Who Am I . . .Where Does My Path Lead . . . .

I am from sharp yellow #2 pencils, corduroy jumpers made from McCall patterns, wool knitted mittens wet with melting snow and stacks and stacks of books to read every week.
I am from summer at the pool, pony tails, roller skates, Schwinn bicycles, and hand-me-down blue jeans.

I am from watching drive-in movies from the back of a station wagon, waffle ball tournaments in the backyard, and perfect attendance in grade school.

I am from girls camp and summer boyfriends and long car trips to the Black Hills, Utah, Texas, Montana, and Minnesota.

I am from the heart of the west, flyover country, a red state with a redder governor. The pledge of allegiance, `you are my sunshine’ and personal prayer every morning.

I am from piano lessons and band concerts and running through the sprinkler in the backyards of neighbors.

I am from hand-cranked, homemade vanilla ice cream, hot dogs and hamburgers on a charcoal grill.

I am from slumber parties and football games and pep rallies and track and field days.I am from petunias planted under bay windows with dew drops clinging to their petals every morning, long clover chains, blowing dandelion seeds to earn a wish, chasing fireflies on summer nights and putting them in a jar so they’d light up my room at bedtime.

I am from a prayer before dinner at six, served by hands that smelled like Jergens lotion.

I am from adult conversations about war and religion and neighbors and bills and politics and dreams and books and work.

I am from warm, honey buttered scones, pot roast after church on Sunday, chili, fried chicken, macaroni and cheese, mashed potatoes and gravy, meat loaf, and apple pie.

I am from tomato soup with grilled cheese sandwiches, green beans with real bacon, tuna and noodle casserole, and spaghetti and meatballs.

I am from telling the truth even when it hurt.

I am from two brunette, both introverted and an extroverted making me something in between.I am from the careful one and the risk taker.

I am from advice like `duck and cover’ and `look both ways’ and `wash your hands’ and `pretty is as pretty does’ and `study hard’ and `work hard’ and `don’t forget to say your prayers tonight.’

I am from God. Protected by angels. And now I know I’m led by His Spirit.From the heart of it all…a place that’s good to be from.

I am from generations who grew their own food, made their own clothes, built their own homes .

I am from the ones I love still living. From a family I was born into, to a family I constructed.

I am from boxes and boxes of photographs, the names and the nameless, of generations past and present that alternately thrill me and haunt me.

I am from other people’s dreams I never shared to living my own.

I am from small successes, big failures, and multitudes of experiences between those two extremes.

I am from guilt that never quite disappears to a hope that no one can steal.

Now That My Cancer Has Returned . . . .

. . . You can't take the pain away.

One of the hardest things about being the mother, father sister, friend, aunt, or cousin of a cancer patient is being unable to take their pain away. There is no kissing of boo-boos with cancer.
As I write this blog entry I'm recovering from minor wrist surgery. That will include two weeks of PT. The very cute guy (snack and a half!) in the PT clinic has a mean streak that his long brunette hair and beautiful blue eyes doesn't hide once he has gotten hold of my arm! They like to call PT physical therapy but I know it is really physical torture! I'm sure that if I ran into my torturer at the mall or a bookstore he would not recognize me because I won't have that twisted grimace of pain on my face. It's the only way he has ever seen my face.

Today as the my PT was making my wrist go places it did not want to go. I had to wonder why God had not come up with a better way to let me know when something is wrong with my body, a better way or method than pain, like a color change or a really special ring tone.

There are times where there are actual color changes in my body. If I turn blue or yellow, I know something is wrong. There are sounds, too, Like ringing in my ears or a rumble in my bowels.

But for the most part my body has stuck with the tried and true method . . . Pain.

This is my bodies method of warning and there is a reason for it. With pain you have to take notice, you have to pay attention to it. You can for the most part ignore the color yellow or a hissing or a buzzing until it is to late. Pain has the advantage of making you stop RIGHT now. When my car makes a funny noise i don't stop I just drive on. I don't think I would drive on if my car gave me a whack in the nose instead!!

The thought of a better way got me to thinking . . .

Why not a better way of sharing pain? Most of us would gladly take on the pain of a loved one. We want to, but we can't.

On TV I see veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan whose bodies are far more worse than my wrist. These men and women must do much harder PT rehab than I do.

I would be more than willing to share their pain, but I can't. This body of mine is the only one I have. It is the only one I can do PT for.

I know that you want to share the pain that I and other cancer patients must carry for a time or even to death. But just like me you can't. Each of us has only one body and through a plan that we may not totally understand pain is not transferable. I recall when a friend of mine was killed in a motorcycle accident at the young age of twenty-seven. His grandmother was a close personal friend of mine. While visiting with here shortly after the accident she said " it makes no difference how old your child(grand) is or how old you are when your child dies it's just plain wrong." She was right than and her words are still true today.

We can share through prayer, through presence, through encouragement, but not in the body itself. We can not live without one another, but there are also points beyond which we cannot go.

This is one of life's strange paradoxes. We must have one another to create life and to give it meaning and yet we are also alone in this life.

Now that my cancer has returned there is once again no way to kiss the Boo-Boo and take my pain away.

Of course, kissing my Boo-Boo was never really intended to take away my pain . . . . . . . . . .

It takes away my loneliness.

Now that my cancer has returned, My loved ones can't trade places with me to take the pain away, but they can kiss the Boo-Boo and take the loneliness away. . . .

Now That My Cancer Has Returned. . . .

I'm Committed. . . . there are probably friends of mine who think I ought to be "committed." Like in an institution, but that's not what I mean.

Support, control, challenge and commitment, the four necessities for recovery. Commitment to self-growth and self-wellness and commitment to something beyond. . . some greater growth and greater wellness as well.

Commitment means action, a plan, doing something to get results. You can be in favor of something but not committed to it. Like democracy. I can say I'm all for democracy but If I don't vote than I'm not really committed to it. I might think it's a good idea to help the hungry, but until I do something. . . give money, volunteer at a food or homeless shelter kitchen or lobby my congressman, than I'm not really committed to easing the pain of hunger.

To resist the reemergence of my cancer I have to take action against it. It has to be my action, not someone else's. I know that chemotherapy and surgery and my other drug therapies are my commitment to action. These are my decisions to make. In the actual doing however it is the action of others. . . researchers, pharmacists, nurses and physicians. If I stop at only cooperating with or accepting actions. I have not really made the commitment to fighting cancer.

Every day I have committed to sweeping cancer cells from my body. I have a virtual broom, it is strait, red with stiff, strong bristles. An as I sweep the circle of my cancer gets smaller, smaller, smaller, smaller and smaller until it has been swept totally away. This is just like the songs I sing that help me to visualize my cancer just being washed away! By the time I am done singing and sweeping all my cancer cells will be gone! This visualization is something I can only do for myself.

I have committed myself to taking action to heal myself that is available to only myself. Visualization, meditation, and learning all I can about my disease and its treatment I will have better control and commitment to sweeping away my cancer. By sending the right message to my body and soul I have committed to healing myself.

The more I can do for myself the greater my own sense of commitment, and the better I Begin to feel about myself. This in turn increases the peace and reduces the stress in my body and gives the healing agents in my body room to work.

The best way I have found to relive my stress is through prayer and faith. These two action provide me with control of body and soul. Faith has giving me a control that I did not know I had and has made my commitment to action a reality. In turn by doing these things my spiritual health has filled all of the empty spaces cancer is trying to control. I am now in more control!

Commitment is determination and action stuck together, like peanut butter and jelly sandwich. It is seeing the goal and kicking the ball toward it.

Getting well takes commitment, which isn't easy. It surely is rewarding, though!

Now That My Cancer Has Returned, I'm Committed.

Now That My Cancer Has Returned. . . .

I sing . . . . I always enjoyed singing, but now I sing all the time. It's almost impossible to sing a full-throated note and be tied up by fear at the same time.

I sing all sorts of songs from hymns, ballads, pop, blues, rock, folk and some opera (look out Americas got Talent) . . . . anything that comes to mind. I even make up crazy songs as I go along. Sometimes the words make sense and sometimes not. Sometimes they rhyme, other times not. Some have familiar tunes, but most I make up as I go along!

After one of my first surgeries I could not sing. The muscles in my abdomen where spending all their energy just trying to help me breath. My diaphragm had little or no power. It was all I could do to get word out of my mouth.

Well I decided that if that where all I could do, that's what I would do! It is better to sing a small tiny song than no song at all!

Like most doors that close this one caused another to open. since I could not than and even now sing all that well, I began to compose. All though compose might not be the right word to use, it was more like I started to "adjust" songs.

I like to sing these "adjusted" song while I'm in the shower. That has always been the safest place. As I wash my hair, I sing, "Gonna wash that cancer right out of myself... and send it on its way." I adjusted the spiritual "Oh,Freedom." I sing, "No more cancer. No more cancer. No more cancer inside of me. And before I'll be a slave, I'll put cancer in its grave, and go home to my Lord, and be free." To the tune of " If You're Happy and You Know It Clap Your Hands" I sing I'm glad I'm a little cake of soap. Than repeating, I'll slippie and I'll slidie all over my hidie and I'll wash the cancer off with my soap!!

OK, its all right to go ahead and say it. . . . these songs are pretty bad! But as they are just for my hearing they work.

Singing dose not automatically wash the cancer from this body of mine. Although it might help, who knows? I do know that it helps to take away my fear.

You just can't sing and be afraid at the same time. That's why we sing in the dark. It is also very difficult to sing and awfulize at the same time. Awfulizing (I made this word up. . . I think?) is the process of imagining all the awful things that might happen to us. We spend more time at it than we realize. The less awfulizing we do, the more likely we are to get well. The immune system doesn't like awfulizing. My immune system does like singing. Even mine!

Singing is as natural as loving. They are very closely related. . . . two limbs of the same tree trunks, one root system. Together they spread out a canopy of shade.

Both those limbs get weather-beaten, however. They are besieged by frost, drought, parasites and blight. It's a wonder they survive at all, and in some people they do not. But their tree is rooted deep in the soil of the Spirit.

With all these blights and plagues attacking (cancer!) them, though, what was natural becomes unnatural. How many of us refuse to sing, claim they can't sing, give all sorts of excuses - from illness to shyness - why they must not sing? We do the same with loving. We're afraid we'll be hurt. We may have already been hurt. We're afraid we'll be rejected or just look silly.

I suspect we can learn a lot about how we love by how we sing.

My search for healing and wholeness include singing. I don't have to go on stage. I don't have to use a recognizable tune or sing on key. Neither do you! Just "croak" out whatever words you can remember or that just come to you. Sing your prayers (I do, it makes for interesting looks from the cats) and sing away your fears. Do it in your bathroom with the water running.

Sing along with Nickel Creek or Gerard Butler or Emmylou Harris or even Indigo Girls.

Singing leaves no room for fear. Even if singing does not cure you or me it will help to heal our souls. This is after all the goal of our lives. . . . not just to live a long time but to live well.

Now That My Cancer Has Returned I Sing... try it, "Happy Days Are Here Again. The Cancer's Gone Away Again!"

Now That My Cancer Has Returned . . . .

. . . I'm learning to see myself through the eyes of love .

Those who love me have much better eyes than mine. The eyes of those who love us are always the best. Unlike the old saying love is not blind at all. Love see with the eyes of God, not the eyes of the world. Love has remarkable clarity of vision, the scope of a eagle in flight, free from all those debris of reality.

There where things about me, before cancer that I could not love. There must have been a part of me that need the cancer so it could be cut out and through away. I don't quite understand these feelings, but somehow I feel it is true. It's like when you set the alarm to go off at six in the morning and you wake up just before the alarm goes off, even though I usually snooze steadily on till seven. The body just knows.

You may not feel this way at all. I have a cancer friend who has often said to me " I'm blameless. I didn't do anything at all to cause this". I believe her. She knows herself. I know myself, too.

I look at me with the eyes of reality, and what do I see? A middle aged woman who is once again losing her hair. Those bright Hazel green eyes are more often than not bloodshot. They peek out through swollen lids. The veins beneath my skin have taken on the look of jagged and jaded lightning flashes. My lips are sometimes swollen, puffy and pale. That's the view through the eyes of reality.

Than there are the eyes of love. My dearest friend says to me, " when I look at you I see the love of friendship, sisterhood that dew me to you all those years ago". She tells me to remember what good times we have had when we would hike to a quite pinnacle and sit or lay on our backs and watch the night sky. We would tell each other what best friends we were and would always be.

And now you say to me hurry back. . . we miss you . . . I miss the view through your eyes. "You have no idea how important you have always been to me and always will be. You have made me believe I could and can make a difference." You have loved me just the way I am. Those aren't the eyes of reality, those are the eyes of love.

They see me as I want to be and yet, for them, already am.

Now that my cancer has returned, I can see myself through their eyes. I like seeing me through the eyes of love.