Tropicana Field

For the first time in seven seasons, I am not attending the Championship Game. Its at Tropicana Field, and we treat the two teams to lunch in the coolest third base lunch room with a balcony the length of the room overlooking the field.  We watch the Rays play the Twins (today). Then our Florida League teams go warm up on an outside field.

Next, the BEST moment happens. These "Second round draft pick" and "I've played in the College World Series" college players who walk with a swagger because they are some of the best college players in the country, these guys enter Tropicana Field from a door in left centerfield.

They are like four year olds in a candy shop. Their mouths are open, they slow down their paces and stare at the ceiling (its a dome), at the seats, at the scoreboard. Some stop dead in their tracks. Some smile ear to ear, some just stand their with their mouths open. Some hit their buddy on the arm "Can you believe this!"

They take out their phones and take photos of themselves with the scoreboard in the back. They stoop to touch the artificial turf. They walk to their dugouts and put down their bags, carefully. They look around the dugouts, the very same benches Big Papi and A-Rod sit on.

This is what all our players dream of, have dreamed of for years and years of 6 AM running, skipping parties so you can get a good night sleep, working out until they throw up, practice in the cold rain, getting yelled at by your coach, playing through a sprain, long five hour bus rides home after a loss with a liter of soda and a cold pizza on their laps. Watching our players enter Tropicana is the biggest thank you for me for this league. We do it for the players. This is their moment. Their faces are the biggest thank you I could ever get. It is SOOOOOO much more fulfilling to give than to receive.

I will miss today. I'm amazed, but I have tears as I say that. I really am crying I am not there. It is just too long a day and I am really going to beat this sinus infection. I've been put on another ten days of Avelox antibiotic, so I need to cooperate with this healing stuff. I'll be there next year. And for many, many years to come.

Sign of healing

I asked God to give me signs that He is healing me. And He has. Surgery has healed great. Hot flashes show there's not much estrogen in my body any more. Hair fell out, shows me the Chemo is working on killing fast growing cells. Sinus infection is decreasing.

Here’s a big one. Many of you know I have had a sore and hoarse voice for about two years. Maybe three. On and off. Hoarse voice while talking days on end.  This hoarse voice and sore throat was the start of my breast cancer, I think. To try to solve it, I was given a prescription of estrogen and progesterone to get me above the "normal" range on blood work, to support my thyroid, which they thought had growths on it that caused my discomfort. Anyway....

I absolutely couldn’t sing. Nothing would come out, it was so frustrating and weird. I love singing, and have been blessed with a voice that isn’t quite on pitch all the time, but it has resonance. It projects. You hear it. Talking or laughing or singing, it can be heard. That's why I got parts in high school plays, you could hear my voice in the next county.
I went to a playoff game in Leesburg. First time in months I have been to a game standing there at the start. The Public Announcer announces everyone stand for a moment of silence for our military, and then we sing the National Anthem.

Well, I stand for the moment of prayer, and then when appropriate, I just start singing with everyone else. And I am singing just like I could have three years ago. I didn’t notice until halfway through, Mike is noticing, and after the song eight people in front of me turn around and smile and nod their heads (was I that bad, or that loud?)

I was singing. The voice is back! How cool is this… Thank you Jesus for the healing that is happening!!! And for letting me see evidence of it!

I don't think I would have had the guts to ask Jesus for a sign a year ago. Then again, a year ago, I wasn't dealing with clearing out cancer from my body. I needed this sign. Thank you....

From an Osprey's Nest

Last night Mike went mall walking with me. Now those of you who know Mike know what a sacrifice that was. He detests shopping, malls, crowds. He enters a store and his eyes glaze over.  He literally slows down his stride and looks like a zombie floating through the aisles of makeup and perfume. But for me, to get air conditioned exercise, we went mall walking. Then we ate at my favorite California Pizza Kitchen. And to top off the evening, we watched Game 1 of Playoffs for our beloved Florida League. Life is resuming back to normal (well, not the Mike mall walking part), and that is a joy.

For six seasons I have worked full time on the Florida League. Summer wood bat college baseball partially funded by Major League Baseball, for those of you who don't know. This fall, Rob and Stefano took over most of the operations, as we were focused on Mike's mother and father, and the wedding in March. Then as of May, I have been in touch with Rob, but that's about it. They have done FANTASTIC! I went to games at all home fields the first week, threw out the first pitch at All Stars, and have kept up via internet. And here we are, the playoffs. Wow. The General Managers, the league interns, the team interns, the journalism and broadcast interns, scorekeepers, trainers, umpires, stadium crews, the plentiful volunteers. And the absolute best coaches in the world. I stand by that. Such as Davey Johnson and Frank Viola. These guys are unbelievable. The 140 college players that traveled here to play this summer got an experience they will never forget.

Last night, Mike and I sat 80 feet above the ground, on the top level of the football stadium, the back of it is overlooking the field. Watching the game. This is like the view osprey have from their nests on light poles in Florida. We left in the sixth (my bedtime), but listened to the rest on the internet when we got home. Ended in the thirteenth inning, wild pitch scored a run. Oh my goodness. Loosing team packs it up for the summer, winners advance. Tonight starts the best of three series in Sanford and in DeLand. Thursday is our Championship in Tropicana Field. Here's our website: www.floridaleague.com

How different this season has been from the past six. And isn't this just a perfect sign of things to come... the chapters in our lives... each good. God is showing Mike and I that He has some ideas for us. Let us be still and listen.

Wig Woman

Yesterday was a fantastic day... the hair fell out, got a shave and I am a WIG WOMAN now...

I had a blast. Even in the quiet moments of the evening, I was smiling and beaming ear to ear.  It was yet another day of God providing all we need, and more...

B called in the morning, wanted to know if I could have lunch. I had JUST called G, asking if I could come to his salon for my head shaving. He told me when I first gave him my news, to call the day my hair started falling out and he would shave it. Save me the trauma of having it fall out. Great idea. B came too.  She stood near me, talked with G and I the whole time, laughed, took photos. Then I had planned to mall walk with M, so all three of us did, which allowed us to shop for lipstick for me. 

After all this, when I drove away from M's, I called Corey at work and told him to meet me on Morse Boulevard, I wanted him to see my beautiful wig as I had just had a shave. He did, and we laughed and hugged. Five minutes max. So as I was walking to my car, who should be at the stop light but J, who recognized me, pulled over, and we went and had a frozen yogurt to celebrate the shave and wig.

What you need to know is, all three of those women mentioned above are breast cancer survivors.... WOW ... Love that. Living proof of God's grace. And he brings them right into the moments of my day.

I did go up to throw the first pitch in Sanford at 7 PM (got on television) and then was home by 7:30, right to bed. I sat in the dugout during the Home Run Derby with one of my coaches. I was so comfortable just sitting there, watching the players try so hard. They are so young and energetic and their futures so full of stars. I am so short my feet don't touch the ground. I LOVED IT.

Mike was worried about me loosing my hair. For my sake,  and that it might remind him of when he lost his hair from total body radiation. He has had so much travel and so many responsibilities. His mother's estate, his father, me... Oh pray for him. My hair was coming out in clumps and I wanted this to be positive not negative. And it was! This loss of hair to me is yet another sign that the chemo is working, it is killing the fast growing cells. YOU KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK CHEMO!

Today shows you- GOD PROVIDES all you need. And Positive Friends are the only ones to have!!!!

It is a little weird to sit and look at me with no hair, I look like an old man. But the wig is pretty darn good.  I call my wig Matilda (as in Waltzing Matilda), and maybe I don't look so much like an old man as like ET.

And when I laid down at the end of this day, quietly to go to sleep, I had a big smile on my face.
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Some emails recently:

I thought of you our entire vacation as I walked along the beach. This was the place that I always retreated to mentally when things were going bad for me so as I walked, I prayed for all those who are suffering and unable to see the beauty and strength of the ocean.

I was trying to think of a verse to send you that you could use when things were not so good. I constantly looked for God to grant me my strength as I suffered and he never failed in giving me some kind of verse to get me through the day.

2 Corinthians 4: 8-18, Verse 18: So we don’t look at what we see right now, the troubles all around us, but look forward to the joys in heaven which we have not yet seen. The troubles will soon be over, but the joys to come will last forever.