Hilarity as Therapy...

My therapist says my sense of humor is a big part of what helps me get through the stress of having cancer. (Not to leave God out here, because we both also recognize and acknowledge that He is my ultimate Resource.) But laughter certainly helps to overcome the occasionally uncomfortable, unpleasant, and/or outright sickening aspects of reality. I have learned that a good sense of humor is a definite bonus in life. (Jeanne Robertson makes a living spreading this notion. Lord bless you if you don't know who she is. Here's a bit of one of her routines. Click her name above if you want to visit her site.)


Humor as a coping mechanism is nothing but common sense to me. Let's face it, when something that is utterly beyond your control happens, no matter how unpleasant, humiliating, or even frightening, you have two choices in how to deal with it. One) you can work yourself up into a lather, get mad and/or frustrated, and act like an out of control basketcase, or; Two) you can accept the fact that you can't change the situation with as much grace and humor as you can muster. Okay, I don't do grace particularly well. Not in any classic sense of the word, at least. But I can do the humor. I mean, what's the point in driving yourself nuts over something you have no control over? I have cancer. It is sometimes painful, sometimes disgusting, sometimes frightening, but it is almost always absurd as well. In so many ways, it is a surreal experience that just begs to be laughed at. From the chemo brain that of late makes even basic math a chore, (24/3 anyone? Yeah, I had to think about that for a few minutes the other day. *head shakes*) to the utter insanity of the treatment for cancer (which might kill me) being repeated infusions of outright poison (which also might kill me). Yeah, that makes all kinds of logical sense. LOL (I really do laugh when I think about it.)

So I have cancer. Some days it really stinks. Some days I hurt a lot and I won't pretend that I enjoy that or that I don't occasionally get frustrated or just plain sick and tired of being sick and tired. But all in all, even on the days when I feel the worst, I still try to find some humor somewhere. Which is why I absolutely get giddy when I come across something on the internet that I can laugh at. Hence my posts of amusing LOLs from the I Can Haz Cheezburger site on my Facebook page. I'd post some examples, but seriously, there are just too many that make me laugh til I cry to even begin to attempt to pick favorites. Wait, no, I just thought of one from way back that makes me start snickering just thinking about it.

Yeah, I might be the weirdo in my family. LOL

Anyway, I use Google Reader to keep track of my miscellaneous feeds and blogs. Not that I use it all that much on my laptop because I have the Reeder app on my iPad and that's where I do most of my reading. I got on the laptop earlier today, though, to do a little housecleaning on Reader. I'm an organizing freak when it comes to my computer. I have a file folder for everything under the sun, and usually folders within folders just so I can keep everything neatly organized. (As a quick aside, thank you Steve Jobs for finally getting around to getting IOS 4 onto the iPad. Yes, the ability to multitask and to collect my apps into folders makes it an even more awesome toy than before. Just wish you'd given it those abilities out of the box. End of rant.) So I was on Google Reader on my laptop, putting a couple of new feeds into folders when I decided to click on that "Suggestions" link to see just what Google thought I would be interested in. Most of it was junk. In fact, I outright ignored everything I saw until I spotted something called Cake Wrecks. This piqued my interest and then I read the tag line: "When professional cakes go horribly, hilariously wrong." This I had to see.

I have a love/hate relationship with the growing idiocy of humanity. Love because it's hard not to laugh out loud at some of the things I see/hear others write/say with complete seriousness. Hate because I honestly cannot imagine why so many find it so difficult to distinguish the difference between your/you're; their/there/they're; singular and plural; etc. Ex: Mark and I went to the store late the other night. Late because it was Black Friday and neither of us had any interest in braving the crowds. Plus, crowds are flat out dangerous for me these days. Anyway, we were at Wal-Mart wandering down the candy isle. Mark had a sweet tooth. So he's browsing the M & M's when I suddenly catch what a woman right beside us is saying. I'm going to do my best to convey this as it was said. Spelling phonetically may not be my strong suit, though, so bear with me. She was with a young man that I would soon realize was her son. She said, "I'm looking for marshmallow cherry cordials." Only she didn't say "\ˈkȯr-jəl\" she said it more like "\kȯr-dī-ˈȯl\." That's a long "i" sound in the middle followed by a third syllable pronounced something like "all." So, okay, I can understand that some people might not necessarily know how to pronounce cordial, especially as it's one of those words that is not pronounced phonetically. (Never mind that I was also wondering at this point exactly what a marshmallow cherry cordial was. I mean, this is something I've never even heard of, nor can I imagine it. LOL) I did find myself both tempted to chuckle at this pronunciation and inwardly cringing at it at the same time. Then, her son (who was easily in his late teens) replied with, "Is they in a box?" All urge to laugh vanished at this. Is they? Really? He was certainly old enough to know better. I was glad to leave the aisle as the butchery of the English language continued. (She did find her marshmallow cherry cordials, though. Apparently they were little chocolate covered Santa things.)

So this demonstrates my love (can't help but laugh sometimes at how badly people manage to mangle the language they not only grow up speaking and reading, but also supposedly spend 12 or more years in school studying) and hate (HOW in the world can they be so illiterate after spending 12 or more years in school studying English!?!) relationship with poor spelling and/or grammar. And so, back to Cake Wrecks. This blog is run by a husband/wife team (mostly the wife) and a friend who make snarky comments about insanely horrible cake decor that they receive pics of. Many, many of the photos they post are examples of ridiculously bad spelling by cake decorators. I just have to show you this one as an example.

It says, "It a Gril." Original Blog Post

Yes, inexplicably those are bananas and strawberries ringing the top of the cake. And check out that oh-so-baby-girly dirt brown color! And this is just the beginning. I admit that I don't find every post laugh until I cry worthy. Sometimes, it was the comments after the post that finally make me snort with laughter. But the wit that accompanies some of these images - as well as the images themselves - were sometimes enough to make me gasp as I tried to catch my breath from the gales of laughter.

Today, we be having's a celebiation of learnir!

The caption is by the blog writer Jen. Yeah, I know we have the same name. A similar sense of humor, too. LOL She followed this comment up with a second, "(Note: typing that last sentence was actually painful. See what I go through for you?)" Double LOL!!!

Needless to say, I have spent the past long while looking back through many of her posts and laughing my head off. It is just stunningly hilarious (as well as disturbingly sad) that so many supposed "professionals" out there appear to have no grasp of basic English. The above is just one of literally hundreds of examples of misspellings. On this same post is a photo of another cake where the decorator managed to misspell a three letter word. It was supposed to be, "You Did It!" It came out, "You Dit It!" I had to stare at that one in awe for a few seconds. Seriously? They couldn't spell "did?" Like Jen, I found it was making my head ache just a bit. Still, like so much else in life, I figure I might as well laugh at it. Because I cannot change the ignorance of these people. Somehow, they managed to make it all the way through high school without gaining a basic understanding of the English language. We all make mistakes. My grammar is hardly perfect. And anyone can misspell a word. But I'd like to think that if it was my job to make a product for someone else that I'd at least break out a dictionary to make sure I had the words right. Is that so hard? Or do they just not realize how atrocious their spelling/grammar is? Can you say, UNPROFESSIONAL? I hope I mentioned that. Jen only posts cakes that have been done by professionals. IE, a customer somewhere actually paid them money to do it.

It is tragic how this lack of even the most basic grasp of our language is becoming increasingly commonplace. Then again, I know for a fact that at least some of our schools are promoting children to the next grade when they've clearly failed at least part of the previous one. So maybe it isn't the illiterate kids that are the dumb ones, here. Anyway, Jen's blog made me laugh out loud more than once. And just as an FYI, she doesn't only post pics of cakes gone horribly wrong. Once a week she posts what she calls "sweets." Pics of things that are nothing less that pure works of art. Let me find one as an example.

I am in awe of how much the fondant looks like fabric.

The detail here is just plain amazing.

Hours of piping this by hand. I can't even imagine!

All of these flowers are hand made from gum paste. Meaning they are edible. As is the beautiful pink bow. And just LOOK at the insane detail of that cross hatch! And the lace!

I love orchids.

Okay, so I couldn't stop at just one. These cakes are beyond incredible. This is edible artwork. The time, thought, planning and precision that goes into something like this is just amazing. I can't even begin to imagine how someone makes all these flowers!

Anyway, just thought I'd share a few laughs and some Ooh's and Ahh's as well. Learn to laugh at what you can't change. It'll make you - and everyone around you - a lot happier!

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That Still Small Voice...

First off, I meant to get this written and posted last night, but I was just too exhausted to do it. The steroids I had to start taking day before yesterday just would not let me sleep at all Tuesday night, so I was worn out. Anyway, it's a day later than I wanted, but at least it's here.

I had to go to the hospital early yesterday morning to have a scan done of my heart to make sure none of the chemo I've had so far has caused any damage. The next 2 chemos I'm taking are Taxotere and Herceptin. The Herceptin will be a year long event. The Taxotere will consist of 4 courses, taken every 3 weeks. I began the first course yesterday along with the first course of the Herceptin. I'll get it every week while I'm getting the Taxotere, then once that is fiinshed, the Herceptin schedule will move out to every 3 weeks as well.

Mark and I were worried about what to expect with these new meds. We'd gotten used to the side effects of the Adriamycin and Cytoxin, but new meds means new side effects. What worked or didn't work before is all out the window. I'm happy to say that so far, I'm not really having any obvious issues. No nausea at all, praise the Lord! (I was a little worried about it because this time around I wasn't taking one of the nausea meds I took for the A/C.) The Herceptin can cause flu-like symptoms, including fever and body aches, so they gave me Tylenol and Benedryl before they started the infusion. I did not notice anything yesterday, besides the Benedryl making me tired. This morning I woke up with just a tiny bit of joint aching that may or may not have anything to do with the Herceptin. I just took some Tylenol to be safe.

I was so exhausted yesterday that I slept pretty good last night. I woke up too soon, and just had to take another dose of the steroids, so I don't know if I'll get to go back to sleep at some point. If the Decadron kicks in, sleep probably won't happen. Today's the last day I have to take it, though, so that's good news.

Okay, update done. Now I want to talk about how God talked with me yesterday morning. I have devotions I read, several in fact. I try to keep up on reading my Bible, too, though I confess I don't get it done every single day. God knows I regret that and Lord willing, He'll help me be more diligent in that respect. There's a song I know that talks about our tendency to overlook God. About how we could and should pray more, read our Bibles more, etc. But the chorus of the song says, "Sometimes I overlook Him, but He still looks over me." How very true that is. Even when I let life get in my way and I start slacking on my devotion time with God, I know He is still here, patiently waiting for me to remember Him and turn to Him. I'm forever grateful for His great mercy and love and the undeserved patience He shows me when I get just a little too self-centered to keep all my focus on Him.

So, one of the ways I often find that God likes to chat with me is through music. I've loved music, in most all forms, for as long as I can remember. Sometimes it's the music itself, but just as often it's the amazing, powerful, and beautiful lyrics God has gifted so many out there with the talent to write. Honestly, I guess I'd say I would be hard pressed to pick one single artist or group that I could call my absolute favorite. Mostly because I'm pretty eclectic and depending on my mood, I listen to a lot of different styles of music. I've heard some say that there's no such thing as "Contemporary" Christian, or "Country" Christian, or Christian "Rock", etc. I would respectfully beg to differ. I have listened to it all most of my life and I like some of all of it. I own some of all of it, well, not so much the Christian Rock because I just sort of outgrew that as I got older. I lean toward Southern Gospel, Christian Country, and some Contemporary Christian for the most part. (Don't get me wrong, I have a lot of secular music as well, through I don't listen to it nearly as much as I used to. I still love it, from the Eagles, to some Opera, to Classical, to Garth Brooks, to Broadway. PHANTOM OF THE OPERA, I'm talkin' about you! LOL) Like I said, I love music in most all of it's forms. Got that from my parents. They were both musically inclined and could sing. My mother played the piano by ear. Boy do I wish I'd inherited that particular talent. Anyway, music comes in all forms and styles. And nowhere does it say that the only true Christian music is old Bluegrass or songs out of the Hymnals. (Both of which I also happen to like.) Specifically, the Bible mentions "Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord;" Eph 5:19, and "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him." Col 3:16-17

Just my opinion, but any song with a strong Christian message, whatever "style" it happens to be in, is a "spiritual song." And if the artist is doing it "in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him," then that's even better. And even having said all this, I can think of more than one beloved and popular Christian song written by artists that do not necessarily live what anyone would call a Christian lifestyle. Kris Kristofferson's "One Day at a Time, Sweet Jesus" comes to mind. And how about "I Saw the Light" by Hank Williams? There are plenty of examples in the Bible of God using unsaved/unbelieving and sometimes downright evil individuals to forward His plans and purposes and message. Sometimes, God gives inspiration to those we least expect and the result is something beautiful that can uplift and encourage us in spite of its origins. Sadly, I can also think of former Christian artists who have written some incredibly powerful music that somehow got lost along their journey and now are so terribly backslidden that it is heartbreaking. The one that comes to my mind - because I have loved his music for years and have sung many, many of his songs because they are so incredibly powerful - is Ray Boltz. He wrote, "The Anchor Holds," "I Pledge Allegiance to the Lamb," "At the Foot of the Cross," and so very many others. Yet, a few years ago he suddenly announced that he was, and always had been, gay. He had a wife and children that he turned his back on to embrace his new "lifestyle." I find it amazing that he still claims to be a Christian and to write what he calls Christian music. He made a choice to put a lifestyle he wanted to live before God, and that's tragic, especially when it is so obvious that God had given him a profound talent. He is not the only Christian artist to do this, either. But my point is, just because he has lost his way does not change the fact that God gave him the inspiration to write songs with wonderful messages. I still love those songs he wrote, and I still sing them. Some may disagree with that choice, but I simply cannot make myself ignore the message of a song just because I know who it came from. God speaks how and when and through whomever He chooses. Even if that person is someone most "good" Christians would have no respect for.

Wow, got a little off the topic I originally wanted to discuss, here. Suffice it to say, I find music a powerful thing. God speaks to me through it all the time. I get in the car and my iPod is hooked up to my radio so I can pick and choose between all the music I own, as well as more than a few audio devotions, if the mood strikes. Usually, I go for the music because I just love to sing along. Anyway, yesterday morning when I got in the car I was really tired from the lack of sleep and I wanted something I knew really well so I could sing along without having to try to remember the words. I chose "Selah," a group that I suppose is considered Contemporary Christian, though they have released an entire album of Hymns. They began as a brother and sister both raised in Africa by their missionary parents and grand parents. They joined up with a college friend and started a group that specializes in absolutely magnificent harmonies and simple, powerful music with unmistakably profound messages. I adore them. I love the harmonies for certain, but more than that, I am amazed at the songs they have written themselves. So much power and obvious love of God.

One of the first songs that came on was "Unredeemed." This song never fails to touch me, but yesterday it seemed to be even more profound to me. The line that gets me every single time is "When anything that's shattered is laid before the Lord, just watch and see, it will not be unredeemed." What we give to God, however dark or painful or utterly broken, He can and will heal and fix. We just have to take that first step of letting Him have control. Here is a beautiful You Tube video someone put together of the song including the lyrics.

Soon after "Unredeemed" came "I Will Carry You (Audrey's Song)." This song was based upon a poem written by Angie Smith, wife of Todd Smith, one of the founding members of Selah. Back in January 2008, they learned that their fourth daughter, Audrey Caroline, was terribly ill. She was still in Angie's womb at the time and there was no doubt that Audrey would not survive. Angie started a blog to chronicle the events that would follow that fateful day that her 20 week ultrasound revealed the terrible news. The story is both heartbreaking and one of the most uplifting that I have every known. I have never lost a child. I cannot even conceive of the grief and agony of such a thing. But Angie, Todd, and Audrey's story is so incredible. How they dealt with what they knew was coming. How they chose to trust God, to let the tragedy draw them nearer to Him. Read the blog if you want to know the full depth of the miracle they experienced.Bring the Rain - Angie Smith's blog, the beginning of the story 

No, Audrey was not miraculously healed. But her parents and family were given a magnificent gift that defied all the expectations and predictions of the doctors. Audrey did not die immediately after birth. She lived for just over two hours, during which time her parents and sisters and grandparents and other family and close friends got to hold her and bathe her and love her and take many photos of this precious baby girl. That time was a pure miracle. Audrey, with her host of health issues, should not have been able to survive outside her mother's womb. Yet she did. For 2 hours, God gave her the breath and life to carry on. This video of her song was posted by Angie herself and includes photos of her, her husband Todd, and their other 3 daughters, as well as many of the photos taken of Audrey after her birth. The words of the song are as powerful as any I have ever heard. Angie's trust in God just shines through the words she wrote. It is the second chorus that brings me chills, because though the words do not change, the meaning does. The first time it's said, it is from Angie's perspective of how she will always carry her daughter with her. The second time is God Himself, promising to do the same for us. He will carry us all our lives. Gives me chills every single time I hear it. Here's the video with the lyrics posted beneath.

There were photographs I wanted to take, Things I wanted to show you
Sing sweet lullabies, wipe your teary eyes, Who could love you like this?

People say that I am brave but I'm not, Truth is I'm barely hanging on
But there's a greater story, Written long before me, Because He loves you like this

So I will carry you While your heart beats here
Long beyond the empty cradle Through the coming years
I will carry you All my life And I will praise the One Who's chosen me To carry you

Such a short time, Such a long road, All this madness But I know
That the silence, Has brought me to His voice, And He says...

I've shown her photographs of time beginning, Walked her through the parted seas
Angel lullabies, no more teary eyes, Who could love her like this?

I will carry you, While your heart beats here,
Long beyond the empty cradle, Through the coming years
I will carry you, All your life, And I will praise the One Who's chosen Me To carry you

I suppose this song, which always brings tears to my eyes, felt even more profound yesterday because Mark had mentioned to me something he'd seen on the tv in the break room at work. It was a story about some man who'd been raised in a strict Christian home. His parents took in a foster child who wound up violently raping this boy when he was around 5, I think Mark said. Anyway, this horrific event caused this boy to decide that any God who would allow him to be so terribly hurt either was evil or uncaring or just plain didn't exist to begin with. He turned his back on God and became a violent man himself. He'd killed someone by beating them to death with a baseball bat.

I cannot begin to list the number of people, both who claim no belief in God and those who do claim to be Christians, who I have heard voice questions about how and/or why God would allow terrible things to happen. There was a lot of that kind of thing going around after 9/11. How can a supposedly loving God simply stand by and watch such terrible things happen? How can He justify letting a defenseless child suffer unspeakable abuses? How can he put someone like Angie and Todd Smith, who have devoted their lives to Him, through the agony of losing a precious child?

The pat answer is that God sees, understands, and knows things that we cannot fathom. He is in charge and we ought to just trust Him in all things. That doesn't help with the pain, though. Not really. Even though it's true, it may not bring any real comfort to someone in the midst of terrible suffering. So, what's the real answer? The answer is us. WE are the ones responsible. God created a perfect world. No pain. No suffering. No sickness. No sorrow. No death. Just a perfect world where His creations could freely and personally interact with Him. It was Adam and Eve who chose to upset that perfection. God warned them that eating from the tree of Knowledge of Good AND Evil would bring death. And it certainly did. But it brought so much more. Pain and suffering, evil and agony. They unleashed every terrible thing upon the world, destroyed God's perfect creation, and the entire world has suffered in countless ways because of it. Their disobedience cursed every single person born since that time. You, me, all of us. It caused the earth itself to be cursed. Every natural disaster that claims countless lives can be blamed on that one moment of weakness. The "circle of life" that we all witness on nature shows did not exist until the fall. Every one of us, whether we want to see it or believe it or not, bears the stain of that first sin. We are guilty because Adam himself was guilty. The evil in this world is not God's fault. It is the fault of those who perpetrate it. It is the result of a fallen, broken world. God is not evil. He is not capable of being evil. He is perfect in all ways and this often results in us, with our tiny, fallen minds being unable to grasp how He could just sit by and let bad things happen. But we make judgments based upon our own limited - and incomplete - understanding. We color everything with our own personal feelings. We use our highly fallible logic and ethics and moral understanding to try to rationalize with the One who created the entire universe. How arrogant we are!

God is our Creator. He loves us. He sacrificed Himself for us. He is patient beyond measure with us as we struggle and often outright insult Him with the choices we make and life we live. We cannot grasp the depth of His knowledge, wisdom, love, and perfect justice. Which is why, when our very human minds and hearts start urging us to question His motives or actions (or lack thereof) we must take a step back and remember that faith is the thing that can carry us through whatever we are facing. Questions or fears or utter devastation can be dealt with and endured simply by trusting that God is, in fact, in control. More importantly, He is aware of all things, past, present, and future. He can see far ahead, beyond the end of our crisis. He knows who our faith might touch, who might be brought to Him because of the life we choose to live. And He knows who might be driven away from Him as well, if we choose to surrender to our doubts and fears. We are so shortsighted. So self-centered. Even at our best, we cannot come close to God's perfection. So we must turn to Him. let Him guide and lead us, and we must trust Him, even when we don't understand the why of a situation.

I have leaned this lesson over most of my lifetime. I admit I've done plenty of questioning God. I've had moments when I quite literally screamed at the heavens in frustration and pain. I still have those tendencies sometimes. But I know, in my heart of hearts, that God's plan is perfect. Whatever comes, whatever happens, He is in complete control and will do what is best for a future I cannot begin to see or comprehend. I still feel fear. I'm human. I still feel pain. I miss my parents and sister and Mark's mother each and every single day. Especially now, as I go through this battle with cancer. I wish they were here. I wish my precious mother could be here to hold my hand and comfort me. I wish my sister could be here to share her experiences with her cancer. I wish Vannie could be here to just be herself, to be my friend and offer her support and love in her sweet way. I feel their loss keenly. But I know God has a plan and I am grateful for the others in my life who are still here with me. My other sister, Debi, who just sent me a sweet card of encouragement. My friends who make me food and cancer hats and just offer me love and laughter and support as I go along. And my precious husband, Mark, who is my rock and my best friend and stunningly patient with me. God has given me great and profound gifts and I cannot help but be thankful for them all.

I hope we can all learn to be grateful even in the midst of a crisis. I hope we can see the blessings through the tears. I hope I never get to a place where I find myself able to justify turning my back on God. And I hope none of my dear loved ones ever get to that place, either. I am just so grateful to God for continuing to speak to me even when I'm not trying to listen. I'm glad that He does not turn His back on me, or withdraw His hand even if I sometimes deserve it. I'm grateful that I can turn on a radio and hear Him speak to me through a song, and that He can use something so simple to pull me back into the center of His will. And I'm thankful that I have a chance to share what He's taught me with others. I'm no evangelist. But I never want anyone I meet to walk away without knowing that I love and trust God. Who knows when something that simple might be the catalyst to cause a complete stranger to turn to Him? God please give me the strength to maintain my faith in You, whatever comes my way.

Sinus Issues, Thanksgiving Dinner, and Other Miscellanies...

Well, I seem to be over my infection issues. Praise the Lord! I have a bit of a sinus cold, though, which is unpleasant, but doesn't seem to be getting any worse. I always tell Mark that there's a fine line between medicine helping and hurting in a case like this. On the one hand, the antihistamines, decongestants, and expectorants, help keep my sinuses from draining down the back of my throat (and making it horribly raw) and also from collecting down in my lungs (making me sound like an accordion in serious need of repair.) The first day I woke up with it, my throat was already sore from the mucus (gross!). Ironically, I was seeing my oncologist to talk about my next course of chemo. Just as a quick FYI, I'm due to start it next week on Wednesday, November 17. I will also be having another MUGA scan (heart) early that morning to make sure my heart is still okay for the next round of treatment. This time around it's Taxotere (every 3 weeks) and Herceptin (every week.) I'll be taking the Herceptin for an entire year. The radiation will come once the Taxotere is finished.

Honestly, I'm just anxious to get on with it. This sinus thing is annoying, but so long as I don't develop pneumonia or an ear infection or something worse, I should still be able to get my chemo next week. The Taxotere is nothing worse than what I've already had. It can cause hair loss, though my chemo nurse told me that most breast cancer patients actually start regrowing hair while on it. LOL, I told Mark that I dreamed I had hair the other night. I've been dreaming a lot of weird stuff over the past few days. I think it's the NyQuil. LOL I've taken it all my life, despite the horrific taste. It was my Mama's "go-to" medicine for colds. Of course, these days they've taken the decongestant out of it because of the crazy druggies out there using it to make whatever it is they make with it. I used to be able to find the NyQuil that still had the decongestant at my local drug store, but now they've stopped carrying it altogether. So I have to buy a separate decongestant and take it with the NyQuil. The stuff knocks me flat out. Maybe that's why Mom liked it so much back in the day. LOL

I actually haven't taken anything since this morning because I am a little worried about taking too much medicine when I have a mild cold like this. I got caught in that catch 22 several years ago when I was going to visit my sister, Connie, after she'd been diagnosed with cancer. I didn't want to risk taking the cold I'd had down to her so my Dr. gave me some antibiotics and a prescription decongestant/expectorant. This was back when the asthma was still something of an issue. Anyway, I still remember sitting in the airport trying to keep from coughing up a lung while all the other travelers gave me a wide berth. I kept wanting to tell them it wasn't contagious, but I could barely stop coughing long enough to breathe, much less talk. LOL It took me a few days to finally figure out that the decongestant was drying me out too much, which was in turn making me cough like crazy. I quit taking it, but it still took almost a week & a half for me to fully get over it. So now I'm kinda paranoid about taking too much medicine when I'm sick. I may have to break down and take something, though, because my nose is pretty stuffy and I'm still coughing. This morning the expectorant kicked in and I got some stuff out of my chest, but my throat feels awfully raw from all the coughing. Seriously, I just want to feel half-way decent for a few days! Especially since I'm about to start the new chemo and I don't know how it'll effect me.

The Herceptin is supposed to have almost no side effects. It's targeted to a specific protein within my particular cancer. The one big side effect it does have is potential heart damage. Hence the MUGA scan on Wednesday morning to make sure my heart is still going strong. Ya'll pray about that, please, as the Herceptin is one of the big guns that is supposed to help keep the cancer from coming back down the road. If that scan, or any of the others I'll have routinely throughout the treatment, shows any sign of heart damage, I won't be able to get the Herceptin at all.

Okay, change of topic. So, Mark and I were at the store sometime last week. We'd gone to Kroger because they were selling frozen stuffed peppers for a really cheap price. This is one of Mark's primary meals when I'm sick and not up to cooking. He can cook other things, but this is his quick and easy, toss it in the microwave and scarf it down meal for days he works. So we went to replenish our supplies since I've been so sick lately and he's been eating a lot of them. On our way through the store Mark honed in on the frozen turkeys like a laser guided missile. This is something we go through every single year around Thanksgiving and Christmas. There are TWO of us. Neither of us cares for the dark meat on the Turkey. When his mom was still alive, we'd send all the dark meat to her because it was her favorite. I have tried for years to convince Mark that all we need is a turkey breast. He simply cannot bring himself to buy one, though, because he feels like he's being cheated somehow. I confess to sharing this feeling a bit, especially considering the fact that a turkey breast is at least twice as expensive as a whole turkey and you're getting less meat. Somehow, that just feels wrong.

Anyway, the whole vs. breast thing is just the start of our issues. Because along with an innate urge to buy a whole turkey Mark also suffers from a driving need to buy the biggest turkey he can find. He simply cannot stop himself. He gets positively depressed if he can't find a turkey well beyond 20 lbs. I am so not joking, here! For years, we have bought turkeys that topped out at 23-25 lbs. So, that night at Kroger he found a giant bird that was over 25 lbs. I could see the drool forming as he leaned over it. I am a more practical person. Well, more practical when it comes to turkey. I like it. I eat it. I'm pretty good at cooking it. But ultimately, I am a ham person. Not fake-o de-boned, machine pressed, ham loaf ham, mind you. That stuff, as far as I'm concerned, should be relegated to the deli and never allowed to leave. What I like is a whole ham. Like Mark and his turkey, I search out the biggest ham I can find and drool over the prospect of eating it. So, we're two of a kind, I suppose. Which is why we come out of every single major holiday with enough turkey, ham or both to feed an army. Actually, Mark lives off the turkey for the days following the holiday. He eats turkey and potato salad for pretty much every meal. The rest of it he can take or leave, but there have been holidays when we didn't actually have any turkey to put in the freezer because he ate every bit of it. LOL

I always wind up putting ham in the freezer. There's probably some in there right now from either last Christmas or maybe this Easter. I can't remember if I fixed a ham for Easter. Anyway, Mark actually didn't buy that turkey. I was amazed at his restraint. He knew we could find them cheaper at Wal-mart, though, so he held off until he got there. Where he bought a 24 pounder that is stuffed into our freezer waiting for me to make room for it in the fridge. It'll take a week for that monster to defrost!

He keeps asking me if I'm going to get a ham and I told him I haven't decided. The way things are going, I'm not likely to feel much like cooking next week. I think I'll just go rummage around in the freezer and see if I can't find some pouches of ham in there. That'll save me quite a bit of work.

I learned from my Mama to make enough food at the holidays to feed an army. This usually includes all kinds of desserts from pies to cakes to candy and cookies at Christmas. I just wish I knew if I was going to have the energy to do it this year. I love cooking, but I haven't been doing much of it lately. I just get tired too quick to do very much. I had to talk Mark through cooking frozen corn last night. LOL He did it, though. along with making mashed potatoes and mac & cheese to go along with the rotisserie chicken we picked up at the store earlier. He even bought gravy in a jar. It was all very good. Before this is all said and done, he might just be a pretty good cook. LOL

Well, I'm tired. My urge to cough is getting annoying, as is the congestion in my nose. Kinda makes my head hurt. I'm going to take some medicine and go lay on my bed. I've got some stuff to read, assuming the NyQuil doesn't knock me out. LOL

I just wanted to do a quick update on where things currently stand. I was really hoping that these last few days before I started my next chemo would be some of my best, but it just isn't working out that way. God's got a plan, though, so I'll just keep on plugging until I get out the other side of this thing.

I should confess that I had something of a rough day this week. I told Mark I was just so tired of feeling sick. But, it didn't last long. Oh, I'm still tired of feeling sick, but my perspective righted itself pretty quick. As I've said so many times before, it can always be worse. For me, I'm just profoundly grateful that I'm not still in the hospital. And though I don't much want to eat, when I do, at least everything tastes normal for now. All in all, I just can't complain too much. I've got too many things to be thankful for.

Oh, and a quick shout out to my big sister, Debi. Thursday was Veteran's Day and she was a Marine (is? I've heard there's no such thing as an ex-Marine. LOL) To her, and our friend Bill (Army, Vietnam Vet), my preacher Hobert (another Marine) and all the others out there who have and continue to put their lives on the line for this country, I thank you and appreciate you and pray for you.

That's it for now. I'm feeling ready for a nap, I think. I'll try to do an update Wednesday to let everyone know how the new chemo goes. God Bless!

Please Just Let Me Sleep!

You know, all the research I did indicated that the Adriamycin/Cytoxin portion of my chemo would be the worst part. The Taxotere & Herceptin aren't supposed to be as tough. So, when that 4th and final A/C treatment came and went I was just plain thrilled. I kept thinking that the worst was over. Lord willing, it would all be downhill from there. Then that whole mouth abscess thing happened and I kid you not, it was the worst pain I've ever had. I was ready to have Mark just shoot me and be done with it. The left side of my face was ridiculously swollen. Mark said I looked like a hamster packing for the winter. LOL The dentist prescribed one antibiotic for me, but after taking it a couple of days and not really feeling any better, I stopped in down at my oncologist's office and he added a second antibiotic to the first. So, we took it up to the pharmacy, got it filled (along with a new, stronger pain med he also prescribed) and I took the first antibiotic as soon as Mark brought it out of the store. We got home a little while later and I went to lay down for a while. When I woke up a couple of hours later, I had a few hives on my head and face. Now, hives aren't all that odd for me because of my allergies. I get them occasionally and with the chemo, Mark and I figured I'm even more susceptible than usual to allergens. So we didn't worry too much about it. After a couple of hours, they mostly went away. The new antibiotic was one of those heavy duty ones that only has to be taken once a day, which I was grateful for since the other one was on a 4 times a day schedule. I hate taking pills, mostly because I tend to get choked on them. Anyway, the next day came around and I took the second antibiotic and within half an hour the hives were back. I had more of them this time, too. So, it didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that it was the new antibiotic. I called the Dr. and he called in another one and I am now officially allergic to Levoquin. So, by now my jaw was starting to feel a little better and the swelling was improving. I kept taking my 2 antibiotics and after another couple of days, I was no longer in constant pain.

I should add that during this time a second abscess showed up. This one was right on my tailbone. It had been sore, but I just thought I had sat on it funny or sat on it too much while I felt really bad the week before. It was very sore, but I didn't know for sure that it was an abscess until it started draining just a little bit over the weekend. Mark and I made more than a few jokes about how long the root on that abscessed tooth must have been for the abscess there to travel all the way down my spine and pop out on my tailbone! LOL I figured I'd have to call the Dr. on Monday (October 25) and have him look at the abscess. I was also thinking that I was already taking 2 antibiotics and surely they would keep any potential infection under control.

I didn't feel all that well when I woke up Monday morning. Mark was actually off on vacation. He'd taken time off to go to work for a few days down in Tennessee for Colgate, but when my tooth issue became such a mess, he wound up staying home to make sure I'd be okay. Monday was his last day off. He was supposed to go back to work on Tuesday & Wednesday.

As the day went on, I was laying on the couch and I just kept feeling worse. Eventually I realized I was running a fever because I was freezing to death. I headed into the bathroom to check it and it was high, but not in the danger zone yet. (I was told in chemo training that if it hit 101.5 I was to go to the ER.) I have a small heater in my bathroom and I fired it up and parked myself in the floor in front of it. Then, once the chill was off of the room, I took a hot shower. Of course, this was the wrong thing to do because it all just drove my temperature higher. I got out of the shower and got into bed. My temp was higher at this point, but I knew the heater and the hot shower would have added to it so I told Mark I was going to wait a half hour or so before I checked it again. He insisted that I try to eat something, though I wasn't hungry at all. He made me some soup and I ate a few spoonfuls of it. When I checked my temp again, it was right at 101.6. I really didn't want to go to the ER, so I had Mark call the Dr.'s office. He was in with a patient and the nurse said she'd talk to him and call me back. About twenty minutes later I checked my temp again and it had climbed to 102 so I told Mark we were just going to go ahead and go to the hospital. He called the nurse back and let her know we were leaving. We took the thermometer with us and I was sure that by the time we got to the hospital my temp would have gone down. Especially since it was cool out that day and Mark had the window cracked as we drove. But just as we got to Madison I checked it again and it was at 102.7. In the ER they checked it using an oral thermometer and it was below 101. I told them I'd just been drinking a cold drink so they said they'd check it again shortly. Half an hour or so later the nurse came in and checked it at my armpit. It was 101 or 102, I can't remember. But she decided to recheck it orally on a whim and it was 103.

The Dr. ordered a CT scan of my new abscess and sure enough, there was a small pocket in it. So he lanced it there in the ER. NOT a fun experience! The lancing wasn't bad, but those shots to numb it hurt like the dickens! They put in an IV and loaded me up with a new antibiotic, and eventually gave me some Tylenol down in the ER just before they moved me upstairs to a room. The fever broke and I felt quite a bit better once it did. I was seriously hoping that I might somehow get to go home the next day. Should have known that wasn't going to happen. They put me on a total of 4 different antibiotics. 3 were oral and one was a giant dose administered through the IV. We found out right off the bat that the IV that was put in down in the ER wasn't good. They had trouble with it when they tried to administer the contrast for the CT scan, but once I got upstairs my nurse couldn't get it to work at all. So that IV came out and a new one went in on my other arm. I should have just had them access my port, but I was still hoping I wouldn't be there that long. Apparently the IV antibiotic is fairly nasty. It burns up your veins so it had to be administered over about a 4 hour drip.

That night my fever spiked again. It hit 103.5. We tried Ibuprofen or Tylenol (can't remember which because they gave me both) but it didn't drop fast enough. So we resorted to cold washrags in my armpits and the bends of my elbows. This eventually worked. I swear, coming down off the fevers was almost as bad as having them. When the fever was up I would shiver and chill so hard that my teeth would chatter. Then, once it started dropping I would first get hot. I mean hot like a oil radiator. This would inevitably be followed by absolutely disgusting sweating. I'd be soaking wet. It really wasn't any fun at all.

I saw the Dr. early the next morning and he let me know that I'd be staying in the hospital until at least Thursday. I was not happy, but Mark and I both knew that it would be crazy to try to come home when I was spiking such high fevers. Long story short, my fever continued to do a wild yo yo over the next couple of days. It would almost always spike when I tried to sleep. Not that sleep was easy to come by. God bless my nurses and techs, they were all very sweet and took great care of me, but with all the antibiotics being taken on a bunch of different schedules and them coming in every 4 hrs or so to check my vitals, sleep wasn't something I got much of. Even when they did manage to get me a fair block of time without either a pill to take or vitals to check, I'd just wake up an hour or two after going to sleep with another fever. I got very skilled at recognizing when it was starting to climb.

My nurse on that second day decided to access my port for me. I was glad because after just 2 infusions of that antibiotic in my arm, it was starting to hurt. That's a big part of why I have the port. The Adriamycin chemo is what's called a vesicant. Basically, if it leaks out of the vein as it's being administered it can literally burn up whatever tissues it touches. (This is the same kind of stuff used in WWI as a biological weapon. Read: Mustard Gas.) It is so toxic that it cannot be administered through a common vein. The port places a catheter into one of the main veins in my chest and runs all the way to my heart. It is accessed with a nifty needle contraption that slips into a "dock" that's implanted just beneath my skin. I'll keep the port in for the duration of my chemo. That's more than a year. They may even leave it in place a little longer than that, just to be on the safe side.

The port (and it's catheter) allows them to administer toxic or irritating drugs like the chemo or this antibiotic without damaging my veins. It also meant they could run the antibiotic infusion at about twice the speed as they could when the IV was in my arm. That made things a little easier, though my arm is still a little sore from the first couple of infusions I got.

Mark wound up having to take off both Tuesday & Wednesday because he just couldn't bring himself to work while worried about me. I was still spiking fevers at night when I slept. I was scared to death that the Dr. wouldn't let me go on Thursday and I think he did want me to stay, but I managed to convince him to let me go home. I was so exhausted by then. I had a previously scheduled appointment with my oncologist that afternoon and I called them right after we dropped my new prescriptions off at the pharmacy to see if they could get me in earlier. They did. It turned out that the abscess on my tailbone wasn't the cause of all my fevers after all. They did a culture on it and found nothing. What they did find was a Urinary Tract Infection that I didn't even know I had. Turns out that the second antibiotic my oncologist prescribed for me is the one normally used to treat UTI's but my particular UTI was resistant to it, so it wasn't doing anything to rein in the infection. The Dr. sent me home with 3 antibiotics to take. And you know I have to take all of them on a different schedule. One is every 12 hrs, one every 8, and one every 6. Basically, I get a 6 hr window once a day to try to sleep. The rest of the time I'm having to get up to take one of these massive pills.

The interesting thing is I never ran another fever once I got out of the hospital. By the time I left Thursday, they were pretty much keeping me dosed up on Tylenol and Ibuprofen just to keep the fever at bay. I took the nest regularly scheduled dose of Ibuprofen while I was sitting in the Dr.'s office. I missed the next regular dose by a couple of hours that evening because I pretty much went to sleep when we got home. In the hospital, my fever would usually spike as soon as the Tylenol or Ibuprofen wore off. Sometimes even sooner. So I was amazed I didn't have a fever when I woke up. I went ahead and took some Ibuprofen, but that was the last time I took any and no more fevers. I will admit that I'm a little worried that the mouth abscess or some other issue will pop right back up once the antibiotics run out, but I'm just going to trust that God will keep them all at bay.

This has not been a fun time. I was so exhausted that I pretty much slept for the first 2-3 days after I got home. I couldn't believe how exhausted I was. I feel a lot better now, but I'm still pretty tired. Of course the infection means we had to put off my next course of chemo. I see my oncologist next week to talk about it. The fever is gone, but I've been having problems with my back ever since I was in the hospital. I was on a muscle relaxer while on the chemo because of issues we assumed were caused by either the chemo or the Neulasta or maybe both. After finishing that 4th chemo course I went off the muscle relaxers. In the hospital my back started bothering me again. I got a refill on the muscle relaxers but so far they haven't made much of a difference. I have issues moving around comfortably and bending over more than twice is almost impossible. My back just seizes up and that's that. I guess I'm going to wind up having to go back to the Dr. about it and see if we can figure out exactly what's going on. Sitting around all the time probably isn't helping, but it's a catch 22. I hurt if I move (or just feel too bad in general to do much) and not moving probably makes it worse.

I had to laugh last Monday, though. When the Dr. let me out on Thursday he only did so after making sure I'd follow up with my family Dr. on Monday. So when I saw him he was going over my chart and Mark and I were laughing about all the various issues I'd had over the past couple of weeks and he said, "Well, it could always be worse." There's my motto again! As bad as the pain from my mouth abscess was, and as unpleasant as those fevers were, I knew very well as I went through it all that it could be worse. I have so very many things to be thankful for. I have access to the medications I need because we have good insurance. Not just good, awesome. I've had 4 chemo courses so far with 4 more Taxotere courses to come and  a year's worth of Herceptin. The price tag for EACH of those first 4 treatments is over $20,000.00. Yeah, that's twenty thousand dollars times 4. I don't know if the Taxotere and Herceptin will be just as expensive or cheaper, but I do know that I am not paying a penny for my treatments. With all the surgeries and Dr.'s visits, I hit that out of pocket maximum pretty early on. This insurance was dropped into our laps right at the same time that I was diagnosed. Tell me that wasn't God's Providence! He knew what was coming and provided Mark with a job and insurance right when we needed it even though we weren't looking for it! I am so amazed by how He provides even when we don't know what we need. I'm even more amazed that so many people out there call something like that "coincidence." It's sad to live your life relying on accidents, coincidences and lucky breaks to help you out when you're in trouble. I'd much rather trust that God is in charge and will always do what's best for me, even if I don't understand what He's up to.

So I'm a lot better than I was this time last week or the week before. My back hurts most of the time, but at least I can still move when I need to. And a little bit of praise for my hubby. He's doing it all around here. He does the dishes and laundry and even cooks. My appetite isn't all that good, probably partly due to the antibiotics. Mark made us a pair of steaks day before yesterday and it was pretty doggone good. One of the best things I've eaten since I first got sick a couple of weeks ago. Not much else has been very appetizing. I even made a big pot of vegetable beef soup and though it tastes okay, I haven't felt much like eating it. Half the time I make something then don't actually want to eat it. I'm hoping my appetite will come back once I finish up the antibiotics. That'll be in the next day or so. It's not like I can't afford to lose some weight, but I don't like the slightly queasy feeling that accompanies the lost appetite. Food smells tend to make it worse, which is weird because I didn't have any trouble with that while actively on chemo. That was another issue with the hospital. The food is just plain AWFUL! I told Mark that the moment I lifted the lid off that tray whatever appetite I might have had vanished. He brought me in a couple of meals but even they didn't sit all that well with me. It really stinks to be hungry with a growling stomach but to get nauseous at the thought of actually eating most things. LOL Like I said, it could always be worse, though. At least I can eat. Some can't. And though I'm kinda queasy, I'm not actually vomiting. All in all, things are pretty decent these days. I'm just hoping I can get back on schedule with my chemo treatments. I really want to get through the Taxotere. The Herceptin is a targeted chemo, meaning it doesn't attack my entire body like the others. This also means that it shouldn't be nearly as hard to take. The Taxotere is a traditional chemo, but they say it isn't as bad as the A/C, so I want to get it over with. Plus, I still have the radiation to get through. This journey is a long way from being over, but at least it's easier than the path some are on.

One of Those Days...

Ever have one of those days where everything that could go wrong does? Of course you have. We all have. Today was one of those for me. Actually, I'd say it really started yesterday. Or maybe even a few days ago. But it all came to a head today. Lemme see....

Okay, just in case you aren't aware, chemotherapy does a real number on a person's immune system. Simple explanation, ANYTHING that might cause ANY kind of sickness or infection is much worse for a chemo patient than it is for the average person. The past few days have just been bad for me in this regard. I should, perhaps, start by mentioning the fact that I am the least graceful person I know. God bless my Mama, she put me in dance lessons back when I was a kid. Tap and ballet. Bless her heart, I reckon she had dreams of having a graceful dancer in the family. (She put both my older sisters through this rite of passage as well. I know because my friends and I used to play dress up with their old costumes.) Long story short, I have absolutely no innate grace. It isn't just dancing, it's anything that requires some measure of coordination. I stink at every single sport I ever tried to play because hand/eye coordination is a totally foreign concept to me. I've told this to people before, but it bears repeating. I remember my poor father trying to help me with the simple parent/child game of catch. He would toss the ball to me and repeat (more times than I can remember), "keep your eye on the ball." He would toss and I'd watch that ball like a hawk. Watch it go right past my bat and land on the ground. I was always thinking, "I'm looking right at it and I still can't hit it." He eventually gave up. I cannot express how grateful I am that I grew up in a time and place that did not force children to take part in Physical Education beyond the 6th grade. I'd have gone insane if I'd had to do it much longer than that.

Another "cute" example of my utter physical ineptitude: several years ago Mark and I were pretty into tennis. We decided to go buy ourselves some rackets and play. The courts we used are public and located along one of the main roads through our hometown. I know this will be hard to believe, but I swear it's true. I tried THREE times to serve the ball to him and I whiffed every time. A car full of young men who happened to be passing slowed down long enough to yell out the window, "Three strikes! You're out!" Good thing I'm not overly sensitive about my lack of coordination. Okay, so now you're aware of my lack of grace.

I had a Dr.'s appointment on Thursday morning. Nothing big, just a check in with my regular family Dr. So Mark heads out to the car and I'm following him and somehow - I'm not sure of the logistics - I managed to step on a small twig with my right foot and then kick it with my left. I wear sandals. The branch didn't actually embed itself into my foot, but it scraped it pretty good. I looked down, didn't see blood, and kept on going. By the time we got downtown, though, the blood had arrived. Not tons, but enough to let me know the stick had broken the skin. No telling how many germs I encountered there. I carry one of those nifty neosporin to go things and Mark hosed it down for me. Seems to be healing just fine.

I can't remember if it was later that same day or Friday, but Mark and I had gone somewhere and left our chickens out while we were gone. In all the years that we've had chickens, we've lost more than a few to raccoons. Before we put this new batch in the barn we rewired the entire pen with heavy gauge wire to keep them safe. Plus, the raccoons generally only come out at night, so the chickens are safe during the day. Or so we thought. Mark and I pulled up in the drive and he slowed down when we came around the barn and there were no chickens in sight. They're still young and a little intimidated by the outdoors so they don't go far from that chicken pen door. Then Mark slammed on the brakes and said, "Look at that hawk!" When the chickens were little we kept them in a small outdoor pen with a heat lamp until they had all their feathers and could be put in the barn. That pen is sitting out in front of the barn where we left it after we moved the chickens down there. Perched pretty as you please on that pen was a LARGE hawk. One of the largest either of us has ever seen. He took off once we stopped but the damage was already done. He killed one of the hens and the rest were scattered all over the place. We went to round them all up but the ones who'd hidden inside the main barn didn't want any part of going outside. Can't blame them for that. Fortunately they're fairly tame. You can push them with your foot and they'll just sit there and stare at you. So after realizing they weren't going to let me "shoo" them out of the barn and around to the chicken pen entrance, I decided to just pick up the two in front of me. Another long story short, one of them got in a lucky blow with a foot and opened up a fairly impressive scratch from the knuckle of my first finger to the base of my thumb on my left hand. More blood. More germs. Nasty germs too, considering a chicken's feet are all it has to dig with. Yuck! A long scrub with soap and water followed by more neosporin and this wound, too, seems to be healing fairly well.

Okay, I mentioned in a recent post that I grind my teeth. I've done it for years and wear a mouth guard to protect my teeth. Mark likes to tease me about looking like a football player. Plus I do tend to try to talk with it in my mouth and that's generally a recipe for hilarity. Anyway, with the chemo and all I tend to nap on and off at all sorts of random times. Okay, I tend to nap any time my head hits a pillow. So one day last week a fell asleep on the couch and when I woke up my tooth was hurting. This has happened before and while I was a little worried about it, by later that evening it felt fine. Fast forward to yesterday. I took another nap and woke up with the aching tooth again. It didn't go away this time, though. It just hurt and hurt and hurt some more. Then it started throbbing. And it hurt to try to eat. It hurt inside and out. My face all the way up to my eye hurt to touch. Still, I decided to hold on to hope that it would go away. Of course it didn't. I barely slept last night because of it. Oh, and did I mention that my Dr. put me on blood pressure medicine Thursday? I started taking it that night and woke up with the mother of all headaches on  Saturday night. So, killer headache, horrible tooth ache, plus a couple of fresh wounds. Oh, no, that's not all!

Mark was sick when he came home Thursday morning. Actually, he's been building up to it for a few days. But he really started feeling bad on Wednesday night. By Friday he was just too ill feeling to do much of anything other than sleep. Amazingly, I felt fairly good on Friday. Better than I usually do on the weekend after my chemo. My neck was sore, but the all over body pain that I usually have was nowhere to be found. PRAISE THE LORD FOR THAT! Since Mark was feeling bad, we didn't do anything on Friday. We stayed parked on the couch all day long until we went to bed that night. I'd made a roast the day before so I didn't even have to cook. (Gets kinda personal here, so if you're squeamish you might want to skip this. LOL)  In the past, on these weekends when I usually can't move because of the pain, I have had a bit of an issue with a sore tailbone. Yep, tailbone. I assume it happens because I sit too long in one spot. It's only happened a couple of times, but it isn't very comfortable. So Saturday morning, when I got up, my tailbone was so sore that I can't actually sit down comfortably.

What are we up to now? Stick in the foot, chicken claw to the hand, insanely painful tailbone, killer headache, and mother of all toothaches. Yep, Sunday was NOT a good day for me. My schedule for today wasn't clear, either. I had to be at the hospital at 9:30 this morning to have a follow-up CT scan. (I'm going to be totally honest and admit that some of this is my fault.) I wasn't supposed to eat for 4 hours before the scan. Only I couldn't remember what the time frame was. I ate yesterday around 3 and then NOTHING for the rest of the night. Yep, that wasn't the smartest thing I've ever done. Especially with the chemo, I've found that I need to try to keep something in my stomach. But I felt so terribly bad last night that I pretty much went to bed and stayed there all night. (In bed I could lay on my stomach. Hurt the tooth but helped the tailbone.)

I was awake at 5AM this morning when Mark called to let me know he'd hit a deer with his truck. It's been a while since he mowed one down so he was due. He said he missed the big one but caught the little one that was following it. The truck is drivable if you don't mind the tire rubbing against the bumper every time you turn left. (You should know that I'm laughing right now. What other choice do I have. LOL) Mark is still sick. He sounds terrible. He went down to the sheriff's office to pick up the paperwork for the insurance claim then came on home. Since I dozed so much last night I woke up early and called the insurance company to get that ball rolling. We carry full coverage so they not only fix the truck, but provide us with a rental as well.

I left for the hospital a little before 9. I stopped down at the drug store to buy the strongest oragel I could find. I slathered my entire jaw with that, then went on to Madison. They took x-rays and did a CT. I had planned to stop at Walmart because I need a few things, but by the time I was done at the hospital I was ready to curl up in a ball and pass out. Carolyn offered to take me this morning and boy do I wish I'd taken her up on it! Between the toothache, the tailbone ache, the lack of food and the fatigue I was pretty much done in. So Walmart was out and a quick trip through the McDonald's drive through was in. I actually went through the automatic car wash just so I could take a few minutes to eat. LOL It did make me feel a little better, but I was still hurting and tired. So I came straight home. I called the repair shop to make sure they got the paperwork from State Farm and they did. The car rental place didn't, though. So I called State Farm. They told me I could expedite the claim if I went ahead and called the claim office instead of waiting for them to call me. So I did that. It didn't take but a couple of minutes. She said she'd send the paperwork to Enterprise within a few minutes. The Enterprise guy said he'd call me as soon as he got it.

BTW, the headache is MUCH better. Mark thought I ought to stop taking the new BP medicine since it came on so suddenly and was so intense. So I didn't take it last night and sure enough the headache is almost gone. Should have called the Dr. today, but there just wasn't time. Have to do that tomorrow.

Moving on to my toothache. By this afternoon I knew good and well that it wasn't going to go away by itself. Most likely, I have the start of an infection in one of my roots. I've had this happen before so I'm fairly familiar with the sensation. Normally the dentist would just go in and fix it. Or, in this case, the specialist dentist would since the tooth in question has already had a root canal and has a crown. (Had that done before, too. Did I mention my teeth are terrible!?) Trouble is, I can't have any dental work done while I'm getting chemo. Not unless I want to give the chemo a delay of a month or more. So, there will be no fixing the tooth until the chemo is finished. The only option left is antibiotics to take care of whatever infection is there. I worried that my dentist would want to see me before she'd prescribe antibiotics. That's not an option today since Mark had to drive the car to work and the truck isn't going too far. I went ahead and called her and God bless her, she totally understood. She prescribed an antibiotic and called it in to the CVS a few miles down the road. She did ask me to double check with my oncologist that the antibiotic would be fine in conjunction with the chemo. I did that and they said it was fine.

The only issue, of course, is that Mark was gone and that left me with the truck. The deer didn't actually do all that much damage. Less that they usually do. The front bumper is crunched fairly well and pushed back just enough that the tire does rub a little when you turn left. The bumper, like so many other things on vehicles these days, is plastic, though, so it's more noisy than anything else. I started nagging the drug store within minutes of getting off the phone with the dentist. I went down there about an hour later and got my horse pill antibiotics. Funny thing - Mark's truck is is DESPERATE need of shocks. Maybe the entire suspension needs to be redone. I tease him all the time that riding in it is like riding a bucking bronco. The seat isn't exactly the most comfortable in the world, either. The truck is a 1995. It wasn't new when we bought it. So, just for giggles, imagine if you will trying to ride a bucking bronco while sitting on a wooden saddle with a tailbone that's so sore you can't even sit comfortably on the couch........... Yeah, it wasn't fun.

It seems that my tooth hurts worse when I'm upright. It eases a little if I lay on my right side. So by the time I got downtown my rear was so sore that I could barely move, my tooth was POUNDING like crazy, and I hadn't eaten since before noon. I felt beyond bad. I ran into the drug store and got my medicine, rushed into the grocery store to grab something fast to eat, and dragged myself back to the truck for the agonizing ride home. I actually took the first dose of the antibiotic before I left the grocery store. LOL At home I collapsed onto the couch. The phone rang and it was Enterprise car rental. I was glad that they'd gotten the paperwork so the rental would be ready for us tomorrow. First thing the guy on the phone says is, (hesitantly) "are you in Indiana?"

I said, "Yes. We live in Vevay."

He says, "Well, I'm in Madison, WISCONSIN!"

Oh yeah, that's right. I told the insurance claim person to use Enterprise in Madison, IN and she sent the paperwork to Madison, Wisconsin. After a couple of minutes of joking about the transportation/pickup fees for that trip, he told me he'd call the insurance lady and straighten it out.

Honestly, the past few days have just been awful. But, things are looking up. My head feels a thousand times better than it did on Sunday. My tooth even feels better now that the first big dose of antibiotic has hit it. My tailbone is still sore. I told Mark that with the way things have been going it's probably some kind of abscess. (I am desperately praying that is NOT the case!) It does feel marginally better than it did yesterday. I figure the antibiotic might help that, too. The scratches on my foot and hand look like they're healing without any problems. I haven't caught whatever it is that Mark has. And while it's never a good thing to hit a deer, at least we have insurance to take care of it. Basically, as bad as the past couple of days have been, I still find myself saying, "It could always be worse."

I don't like pain. What normal person does? I can handle it for a while, but after a couple of days I tend to lose my patience. I absolutely know better than to pray for patience. But I guess God sometimes likes to test it just a little anyway. Just to remind me to focus on Him. I've certainly done a lot of praying over the past couple of days! God knows what I need, even if I don't. And He's given me a way out of just about all the problems I've had. This is just one more of those instances where I am profoundly grateful for modern medications. By tomorrow I'm guessing my tooth will barely hurt at all. I'm getting ready to go scrounge up something to eat. Something soft. LOL My head barely hurts at all. I've had two wounds that could easily have gotten infected, but haven't. I have a hubby who's sick but I'm not. God is good! Now, if I can just fix the aching tailbone before I have to get back in the torture device Mark calls a truck....

Streams in the Desert

My dear friend Carolyn is someone I have tons of respect for. I am very thankful that God brought her into my life several years ago. I have never, ever been in her presence that I did not laugh. Not once that I can remember. She's just that kind of person. And so are her sisters. One of her sisters, Shirley, gave me a book a few weeks ago. Shirley is one of those people that just shines with God's grace and love. Her husband has had a number of severe strokes and she barely ever has a chance to get out of the house, though we're hoping that might change soon. Everyone needs a break from time to time. Anyway, back in September Carolyn, our friend (and pastor's wife) Mary, and I went up to Cincinnati to a Quilt and Craft Expo. Shirley lives in Cincy and though she could not get away long enough to come to the expo with us, she did come to the convention center to say hi and to give me this book. It is called, "Streams in the Desert" and is a collection of devotions by L. B. Cowman. It has been edited by Jim Reimann, the same man who edited "My Utmost for His Highest." It is the updated edition, put into modern language for clarity. This blog post title will take you to the Amazon page for the book. You can get access to the original version of the book for free via Crosswalk.com. The original version is by no mean unreadable, it's just not as easy to digest as the Updated Edition.

Shirley included a very sweet personal message to me on the inside page. It begins with, "This book has spoken to my heart straight from the heart of God." How powerful is that! I was so blessed just by the book alone. When I got home and opened it and read Shirley's note, it gave me such a rush of comfort to feel the love and encouragement in her words. I just cannot express how precious both Carolyn and Shirley are to me. They have loved me and been friends to me virtually from the day we first met. They introduce me as a part of their family. They are great gifts from God, and I am profoundly grateful for them.

So, in the post I made yesterday I mentioned how I was struggling with some anxiety over what the future may hold for me. I don't seem to feel a lot of stress, or at least I don't always recognize it consciously. But it is having an impact on me. I mentioned my blood pressure, which is not something I've ever had an issue with in the past. Yet it is and has been high enough for my oncologist to prescribe medication for it. And while I have had an issue with grinding my teeth in my sleep for years, I now catch myself clenching my jaw even while I am awake. Obviously, I'm feeling more anxiety and stress than I realized. I trust God in this situation I am facing. I have no choice. I KNOW He is in control and that whatever comes, whether the next round of chemo is easy or hard, or whether I have a recurrence or metastases in a few months or a few years, or 17 years (as has just happened to one of the ladies on the Cancer Survivors Network, or if I never have to face cancer again. God is in control of everything "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose." Romans 8:28 (KJV) A little bit more modern:  "And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them." Romans 8:28 (NLT)

That is such a simple thing to read, but sometimes so difficult to put into practical use in our lives. It's so easy to give in to the human impulse to question God's motives, to even demand that He change His perfect will and give us what we think is best or what we want. And it is so very easy to lose some of our trust in Him. When we are facing something frightening or potentially devastating, we WANT to have complete trust in God, to utterly rely on what Romans 8:28 tells us. To KNOW, with everything inside us, that WHATEVER happens, God will be there with us and will help us through it and that the end result is and will be exactly what He knows is best. We're frail creatures, always asking questions when we ought to be listening and trusting. I have often wondered how it was that the Israelites could have so easily lost their faith in God when He was right there in their midst as He led them out of Egypt and parted the Red Sea and fed them with manna from heaven, and so many other things. And how in the world could the disciples have been surprised to find the tomb empty that first Easter morning? They had seen Jesus perform countless miracles, including raising the dead back to life, yet despite the fact that Jesus warned them of what was coming and promised them that He would rise again, they ran and hid in fear after His crucifixion and were shocked when the tomb was empty. Why? How? Because they were just like us, like me. It didn't matter how many miracles they'd witnessed. (I've seen my share.) It didn't matter how intimate a relationship they had with God or His Son. (I've known Jesus for many years, since my early teens, yet I still find myself wanting to go my own way.) They were mere men. Filled with all the same flaws that necessitated Christ's death on the Cross. Out of the sight and presence of God, they fell back on their flawed human emotions and understanding. There's a very good reason why we are told over and over again to draw near to God. To stay in His presence. Because outside of it we are too weak to fight our own nature.

So I picked up "Streams in the Desert" today and opened it to October 13th and what do you suppose I saw? This may be copyright infringement, but I'm not making money off this and I'm giving the author and editor credit, so I hope it will be okay. Here is the devotion, as written in the Updated Edition, for October 13. According to the book, all Scripture is taken from the NIV.

Do not be anxious about anything. (Philippians 4:6)

Anxiety should never be found in a believer. In spite of the magnitude, quantity, and diversity of our trials, afflictions, and difficulties, anxiety should not exist under any circumstances. This is because we have a Father in heaven who is almighty, who love His children as He loves His "one and only Son" (John 3:16), and whose complete joy and delight is to continually assist them under all circumstances. We should heed His Word which says, "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God."

"In everything" - not simply when our house is on fire or when our beloved spouse and children are gravely ill, but even in the smallest matters of life. We are to take everything to God - little things, very little things, even what the world calls trivial things. Yes, we are to take everything, living all day long in holy fellowship with our heavenly Father and our precious Lord Jesus. We should develop something of a spiritual instinct, causing us to immediately turn to God when a concern keeps us awake at night. During those sleepless nights, we should speak to Him, bringing our various concerns before Him, no matter how small they may be. Also speak to the Lord about any trial you are facing or any difficulties you may have in your family or professional life.

"By prayer and petition" - earnestly pleading, persevering and enduring, and waiting, waiting, waiting on God.

"With thanksgiving" - always laying a good foundation. Even if we have no possessions, there is one thing for which we can always be thankful - that He has saved us from hell. We can also give thanks that He has given us His Holy Word, His Holy Spirit, and the most precious gift of all - His Son. Therefore when we consider all this, we have abundant reasons for thanksgiving. May this be our goal!

"And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 4:7) This is such a wonderful, genuine, and precious blessing that to truly know it, you must experience it, for it "transcends all understanding."

May we take these truths to heart, instinctively walking in them, so the result will be lives that glorify God more abundantly than ever before. George Muller, from Life of Trust

Search your heart several times a day, and if you find something that is disturbing your peace, remember to take the proper steps to restore the calm. Francis de Sales

 Tell me God isn't in charge! He knew how I would be feeling, knew I needed a little encouragement and a reminder of Him. There are those out there who would call it coincidence. But I don't believe in luck or coincidence or chance. I believe in God, the Creator of the universe and all within it, including me. He knows me like no other. He knows my heart, even when I don't. And He put these words here for me today, to uplift me and strengthen me as I go through this journey He has called me to.

Honestly, words fail me. Those who know me, know that's a rare occasion. :) I wish I could describe the flood of joy and comfort I felt as I read this short little devotion. See, like the Children of Israel or the disciples of our Lord, I have felt God's presence in my life so many times. I have felt Him and known Him over and over and over again, yet I still let my human nature get in the way.

God forgive me for that. And thank You so very much for never giving up on me, for loving me and staying right by my side even when I'm distracted and not paying attention to You, Lord. I am blessed beyond measure. I am so thankful for all You have given me, for all You have done for me. Thank you, Lord, for being Who You are!

Remember that God is always in control. All we ever have to do is LET Him work. As the old saying goes, "Let go and let God." Perhaps I should have that tattooed on my forehead. (Just kidding.) But it would do us all good, me especially, to strive every moment of every day to actively seek out God's presence. To hunger for Him with all our heart and soul. As the Bible tells us, "And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment." Mark 12:30 (KJV)

This is often easier said than done. It takes a devout commitment and dedication that I so often lack. But I want it. Like Paul, I do what I don't want and don't do what I want to do. "And I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. I want to do what is right, but I can’t. I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway. But if I do what I don’t want to do, I am not really the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it. I have discovered this principle of life—that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong. I love God’s law with all my heart. But there is another power within me that is at war with my mind. This power makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me. Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death? Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord. So you see how it is: In my mind I really want to obey God’s law, but because of my sinful nature I am a slave to sin."Romans 7:18-25 (NLT)  Lord, grant me strength to overcome my sinful nature. Give me peace and understanding, courage and endurance. Forgive me for entertaining doubts, for letting anxiety and fear creep into my thoughts. I love and trust You, Lord. I know You are the Author and Finisher of my faith, that You have embraced me as Your beloved child. Thank You for all the blessings You bestow on me each day. Thank You for loving me even when I was unlovable. Thank You for Your great plan of Salvation. I just want to draw nearer to You, to be so close to You that no doubt can enter into me. And Thank you for the wonderful friends You have given me, women of faith who uplift me without even realizing it. They are such great gifts to me! Bless each and every one of them, Lord, as they bless You through their generosity and love. Amen.  Thank you for reading this. I had to post this update because I found God's way of letting me know He's still there and still cares too amazing not to share. He is still on the throne. He is still in control. And there are miracles happening every day, all around us. We can see them if we'll just open our eyes and our hearts to God!