Completed

This blog is completed. I'm in a new part of life ... wellness!

If you want to start this blog at the beginning, nine months ago, click here and follow me along the path.

I have written my thoughts and actions of the past nine months as a web log.

This blog starts when I was diagnosed with Stage 2 Ductal Cell Carcinoma breast cancer ...  that started in my left breast and spread through my left armpit lymph nodes. 

This blog journeys through the treatments of surgery, surgery, chemos, radiations. I didn't include the final surgery.

This blog ends with the start of a new chapter in my life, jumping into HEALTHY! Mind, body and spirit. This new chapter, well, let's hope it is a really, really, really long one.

All the best to you, dear readers.

My Drishti

What would be my answer to, What have I learned during the past nine months?

Keep my eyes focused on Jesus.
That's the heart of it.

Keep God as my drishti.

I will explain.

Drishti is a yoga term for the point you focus on, or gaze on. The point you direct your eyes to when you are in a pose. Most important to me in the balancing poses, to find a drishti that isn't too low to the floor so I fall forward, or too much to the left so I lean left, too far to the right and I lean right. Too high up, well, that doesn't seem to be a problem as I haven't started to levitate from a pose, yet.

Choose God as my focal point all day long.

Put God in the center of my everything.

Live in His presence.

Refer to Him, look to Him, think about Him.

Pursue Him.

Be used by Him.

Realize that my relationship with God is the single most important thing in every minute of my life. 

How in the world do I do THAT? Just like those abs in yoga, if I take my focus off for even just a little bit, my gaze goes elsewhere and I loose it. I veer off the path He has set out for me. I need to ask God to help me keep focused on Him. I need to CHOOSE to do this. All Day Long.

How can you keep your focus on something that is invisible? That's why you have to be still. Remember from Psalm 46, Be Still. Rushing around, busy as a bumblebee and processing the one thousand or so sensory bits coming at us each day. Well let's face it. You will not be able to see the invisible.  You can barely see the visible world zooming by you.

Be Still, wait on the Lord, ask for His help, seek first His kingdom, acknowledge His Glory.  Like the shepherd of Psalm 23, He will restore your soul, provide your every need, guide you, be with you. He will even anoint your head with oil. More so, He will do this FOREVER.

Get that, HE will do this. FOREVER.

That's the IDEA in capital letters. But what is the action plan, oh you ask, those of you who have sat through strategic planning weekends?  For me, at this point in my life, here it is. It will change through the years, I know. But for me now:

• Add some items to my daily life so that my gaze rests on reminders of God throughout the day.  I will post Bible verses around my home, place a cross on the wall next to the garage door, wear my pink pearl bracelet always always always to remind me to be thankful. 

• Bells of mindfulness. I will try to think of God every time I walk through a door. A door is transition, change from one room to another, an end and a beginning. I will try this. If it doesn't work, I will try another Bell of Mindfulness. 

• Take time to talk with God especially when I wake up and when I lay down. 

• Put aside time during the day to read the Bible (printing out Psalms and leaving them around the house works) and to study the Bible with others. Be excited about what I read, just as I am Franzen's latest novel or the new new movie that's just out. 

• Go to church and stay active at church. Be an enthusiastic Christian at church. Do you get more out of a sport by watching it being played, or by being on that very team that is playing? Hm, well then, don't just show up at church on Sundays, become a part of the church. Join a small group bible study, volunteer at church.

• Looking into retreats. In a lifelong journey, I need to have some variety and a shot of adrenaline to keep it alive. I want to allow myself time and atmosphere to actively go inside my soul once in awhile, so I don't need to get cancer again. Ever. Retreats, or at least travel. Get out of the normal routine once in awhile.

• Continue using guided meditation tapes by Colleen Arnold, Bernie Siegel, Joyce Rupp, etc.

• Search out friends who feed my soul. Appreciate and grow the friendships that already do. Make sure I take time each day to be with friends, and family. Remember, no one's dying breath has even been, Oh I wish I had spent more time at the office or Oh I wish I had vacuumed the floor more often. 

• Keep love and light and forgiveness and thankfulness as not only words but as actions in my life. 

• Be gentle on myself. Don't put myself first, or last.

• Live intentionally.

• Evaluate how am I doing, once a year on the anniversary of the end of my past nine months.  

• Choose Love. 

My nine months of healing physically and spiritually are done.

Thank you dear friends for your prayers and kindnesses,
for your showers of love
and for your hands that lifted me up.

Thank you for walking down the path with me.
I could not have done this alone.

You and I, we are divine and we are loved.
With an everlasting love.

How cool is that?

How has cancer changed you?

I have been asking cancer survivors I happen to be in conversation with, how has cancer changed you?

Dear friend reading this, you know that from the beginning I knew cancer would be used by God for good in my life. Redirection. I want to learn the lessons, make the changes, and live life to the fullest. I want to embrace all God has set out for me on my path.

So what were their answers? (I paraphrased some of their words)

1. Surround myself with reminders that Jesus is my Lord and King and He is in control. Wear a cross my daughter gave me, read devotionals on line, look for Him. Work with Christians. Ask where can I help others see that God is alive and working in their lives.

2. Look for people, events, places that nourish my soul.

3. Try to go to mass every day. Look for ways to inspire others.

4. Encourage others. Be God's hands to show love. And don't stress out over it, God will show me what he wants me to do. Also, be gentle on myself, enjoy every day.

5. Realize that God's timing isn't always my timing. He is in control.

6. Spend more time alone, in prayer, reading. Start my day, every day, reading the Bible and praying.

7. Surround myself with positive people, uplifting people and fun teams of people.

8. Always have accountability, usually to a Bible Study group.

9. Do something every day that is fun, that makes me laugh.

10. I have been redirected to “pay it forward” (the blessings I have received) back out into the universe in any way that I can.

11. I realized just how much I wanted to live, and the appreciation for what I still do have in my life. I will no longer sweat the small stuff and I am now determined that no matter what it will be okay.  I will make the most of everyday and appreciate everything and everyone in it no matter how small it might be. I am determined to become the positive person that I was so many years ago. I will let nothing take that from me again.

12. Cancer forced me to focus on myself, something that was not even in my vocabulary.  Yes, we all could and should walk that extra mile to help someone else in need, but not at the expense of your own health and well being.

13. I no longer say yes when I want to say no.

14.  I count my blessing each and every day.

15. I have a renewed focus on God, meditation, and journaling. I want to be sure I don’t “stuff” my feelings through this process, and stay out of fear-based thinking.

humble, grateful

A thought came to me, thinking about my fellow cancer fighters.
You fight, you battle, you give it all you can, you win.
But not everyone wins.

I am stopped in my tracks about a young girl and two guys my age, all three died the end of last year. Boom. Six months ago they were here, fighting as I was fighting. Now they are gone. Of cancer.

Why them, not me?
They went to doctors, and they prayed. I am sure they prayed fiercely, and people prayed for them. Good prayers. They did the same things I did. 
Here I am, why was I allowed to live?

Maybe it isn't about me. We are each one thread in that beautiful tapestry of life. Some things happen which aren't about me or you, they are about someone else. The end result is to be with God for eternity as part of His work.

But why am I a lucky one?

This is a mystery I will not understand while I am on earth.
My heart aches for their families and friends. They are, all three of them, in heaven now. I am certain of this.

And here I am.
Thinking of them, I get all quiet.

This summer I asked a dear friend, fellow cancer survivor, how did she feel every day, ten years after her surgery and chemo. She told me she feels so grateful and humble everyday when she thinks of three women who had breast cancer when she did, and aren't with us today.

I thought to myself then, I don't feel humble. Or grateful. I don't feel either of them, even one iota of humble or grateful. I was in the midst of chemo. What I felt like was a boxer in the ring, or like a soldier carrying 80 pounds of equipment in 110 degree heat. I was in the middle of the fight. Adrenaline was pumping.

Now, six months later, a 180 degree turn around in thinking.
I feel truly humble that I am allowed more days.
Humble with a lower case H. 
And grateful, thankful, achingly appreciative
that I am allowed more days.

The quiet in my soul is a good quiet. A peaceful quiet.
A still and motionless quiet.
An expectant intake of breath quiet.

I am a serene little sparrow, not an elegant and powerful raptor but a common backyard sparrow.
Curious, small, alert and looking at everything around me.
No one notices me when they pass by though.
No one takes my photo or texts to their friends that they saw a gray-brown sparrow sitting on a branch this morning.
I am perfectly okay with that. 

I  am sitting at the foot of the cross, looking up into the face of Jesus.
He looks down at me with love and tenderness. 
To Him, I am the reason.

Out, Out Damned Port!

Sixteen days since the last radiation. Started anastrozole (generic Arimidex) fifteen days ago. Will be on this estrogen-sponging drug for five years.

How am I feeling? Physically I am achy and profoundly tired. I like the word profoundly, don't you. Makes whatever comes after it appear more serious and intellectual and true. And deep. Have to say it in a British accent.

So profoundly tired that, Monday when I was up and out for five hours middle of the day, I came home and was shivering under the quilt watching television that afternoon. Just couldn't get my body to stop. Every cell depleted of energy.

And the ache, it is so unexpected. Hands and hips and shoulders and elbows just ache. While moving and while not moving. Yoga helps, so does Advil. And exercise. This is one side effect of anastrozole. Dr. M says try it for four weeks, it might ameliorate. If not, there are other drugs I can try. Gotta step up the ladder of cost. We will figure this out. Can't take Advil this week because I am getting THE PORT OUT...

...and that is cause for celebration! This port in the inside of my upper arm has bugged me the whole eight months it has been in. I have been dreaming of when I can get it out. Getting it out is easy, in the surgeon's office. Just can't take any blood thinning pills such as Advil, Vitamin E, flax seed oil for a few days.  Can't wait!!!

This is the port (out of my arm...)

Also, the removal of this port in my arm marks the end of intense warfare. No more chemo. No more radiation. No more surgery requiring drains which make you feel like an octopus. Treatments are done and they have worked, Thank you Lord!  Hair is over half an inch long, no more wig. Eyebrows are coming in. Nails still really brittle, but they are there!

Have to say the tough part about now is, I have been battling breast cancer for nine months. And WE HAVE WON. But I am tired, and the newness is gone, and I think I should be feeling energetic and thrilled and all should be back to normal. But not yet. I need to be patient. I have been told, after chemo then radiation, it can take six to twelve months to be back to normal. Well, I am almost one month into that, five to eleven months to go.

Had a biopsy at the dermatologist yesterday for basal cell carcinoma on my shoulder. I have not an ounce of concern about this. If it is cancerous, they will just cut it out, no worries. How a year of breast cancer changes your perspective.

Perspective. Your point of reference.
Where you are standing.

Where are you standing?

What are you looking at?

These are two wonderful questions.

Psalm 46

If you think that my past nine months can be thought of as a high risk exploration of uncharted darkness, then here's a quote.

We shall not cease from exploration. 
And the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started 
and know the place for the first time. T. S. Eliot. 

Where was my starting block for this nine month race?

It was sitting in the car in the radiology parking lot, before hearing my biopsy results. I asked God for a verse, because I knew the results were going to be cancer. They had called me minutes before, asking me to appear in person to hear my biopsy results. I wasn't going to leave the car until I had a verse. A verse to hold in my heart the entire time. The verse He gave me was

Be still, and know that I am God. Psalm 46. 
have held onto that verse for nine months. I have it posted over my computer at my desk, I have had Psalm 46 printed out and sitting on my bedside table, I have had this verse on the bottom of my e-mails for the past nine months.  I have seen this verse and repeated it at least a dozen times each day. I have thought about it for hours.

The "Be Still" part happened. We knew that would. We all see that. I was physically tired,  made to feel ill from surgeries, chemo, radiation.  Had to stop my life and take a break. My soul was able to take a breather as well. Not as much stimulus coming in, allowing for more thought time and inner conversations. I could meditate, think, pray, roll an idea around my mind for hours and hours. Uninterrupted.

The "and Know that I am God" part is what took the nine months for me to see; I hope I will be understanding this part more deeply each year.

Reading the entire Psalm, it is a really powerful Psalm. I have copied it at the end of this entry. This isn't a Psalm about meditation and a mild-mannered middle aged woman  like me doing a workbook on Jesus in the safety of my light blue upholstered chair with a cup of tea sitting next to me. No, this is a Psalm about the ONLY true source of life and light and love in the world. Who has the WHOLE UNIVERSE in the palm of His hand. The point of reference is HUGE natural disaster or nations at war.

God is so powerful that when the very ground you are standing on crumbles without a moment's notice, and when something you knew to be the very definition of solid and trustworthy starts to disintegrate and slide beneath the surface into the darkness, well, God is patiently waiting for you to look to Him. We are told to Be Still. In the midst of earthquakes and tsunamis, war and suffering, sickness and health. Be Still, and look to Him.

You know, that is how I have felt so many times, especially at the start of the past nine months. Sitting hearing the doctor say It's cancer, as if the very ground I am standing on is crumbling. Deciding between mastectomy or lumpectomy, as if mountains are sliding into the crashing ocean. It is all falling apart, my life, my marching forward, many-faceted life. What power can put this out of control train back on the track?

God.

Know that He is the center of all we know, the creator of all life, the source of all love and light.

What does "know" mean?

To know an idea is to understand it in your brain. But it is more. To know is to have that idea move from the academic memorizing of it as a fact, to the deep seated understanding of it as a three dimensional substantial truth. To see its depth and width and height and its colors. To know is to have it become a part of you.
God wants me to know that He is God. Really know this. Know it so much that it becomes a part of me. That I live every day as if I know HE is the absolute truth, the most solid of solid and powerful of powerful.

The more I know that He is God, the more I see that I want the King of the Universe, the Creator and Savior of Man, the Author and Finisher of my faith to be, well, everything in my life. I want Him to be who I say hello to when I wake up. I want to praise Him and thank Him first thing. I want to let Him guide my steps and my thoughts all day long. I want Him to fill me with His Spirit and His Love. I want to take refuge in Him, to be used by Him, to be restored by Him and to be guided by Him.

How in the world do I do THAT? Well, since He is so powerful, it is simple. Ask Him to help me. The only part I have to do it ask, and then be still so I can hear His answers, all day every day.  Just obey.
-------------------------------------------------------

Psalm 46^. A song.

 ¹ God is our refuge and strength,
   an ever-present help in trouble.
² Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way
   and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,
³ though its waters roar and foam
   and the mountains quake with their surging.


 ⁴ There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,
   the holy place where the Most High dwells.
⁵ God is within her, she will not fall;
   God will help her at break of day.
⁶ Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall;
   he lifts his voice, the earth melts.

 ⁷ The LORD Almighty is with us;
   the God of Jacob is our fortress.

 ⁸ Come and see what the LORD has done,
   the desolations he has brought on the earth.
⁹ He makes wars cease
   to the ends of the earth.
He breaks the bow and shatters the spear;
   he burns the shields with fire.
¹⁰ He says, “Be still, and know that I am God;
   I will be exalted among the nations,
   I will be exalted in the earth.”

 ¹¹ The LORD Almighty is with us;
   the God of Jacob is our fortress.

Travel Safely into the Unknown

Fear is thinking that the future will not be good. (my definition)
Fear is a distressing emotion aroused by a perceived threat. (dictionary definition)

Pink from Tuesday

I have tried to cast off the mantle of fear all my life, ever since I can remember thinking thoughts. Fear of no one liking me, fear of will I get into college, will I graduate, does he love me, will I be alone, will my baby be healthy, will he follow God, will he choose the narrow road, can I walk the narrow road, will I be alive next year...

Would you want to have a written schedule for your entire life, telling you what choices to make each day? You check your schedule right after waking up - today do yoga, then grocery shop, call Mary and then sign up for the photography class. Then after lunch you go to your desk .... follow the schedule.

First of all, I would be a little freaked out having a written schedule appear every morning on my bedside table. WHERE DID THIS COME FROM?

No, you don't want to be told everything, just the big things.  You want to plan your fun minutes, and let God take care of the serious moments.

Well, it doesn't work that way. Every hour in our day is what makes us who we are, they bundle together to create us. The hours congregate to form our days, which all strung together forms our lives, our souls and bodies.

If we had that schedule laid out for us every day, we wouldn't need to keep our eyes focused on God all day long.We would keep our eyes on the schedule. The key to life abundant and joyful, my friend, is keeping our eyes on God.

Keep your eyes on God, lean into Him, stay in the light of His presence. Sounds so easy.  But the trick is, you don't just do it once, you have to keep choosing to do it every minute of every day. Just like holding in your abs while you do yoga. If you don't think about it even for two seconds, they release. HA!
Keep your eyes on God, then fear is a non-issue.

Follow God's will. Oh yes, really simple eh? But what are the details of doing just that. Ask people how they know what is God's will for them.  I have been asking people for decades.  I want to know. How do you know?

Mankind has been struggling with knowing God's will for over five thousand years, so I do not pretend that I can solve this for everyone. I am working on figuring it out, life is a journey. "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the LORD. Isaiah 55

We have the Bible, inspired by His Spirit. Any choice I make won't go against the Bible. Not nitpicking the words, but the wisdom imparted in the pages.

We have prayer and meditation, listening to Him and talking with Him. BE STILL.

We have other people who walk closely with Him to shed light on our path when our flashlight battery is flickering.  These advisers I choose carefully. We have churches, communities of others who are trying to walk a similar path as us.

We have the peace of the Holy Spirit inside us, that grows and flourishes when we are walking in the path God intended for us. And feels prickly to me when I am straying.

Good news, God loves me so much that when I veer off the path, He will do all He can to redirect me and get me back on track. Even let me get cancer. That's a lot of love.  He loves you everlastingly too.

So how will I stay on this path from here on out? By looking upwards, every step of the way. I can't do it by myself. Trust that He loves me so much that He will gently show me the way.  Be Still and Know that He is God.

This was handwritten on a slip of paper found in one of Mike's Great-Grandmother's Bibles upstairs in her home in Midland Michigan. It is part of a poem by Louise Haskins, quoted by King Edward in 1937 in his Christmas radio address. It is beautiful. It hit me when I found it in her bible ten years ago, and it still stirs me.

I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year
Give me light that I may travel safely into the unknown.

And He replied,

Go out into the darkness
and put your hand into the hand of God.

That shall be to you better than light
          and safer than a known way.

His Majesty, King Edward of England 1937