle, God was there."

Period.

I honestly don't know what Bible the pink-bow-people read.  God goes to great lengths to show us person after person after person that suffered - without any pink bows put on those stories.

Alarmingly, I hear Christian folks say that those people whose stories were laid out before us in print in the Bible - were "not equal to us".  They were "less" because most of those stories happened before the advent of the Messiah.

To me, I am left unsettled in my soul after hearing such things and I am uncomfortable before God until I beg Him to see us in our stupidity in not knowing our Scriptures well enough to respect these  ones that had their lives laid bare for all to read - the good and the bad.  And the ugly.  

They suffered, and God said their faith and their obedience was enough.

Sometimes, stories of our journeys have silver linings.  Sometimes, those need to be told to encourage faith and hope and to revive weary souls.

Sometimes, we don't know the whys of our journeys, and yet those stories need to be told as well.  Many, many, many crisis of faith are not known because the sufferers feel they have to be suffered alone.

Shame on us.  Shame on us for being fake.  For living falsely before God and the world.  For misrepresenting a God urging us on our journey, and when we don't wish it, or when we want to not go, we just get out some pretty ribbons to dress it all up.

***

One might surmise from all of this that I am a bit grumpy.  One would be surmising correctly.  I want to be doing things I can't do yet.  I want to be feeling better than I am now.  Scott keeps reminding me that it will take time - and I'm not sure I want to give that time to a slow recovery in some areas.

I'm grumpy because when I went to Walmart this week, people stared.  I know it's my choice to wear a wig or not, but so help me, Columbus folks don't stare.  I'm grumpy because I want more energy to do things after 3pm in the afternoon.  I'm grumpy because I want my brain to be able to do some mental gymnastics.  I'm grumpy because I have to stare a long time at spreadsheets to understand them now.

I used to create them - now it's not easy to read them.

After I made it through the bogs, the deep valleys, the fear the hurt the pain - one would think the downhill slope would be the easiest of all.  And it is - except for little comments from doctors that remind me I am still under their care for a good long while yet.  Except for the cording in my arm that limits me no matter how hard I work it.  Except for the lymphedema - the swelling - that I did everything to avoid - everything - finally hit when I worked a little outside one day.

They said not to do that again for a while.... They said anything can make it happen and nothing can make it happen.  They said to remove all allergens and to be extra careful around knives and not to cut myself on anything.

They said radiation provokes it, making it probably the reason it is bothering me now.....

I don't want this now.  I've got a basement to clean out.  I've got grandkids to lift.  I've  got things to type at a keyboard.

God woke me up on a few scriptures over and over while I have my online Bible whispering to me at night.  One story was the story of Elijah after he had called down fire and rain from heaven - all that fanfare and glory flying in the face of the evil king and queen.

The next day he runs for his very life in fear.

The other story that God tapped me on the shoulder making sure I heard it a few times was Hezekiah. He was sick in bed and begged God for his life.  God had mercy on him and gave him fifteen more years.  Then, then, Hezekiah accepted the envoys from the king of Babylon and showed them all that the kingdom owned.  All of it.

The Bible says the ending of his story like this:

¹⁶ Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, “Hear the word of the Lord: ¹⁷ The time will surely come when everything in your palace, and all that your predecessors have stored up until this day, will be carried off to Babylon. Nothing will be left, says the Lord. ¹⁸ And some of your descendants, your own flesh and blood who will be born to you, will be taken away, and they will become eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.”

¹⁹ “The word of the Lord you have spoken is good,” Hezekiah replied. For he thought, “Will there not be peace and security in my lifetime?”

So, I have determined in my mind that the easiest time to fall into great fear and great sin is after the euphoria of triumph.  And I think on it every time when I, like Elijah, want to go get my running shoes.

I have just walked out of a valley that some did not.  I have just been given more than I was supposed to have.  And I get grumpy over the little things??!!  I want to run away like Elijah and hide out for a while??!!

And I don't even, don't even, want to think like Hezekiah did after God did a great work in him.

So, I pray God uses me for good.  I pray that my disappointments and fear and feeling down after a great battle do not lead me into sin.  Do not lead me into not caring.  Do not lead me into the same old, same old.

Because He just led me by the hand through something most don't survive.

I need to work at the patience.  At the slugging of the boots in the mud at this moment.  It's not a soul sucking mud - it's just the irritation of it all.

I have learned so much.  And most important of all, is that God wants the whole story.  The gore, the yuck, the euphoria, the ecstasy and above all else, the honesty of it all.

So along with all the other prayers pouring forth out of my soul trapped under impatient, muddy moods, I pray that I don't wait to talk about it all until I can tie it all up with a pretty pink bow on it.

As much as I have avoided it, my body is pouting.  And it's not pretty at all.....