Hi there and welcome to the club. You might be surprised to learn that our club grows by over 3,400 members a day. Most people join against their will…for a few, membership was optional, but they joined anyway…..odd, but true.

As a new member you get to experience things like, fear and panic, uncontrolled sobbing…. waiting for things like test results, facing your mortality etc….

The next phase of membership typically requires loss….loss of your hair, loss of your lunch, loss of body parts or organs… Other losses include loss of control and loss of pride. These last two can actually be seen as positives so be sure to consult with some of our longstanding club members on the benefits of the last two.

While a club member you will receive lots of little brown prescription bottles, beautiful flowers and an amazing number of cards. You will receive a surprisingly informative lesson on your blood and the secrets it contains…and more hours in your bed then you thought possible.

You will also receive many life lessons. These are very helpful and we suggest that while you are spending so much time off your feet, that you take advantage of that special offer.

We also ask of our club members that after you have been with us for a while, you offer your new found knowledge and encouragement to our newer members. This is an important part of healing for both you and the newer inductees.

We are sorry about your club membership but will be praying for you daily.

Cancer Club for Mankind

Actually I have no idea if that is true, but here is what I know…lately I have been able to meet friends for coffee…it’s a great opportunity to go somewhere else and sit. It’s also a great diversion from cancer thoughts, which I know don’t help me.

Depending on who I am with, and whether or not there has been a recent crisis, I find that we tend to laugh quite a bit. So here is how the coffee contributes to the healing process…

Coffee brings us together…being together promotes laughter…laughter produces dopamine, increased blood flow, reduces stress, increases immunoglobulins…increasing killer T-cells…

So I think it is safe to assume that coffee may actually help heal cancer…anyway, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

I am so thankful to be here to celebrate another 4th! This may seem like a short post but that first sentence says paragraphs.

Waiting never seems to get any easier…there is the short traumatic wait, like finding out that the line to the restroom is longer than you expected…or waiting for the plus or minus sign on your EPT…or whether or not she says “yes”.

Then there are the longer waits…gestation…retirement…summer vacation…

Then in a class all their own are the medical waits…there are a lot of those…waiting for the apt…waiting for the Dr..waiting for the test results…pathology report…treatment plan…remission…

You can’t change the waiting part…so what to do while you wait?…I am doing a paint by number and alternately reading 4 books…I tried to throw in a cross stitch and some decoupage but I found that was too much. I think what I would like to learn is how to be quiet…not to shut-up mind you but to be able to be quiet head to toe…so far I have only reached that state through the sleep process…the girls in my head are often too loud during waking hours…they are always buzzing about hospital bills and filling bird feeders, what’s for dinner and will I have to have chemo next month…

I will try and talk to them today and see if they can pipe down long enough for me to be quite for 1 minute…that’s my goal today…it’s good to have goals…

I just walked in the door not 5 minutes ago from fishing with my son and husband. It was a beautiful night on the lake, bugs and birds and lapping water and the zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz of the reel and junk like that…Joe caught 2 fish and it was a nice time. Until…until we got back to the shore and I couldn’t get out of the boat. My legs are so weak and my knees hurt terribly when I tried to kneel in the bow, and I tried to find a position that would allow me to swing one of my legs over the side but I couldn’t do it without a lot of pain.

So with a straight face I just DID IT…I didn’t want them to know how bad it hurt and I didn’t want them to see just how mad I was at this stupid cancer…and I just wanted to scream obscenities. Joe had already asked me once today if I was going to survive…I said, “when was the last time you saw your mother give up?” and he said, “Never”…I couldn’t let the kid down.

After climbing into the truck I looked out the window to hide my face and I cried…the teary kind…the kind where water streams from your eyes but you don’t make a sound. There may be no crying in fishing but there is certainly crying in cancer.

My biggest struggle these past 2-3 weeks has been fatigue. I have come to dread things like…getting dressed…walking to the other room…turning off the light switch…picking up my feet when I walk…that kind of stuff.

I know this is all part of cancer treatment but today is different, today I am going to TAKE A VITAMIN! I am going to take that vitamin and then take a nap…and when I wake up I am going to feel..uhh…I will let you know.

These are the vitamins I take now. Upon actually reading something about it, I learned that calcium and vitamin D are much more important than I thought. The other is a multi-vitamin that comes in a powder form as I tend to “reverse digest” the regular vitamins. If you’re not good at keeping vitamins down, I would totally recommend this version.

So I have only been doing this for 2 days but I think it is actually helping. My vitamin D levels were very low (19 for those of you in the know) so I have much pill swallowing in my future.

Now…I spent all morning trying to find a way to take the above picture and post it here. Trouble was first I couldn’t find the cable for my small digital camera…I don’t say this lightly as I turned rooms upside down and mumbled unkind things under my breath.

So I moved on to the older camera that uses floppy discs and discovered the battery was dead. As opposed to hurling it into the woods like I wanted, I decided to charge the battery only to discover I had no idea where the battery charger was. So after crying a little, I took baby steps up the stairs to hunt this thing down.

Somewhere amidst the tangle of cords that have been so carefully shoved into the drawer I found it…so I popped the battery in to charge and took off to buy floppy discs.

At my local Rite Aid I think I found the last existing box of floppy discs and a fabulous deal on mascara…one that provides both volume AND length!

Feeling a little less frustrated, I headed home to take my picture only to have the camera start beeping at me and flashing “disc protect” on the screen. The tears began to flow again as I muttered, “I just want to take one picture…is that asking too much?“…which then turned into “you better find some protection you #$%& disc!”

After a deep breath and a little unused logic I figured out that the little square dealy on the disc needed to be moved over…then all was suddenly right with the world until I took a very brief look at myself… and realized that I had totally over-reacted (you think?) and that I should be soooooo past this kind of behavior after all I have been through.

This is so much tougher than I thought…but I think I can still say that I am willing to fight against it…and fight for it…the lessons that is.

Yesterday I cried…I cried a lot actually…I cried because I can’t work in my garden or ride my horse…I can’t sit in the boat on fishing trips..my kids argue ALL the time..my knee really hurts…my husband wants me to be healthy again and, well, everyone knows that’s out of my hands…

I cried because the hair on the top of my head is growing exponentially slower then the hair on the back and sides (that’s THE back and THE sides, not my back and sides…just in case you were reading really fast and misread that line) and it looks really weird…

I also cried because my next scan is in two days and frankly I am a bit ready to run away from home and live in denial…someplace where it is always 75* and there is a slight breeze and everyone is kind and your hair grows all at the same speed..and food has no calories…oh wait, that’s Heaven…well something close to that.

Being human is hard…fighting my nature is hard…learning lessons is hard… excuse me while I go take care of these bags under my eyes…(I hear Prep. H works wonders)

“I remember when, I remember, I remember when I lost my mind There was something so pleasant about that place. Even your emotions had an echo In so much space”

This is from Gnarls Barkleys song “Crazy”…a song I will be singing a bit louder when it rotates up on my i-pod next time… I don’t know if it was the radiation or the IV junk or the multitude of pills I have taken or age…but unless it is written down, I don’t remember it…and even then it’s dicey!

Gotta go call Ken about some hay now…wait what was I going to do? Oh ya more coffee…no that wasn’t it.

Hear Ye Hear Ye… The fluid in my lung cavity is going away and the cancer cells are dying !!! Let all who hear these words say AMEN!!

(The rest is going to have to wait until I can get past these tears of joy)

White whispers rise

Prayers like raindrops in reverse ascend

Angels kneel on Heaven’s brim

Arms wide open with the weight of them

Deliver them to the lap of God

Who opens each one and hears their voice

Each one pleading for another

Some who know her and some who don’t

Which leaves her speechless as she rests

Upon these prayers like a feather nest

LH 7/09

Thank you everyone for your prayers

We, in the Pacific Northwest, are about to have a long “streak” of hot weather…no pun intended…yes there was, who am I kidding?! Our 7 day forecast shows mid 90’s which translates into wilting…melting…laying on the tile floor surrounded by fans for those of us not used to temperatures that resemble the gates of hell.

So this picture is now going to be my screen saver for the next few days and we will see how well the mind-body connection works to cool me off while staring at it…drinking ice water…sitting on an ice pack…with my feet in a bucket of ice…maybe that’s considered cheating…

Well wishes to all of you in the greater Seattle area…stay cool…and don’t get too hot either : ) (oh brother that was corny)

The weird weather we’ve been having and something I read last night inspired me to think about this today. I think over the last few years I have become the queen of analogies and metaphors and word pictures…just trying to learn my lessons over here…trying not to waste what’s been put in front of me…so here comes word picture #147…

We have all been through “Life’s storms”…and if you haven’t…brace yourself… storm avoidance doesn’t last forever… Sometimes you hear it approaching from a distance and other times is a lightning strike right in front of you.

After a while the rain comes and it pours for days or months or years. Eventually the storm passes and you emerge to look around and survey what has happened and what you see surprises you…the grass is a deep shade of green, the flowers around you are blooming in vibrant colors…trees are laden with ripe fruit…

All of this happened while you were dealing with the storm…what you didn’t realize is that while the storm was pouring on you…your storm was also watering the people around you…providing for them encouragement to grow and bloom and make fruit(preferably peaches)…

Think about it…that’s all I’m asking…

Now that I have had a bit of great news from the Dr. I have high hopes that I will be able to start doing a few things again…but for now I am still waiting.

If I am lucky…really lucky…I wont have to wait too long to start vacuuming my floors and area rugs, leaning over toilets with a toilet scrubber, digging wet clothes out of the washing machine and teaching my kids how to scrub the bathtub…I have to draw the line somewhere!

If I am super duper lucky I will able to vacuum my car…and if I am super duper duper lucky…I might be able to finally roll over in bed without sitting up first, flipping over, and then laying back down. It wakes me up too much and then I have to get up and go…well you get the picture I am sure… And finally the dream come true part of this would be to ride Holly again. I sure miss that…for now all I can do is wait and dream of household chores.

I will try to make this short…wish me luck. Several years ago I was riding shotgun with a friend in her car. She asked me a very odd question…”What do you think of dragonflies?” “When I am with you I think of dragonflies”

Oh gee…thanks so much…”I really don’t like them” I replied…”They are ugly and have no sense of direction…they really don’t have a reason to exist.

Silence…lots of silence…then she asked, “What does that remind you of?” Well, you kinda had to be there for the conversation before this conversation… I replied “Me…that is exactly how I feel about me.”

After having had my first battle with breast cancer and the resulting surgery… two 10lb babies… focusing 99.9% of my days on raising an autistic daughter… I felt ugly…I was in survival mode and I truly felt that anyone just this side of Charles Manson could raise my daughter better than I could.

Thus began a series of conversations with God about the dragonfly…questions arose such as, “Are you trying to tell me something?” “Prove it”…you know, simple stuff like that.

Next thing you know they were everywhere…I will list a few places… 1.everywhere I went outside my home 2.everywhere else

I have been amazed over the years how I have grown to love the dragonfly…it’s an amazing, fabulously created, thought provoking little bug…that in it’s beautiful dance has taught me so much.

Sometimes during the healing process I have felt like I am doing absolutely nothing but sitting around. I have even been known to sit around for a while, then take a nap, and then sit around some more. Truth is, healing is hard work.

Just to heal a cut your body has to do a lot of gross stuff.

1. homeostasis…where your body starts forming a clot to stop the bleeding.
2. inflammation…where your body sends increased blood supply to the cut.
3. proliferative… the body creates new blood vessels so new tissue can form.
4. remodeling…this is where collagen is realigned and dead cells are destroyed.

That sounds like a lot of work to me…imagine what it must be doing all day every day fighting cancer…cancer that is in very many places…wow I am tired…thank goodness I am sitting down.

Added to the healing process is daily life…and lately daily life has had a few twists…not good ones…and let me just say this is really stressing me out. I don’t have enough energy to be stressed out…

So here is my request…No more divorce, cancer, phlebitis, dermatitis, sinusitis, bursitis, abscesses, gallstones, knock knees or swollen gums until I am better.

It’s not that I am not concerned about your problems, it’s just that too many people are having them at the exact same time.

So I suppose I could whittle it down to one friend with several medium to large calamities like septic system failure or a severe mold problem in your basement… or a few friends with very minor problems say…an overdue parking ticket or a mosquito bite… Talk amongst yourselves xoxo

When I was growing up I would look forward every year to watching Cinderella on TV. This was not the animated version…it was a play on film. I loved it.I believe it was filmed in the late 50’s or early 60’s. I even found it at Blockbuster once.

Anywhooo, Cinderella sang a song that started out…”In my own little corner in my own little chair, I can be whatever I want to be.” That song was floating through my head this morning so I was tempted to think about what I would be doing if I didn’t have cancer.

I would love to learn how to make pottery…the wheel, the clay, the kiln etc… I would love to grow a beautiful garden…one that I don’t have to plant fake flowers from Michael’s in so it looks like I watered it every day..I would love to learn to take moody, breathtaking pictures…essentially create something out of nothing, which I don’t think is setting the bar too high…no I don’t think it is.

But what I would love most to do…before I did any of those things…which I can’t do anyway so never mind… is to lie back on my horse, in the sun, while she grazes. That would be a most perfect afternoon.

Well I gotta go…litter boxes don’t clean themselves.

This is it…Leslie Ann Warren and Stuart Damon…dorky now, but loved it then.

You can still find it at Blockbuster

I was riding in our truck the other day when I glanced at myself in the rear view mirror. YIKES! All I could see was bags under my eyes large enough to “re-use” at my local grocery store, 3 or 4 chins…I lost count, and the loss of a perfectly good neck that prior to the cancer, was a good 2 inches longer.

When I lost my hair my mom declared “oh you look so much like your great grandpa O’Hair…not the compliment a woman my age is fishing for (and the pun is not lost on me either…o’HAIR)

So in summary I am a no neck, 4 chinned, baggy eyed, bald old man…perfect.

Then I thought about the title of my blog. At first it offered me no comfort whatsoever, but I thought a little longer about it. The beauty really is your story…your heart…your life…

Ladies…feel free now to switch to a less expensive night cream and live, laugh and love instead.

Life is funny isn’t it? Well, that’s all I have to say…thank you for your time. Just kidding… I’m procrastinating because I really don’t want to tell anyone what I did. I need to though otherwise the cancer is going to grab on to the stress from the guilt and we don’t want that to happen…we are trying to kill those suckers not feed them!

So I did something the other night. I was so frustrated with myself afterward…I can’t tell you exactly what it was I did because I am not mature enough yet… but let’s just say…well let’s just say that we all have our weak moments…and this one left me feeling guilty and ashamed of myself…it was caused purely by a lack of courage…grit…guts…backbone…nerve…you get the picture. What I needed to do was just “Cowgirl Up”…face it and deal with it and not fear it…THAT’S IT!! I really shouldn’t have been afraid…that’s what really screwed me up…thank you so much for helping me figure it out. Phew, I feel better and I will know better next time. Now I realize that my job is to do my part and leave the results up to someone far more capable than I am.

It’s like a huge weight just fell off of me…gotta go…I really want to weigh myself for some reason.