Dust to Dust

Luke 11:36 “If thy whole body therefore be full of light, having no part dark, the whole shall be full of light, as when the bright shining of a candle doth give thee light.

Dust to Dust

People are who they are, 

and kill what they must,

they’ll continue where they will 

and dust what they dust.

I am who I am

I shant live to die

They tell me I can’t 

I don’t accept their lie. 

Society lay claim

All glitter is gold

The shine is now frittered

The soul has been sold

Tune into the Father 

For all pain to be lost

An umbrella in the rain

The Word now embossed.

Cleansed be the body

From sin do we cry

A Light stuffed bin

Our peace when we die.

From now on 

I’ll kill what I must

As my Savior reigns still

My ashes become dust.

Eleventh Hour Gift

James 4:17 “Therefore to him that knows to do good, and does it not, to him it is sin.”

A Moral Compass

Yesterday I was reading one of my morning emails by Max Lucado, this one was titled “An Eleventh Hour Gift”. If you’re a Christian, you might know where I’m going with this and what it all means. The eleventh-hour gift was the gift of forgiveness as Jesus hung on the cross dying.

When one criminal hurled accusations at Jesus, the criminal on His other side chastised him for saying such a thing about a man who had done nothing wrong! “Yes we did something wrong, yes, but this man is innocent!” No one knows exactly what was said while three men hung bleeding to death on a cross but Jesus said something profound, “Today you will be with me in paradise.” My faith tells me that THAT is the kind of man Jesus was/and IS all about, love and forgiveness.

What? This criminal? Paradise? Full of sin gets to see paradise? Yes, people, that’s what Jesus’ death was for this tainted world, forgiving our sin-filled nature. Did these men attend church? Did they wash Jesus’ feet? Did they tithe and read scripture regularly, picking it apart word for word so they got it right with the Lord? Do they get to see paradise too? 

It gets tricky and I believe this is why we have an era stuck in a world judging God/Jesus and the moral compass. They answer to no one and forcing them to read a Bible that is full of sinners, rapist, killers, sodomy, and incest, the line of teaching gets lost and they come out on the other end with their own truth. Atheist didn’t become that way because they DIDN’T read the Bible, no, more than likely they read it and came away with their own summation.

I have a son, nieces, and nephews from blood and marriage and I know the different upbringings each of them had and what they carry with them. They define God in their own way, no matter what the Bible says, their parents said, ministers say, they come to their own conclusion of what a Moral Compass even is; they answer to no one. And even the ones that turned out to be Christians, came out believing ‘God didn’t mean it this way or that way, again, making their own truth fit what they’ve read and learned.

This is sad but when I read that email of Max Lucado’s it seemed pretty clear to me, Jesus didn’t die because we were all perfect in our moral compass worlds. He died because we are ALL sinners. So does that mean we get left behind because we’re out here with our high and mighty Moral Compass? We do everything right and honorable and fall on occasion, so does that mean we’re just going to be forgotten in our eleventh hour? I don’t believe so.

Will all of the children growing up today be forgotten because they don’t understand what the bible and the message said? No, they won’t! They are not being taught and much of what is taught is misconstrued, mixed and a jumbled up mess of laws, vows, deaths, and sins, they see no hope in the Word and are not taught of the HOPE in the Word.

People today are so vindictive, so eager to have the upper hand and smite the neighbor, it is a long line of misconceptions we teach our kids that it is okay, because of what, God forgives? TO ME, it is us, who already know that it’s a sin who will have trouble ‘knocking on heavens door.’

What I’m saying is, today is Good Friday, it is the day designated as the day Jesus was hung on the cross. I say designated because no one, and I mean NO ONE, knows of the day or hour our Lord was hung on the cross. One thing we Christians ARE certain of is that He died with one last breath forgiving a sinner who didn’t know any better all of his life, that Jesus was the God that many searches for. He forgave mankind, point blank!

I remember when I broke my femur last September and I laid crying in pain, what kept me sane at the moment was knowing Jesus suffered more as He made his way to the cross. The images of Jesus being whipped and beaten as He dragged the heavy wood to the top of ‘Skull’s Hill’ gave me something to focus on other than what I was enduring. Every drop of bloodshed, every laceration, every wail of pain from an innocent man, left my pain feeling small and petty.

As the past six weeks have been filled with pains all over my body that I DID NOT expect to feel, I thought I could handle any pain after Septembers rain of pain but this pain is just as immeasurable and I failed to conjure the images that I know might carry me through to the finish. I feel like a failure as I head into my New Year, no longer looking forward to ringing in the New Year in the fashion that I’ve done for years now. It’s all changed. Life has changed, the world has changed.

Easter Sunday will be different this year. My husband has to work, my son has to work, the family will rejoice with food and one another, sharing and caring and I’ll be left alone to celebrate my New Year in the fashion that I saw it coming, alone, with the One that forgave man, all of mankind, for being the sinners they are.

One thing I can say is that this Sunday I will RISE from my bed, and embrace the chance to live another day, basking in His glory! Another sunrise and sunset to tell the people of the world that no matter the sin, no matter the pain and shame you feel, there is the eleventh-hour forgiveness awaiting each and every one of you. Remember, it’s your magnetic moral compass that will lead you north or south

James 5:15 “And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him.”

James 4:11 “Speak not evil one of another, brethren. He that speaketh evil of his brother, and judgeth his brother, speaketh evil of the law, and judgeth the law: but if thou judge the law, thou art not a doer of the law, but a judge.”

Unknown quote: “The more fake you are, the bigger your circle will be. The more real you are, the smaller your circle will be.

These are well known facts.”

May each and every one of you have a most Blessed Celebratory Day as we remember the reason for the Season!

Cancer: NOT a Death Sentence

James 5:16 “Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.”

Not a Death Sentence

When I was first diagnosed with this dastardly illness that everyone takes to be a death sentence, I remained calm and wasn’t going to be allowed to be charged by fear. Fear to me was the tactic of you HAVE to do chemotherapy, the kind with a port, or you will DIE! DIE! They tell you!  "You need radiation, we need to cut the crap out of you then we’ll hammer it with chemo, that has been our proven course for years now and we’re sticking to it!" 

I said, “No, give me time to think.”

“Think? You’re gonna die! What is there to think about? Die DIE DIE!” They basically screamed until their voices drifted off to the distance because no one was listening. “We’re losing her. There goes our $350,000 kickback!”

I told my friends I had the Big C and at first, they were sympathetic, and lifted me in prayer, and told me they’d be there as I went through… 'the treatment’. Umm but wait, I’m not doing treatment. Suddenly they started to fall by the wayside like scales of a fish. After they told me I was crazy, didn’t know what I was doing, they knew better, have lost more people from this disease than me, blah blah blah, is all I heard; I smelled the fear in THEM. The disease meant FEAR to them. I DO NOT see it as FEAR! I see it as a time for change and growth. 

Some people are still my friends but no longer what I thought of as close friends, they’re distant friends, no different than Peter, Paul or Mary, they’re there. What I didn’t expect to happen was for new friends to come out of the woodwork. They were on my friends' list but we didn’t converse much, it was those women and men who came forward in prayer and support! Those were the ones when I broke my femur showed they cared by their concern for me. They came out on day one of my diagnosis and stood firm in their support, never to waiver no matter what I decided! THAT is what a friend is!

I showed people the success of others through The Truth About Cancer, and Chris Wark and how people are out here surviving WITHOUT chemotherapy. They went a different HEALTHY route without drugs and some ten and twenty years later, hundreds if not thousands of people still have no signs of the disease. Google either one of the above names, don't just take my word for it. And here I’m laughed and scoffed at because I don’t believe in the conventional route to saving myself? To ME, it’s like those hypocrites who say, “Oh yeah, I’m a Christian.” But when asked by God himself to do the craziest thing you’ve ever heard, they’re like, “Well, I’m not going THAT far. He put drugs and doctors here for a reason.” That’s all well and good for YOU but not for ME. A slap in the face to me AND my faith! 

I showed people what they needed and how to change their diet and some did, for a month or so but they weakened and returned to their old gobbly good ways. ‘I see it, I eat it’ mentality, not caring if it is toxic, poison, or unhealthy. Set in their ways, they do what they want. Hmm… funny, that’s all I want, is to do what *I* want. But for some reason I’m wrong and they're what, sickly, coughing, wheezing, colds, flu, numerous illnesses many times a season? Then there’s me, I just have a disease everyone thinks is deadly. Obesity is deadly, heart disease is deadly, COPD is deadly, but hey, they have a drug to help you out there too. No reason to change up your eating habits, it’s all good. Go conventional, the government wouldn’t lie to YOU now, would it? You’re special, you voted, it’s your team of saving grace. God slides into home and He’s OUT! 

A Death Sentence huh? I felt this lump in 2014 and through hours of painstaking research I found out that it has been in my body festering seven to ten years BEFORE it would ever be discovered. So about 2004 something happened so tragically in my life and body that the cell woke up and started to grow, from a dust mote sized cell to a tumor. In 2017 I was ‘diagnosed’ so when they give me statistics like ‘this could keep you alive for ten and twenty years’, I’ve already been LIVING with it for ten almost twenty years. Statistics are meaningless, TO ME! 

Chemotherapy has saved so many lives but in hindsight, how many has it killed? My trauma was so deep that no, the alternative route was not going to work for me but neither is the chemo that’s killing everybody either. I asked my doctor to let’s work something out. He is complying, I think because in some way he WANTS to know if there are other ways to heal this disease. He knows deep down that there is more to this disease than feeding it drugs for the rest of people's lives and let them die on chemo. My doctor says I'm challenging! I told him, "How else would you grow if I didn't challenge you?"

Just like obesity, heart disease, COPD and a host of other illnesses, there is ANOTHER way besides drugs and all their deadly side effects. The doctor sometimes gives you the clear picture of what is going to happen if you don’t change your diet but here, take this pill in the interim and we’ll get your disease under control. Control not CURED!

I watched a series on Asian medicine this week and how doctors over in Malaysia, Singapore and other places are all dealing with alternative treatments to this disease because they know, the Big C is NOT a death sentence! There is NO one treatment that can treat all of the people the same. Every cancer is different and should be treated as such with each individual patient! The one doctor said that his wish was to see the oncologist, nutritionist, naturopath all sit down together and discuss the individuals' line of treatment. In a perfect world, that is how it would and should be but we’re in a conditioned world trained to do what we’re SCARED into doing. And we’re okay with that, well I’m NOT!

I, like many before me, have given you tools to save yourself. It’s a hard sell as it's free and you only took a bite, you didn’t want to change, you just wanted a taste. Obviously, a healthy life doesn’t taste good TO YOU because you are conditioned to eat meat and potatoes, you’re good. And that’s okay, it’s just not okay for me anymore, I want to save MY life. I don’t want the government to control what toxins they spray on my food, I don’t want them to own a conglomerate of pharmaceuticals to hand out like candy to the people who like candy or the people that never cared for candy. We’re all individual souls! We’re not on the conveyor belt of life.

I’ve given you what I could, now I need to focus on MY healing. Your support means the world to me, to those who’ve stuck around. To those that didn’t stick around all I can do is pray for you. I’ve been an open book, I have not lied nor manipulated, all I did was hand you the truth, or the truth that I know. May you all wander through life seeking the truth within you, and be honest with yourself, don’t sugarcoat it because He knows and sees all He’s just waiting for YOU to admit, your truth. 

God bless you all for letting me into your lives. And thank you for sharing your lives with me. This has been a profound experience and I’m honored to have shared it with you, and continue to share! 

All praise and Glory to God! 

Matt. 9:35-38  "And Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people. But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them, because they fainted, and were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd. Then saith he unto his disciples, The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few; Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth labourers into his harvest."

Smart Phone?

Rom. 12:2 “And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.”

One thing I can say, I’m not a conformist. I’ve never conformed to what other people conform to and diligently justify as a means of growing when in essence and truth, be honest, they’re conforming. They will never admit it because it is just a form of growth. My son and I often go back and forth on this issue because he tells me I ‘need’ to keep up with the times. 

I’m on the outside looking in, being bullied taunted and teased all because I don’t conform to what everyone else is doing. If anyone has known me for a while, they KNOW this about me, accepts me for being ‘different’, just as I accept them for being different. But why is it that *I* always feel like the bad guy ready to go sulk under a Weeping Willow.

The day came when hubby walked in the door with a Smartphone. Seriously, NOTHING else was offered (I don’t know, I wasn’t in on the ritual), but the house drained of its energy. I’m a high energy person and thrive on it but lately, with everything going on, the energy is being sucked right out of me. This day was no different, in he walked with a Smartphone and all I could blindly feel is suffocation. Alone, I now would be totally alone.

He was as happy as a kid in a candy store discovering the new flavor of gum. Do you want to hear something ironic? Look up the term ‘smart’ in the dictionary.

Smart:
verb (used without object):
to be a source of sharp, local, and usually superficial pain, as a wound.
to be the cause of a sharp, stinging pain, as an irritating application, a blow, etc.

verb (used with object):
to cause a sharp pain to or in.

It kind of scared me that this is what people are buying into, yet calling ME a bully? 

Is the adjective form of the word supposed to make me feel better? It didn’t.

adjective, smart·er, smart·est.
quick or prompt in action, as persons.
having or showing quick intelligence or ready mental capability:
a smart student.
shrewd or sharp, as a person in dealing with others

He sat mesmerized with his new toy for hours, picking its ‘brain’ and learning all of the ins and outs. Oh, what fun. 
I said to him, quite sarcastically, “They have a doctor for that.” 
He said, “For what?”
I replied, “For people who feel the need to carry a computer in their pockets day in and day out.”

You might get the feeling that I don’t like technology, and you’d be 100% correct! He has been a part of this techno world since he was eighteen, me, just fifteen years now. I only accepted a computer as a means to write. I didn’t like the advent of the microwave oven, why would I be all happy to access the Worldwide Web and it is at my fingertips as I shop, drive, sit with family? Oh wait, that’s what this progressive world is all about. I  realized years ago, I don’t fit in anywhere now, great.

Mysteriously within two weeks my phone conveniently malfunctioned and basically fried. I was now without a phone and I was dreading what was going to walk through that door for me. Just put a bag over my head and let me die now!

A knock on the door brought this new world to me, I felt like Alice in Wonderland about to slip through the hole. Hold on tight, Joni!
“Look at the pretty case. Look at the all of the apps, games, weather bug,  camera, and best of all Google!” 
“Big deal. I just want a phone and texting.
“But, but, but…”
“PHONE AND TEXTING!”

I had to say it loud because, for one, I am not easily swayed, two I am obviously not heard, and three no one really understands who I am. Again, I am alone, very alone. Oh, I don’t have to be, I can conform to the world and find joy in what brings joy to everyone else and that is having access to the Worldwide Web at their very fingertips any moment of the day. I wonder how the earth ever survived all of these years without this pleasurable tool. I bet a lot of men, women, and children died without access and that’s a shame, right there. I bet a lot of men, women children died WITH the access and that’s a shame too.

I realized quite quickly I can’t text with my nails. My son tried to show me but to no avail. 
“Girls text with longer nails and have no problem.”
Getting angry I retorted, “I am not a GIRL! Obviously, I’m an old woman with arthritis!”
“A stylus, do you have a stylus?” I knew the term from the early days when my parents bought my son an iPod and he became snagged up by the Web.
“I do!” I was getting excited by the possibilities now.

I now was understanding the struggle my mother was having with the new phone my brother bought her. She complained that her old phone wasn’t working and that all of the other elderly people playing bingo had these really cool looking phones. The biggest mistake she ever allowed to spill out of her mouth. He got her the new fancy phone and now she can’t switch back. My mother is stuck with a phone she doesn’t understand.

I would at least TRY and understand this phone. My son came by the other day and helped clear some things up for me and I DO NOT and WILL NOT have any apps on my phone except texting and phone calls. There’s a concept, a phone, used to make a call, how strange. He kept trying to egg me on with the lure of a Weather Bug app. I said, NO! I have it on my computer, what in the world do I need it on my phone for. He didn’t know my hubby had painstakingly tried to get me to conform to his ways two days ago, to no avail.

The lure of conformity can weaken some and strengthen others. Conformity looks pretty all dressed up in it’s Sunday best (yup there’s an app for that too, church, sermons, and scripture right at your fingertips) I prefer my Bible but then again we’re all different. 

I won’t judge you for the love of technology and please, don’t judge me for my dislike, and no, I won’t be getting an app for THAT, whatever it is you’re trying to shine on me to lure me into your den.

Only four months into the year and already 2019 is making its mark. And we wonder why the world is in such turmoil? The sneaky snarky dark one came creeping in and you bought what he was selling. He’s left his mark, too. Let the bombardment of the justification begin, and it will.

Job 35:12 “There they cry, but none giveth answer, because of the pride of evil men.”

Rev. 15:2 “And I saw as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire: and them that had gotten the victory over the beast, and over his image, and over his mark, and over the number of his name, stand on the sea of glass, having the harps of God.”

And The Beat Goes On

Pss. 55:6 “And I said, Oh that I had wings like a dove! for then would I fly away, and be at rest.”

And The Beat Goes On

In between all the angst of the chemo days, a lot of cruddy things happen in what seems like the beat of a drum. One thing, two thing rat a tat tat, and the beat goes on. This might be the proof I needed to show you that NEGATIVITY breeds NEGATIVITY! All of the instances below began at the beginning of the acceptance of Herceptin, it's when everything was negative to me.

In the midst of our illnesses (my hubby's and mine), our three-year-old fridge decides to make an extremely loud clanking noise in the middle of the night. Loud and irritating, (fridge not hubby) my husband decides to be jarred awake and go bang on the side of the rowdy fridge. The clanking stopped, but the momentum had the cookie jar on top of the fridge, toppling over, the lid came crashing down on the floor shattering into a million pieces, and at three o’clock in the morning, clear eyes are not to be had! Clean up. * sigh *

Then our twenty-year-old clothes dryer decides to play the fridge game and begins its own riotous annoying noise. Not at three a.m. and still heating and drying, its all good, just a pain in the EAR!

His twenty-one-year-old truck decides it’s going to do some booming and banging and as we were heading home from the doctors one day the clanking was obviously the muffler, that had fallen off, dragging behind us. We pulled into a safe place (there are no safe sides of the road here), and hubby pulls the muffler off and places it in the back of the truck. We don’t litter. More sighs are in the works with maybe a few eye-rolls. Next...

Hubby looks all over for his thirteen-year-old phone. I hear something heavy and noisy clanking (this post title should be clanking) in the washer that he had just loaded and started up. I tell him the noise doesn’t sound right from a new washer, but as a man (all men) who don’t listen, goes on with his day, until its time to get clothes out of the washer and what drops to the floor? His phone! The old phone went through the entire wash, rinse and spin cycle. He fruitlessly tries to save it, to no avail. He panics. Our phones are everything to us out here in the middle of nowhere with no landline. Besides being a shop-o-holic, the man is addicted to technology (like the rest of the world)!!!!!

I finish up the clothes, drying and folding and putting away as he runs off to the store to buy a new phone. Payment will just be added to our bill so no out of empty-pocket cash necessary. My anxiety rears its head because it just seems like everything is hitting us and hitting us hard. The fridge, the dryer, the truck, chemo crud, and a clinging cold/allergy session, and now, the phone.

Two hours later he returns with what they had to offer. A deal. UH OH! I hope he didn’t… he did. He fell for what they had to offer: a Smartphone and a FREE tablet with all the fixins and trimmings. A case, a keyboard, and they even tossed in some GPS thing for the car. Swindled. A week later he was returning, the phone shield (not free) and protective phone cover, keyboard to the tablet and the case (also not free). For what they were charging him HUNDREDS of dollars for, he purchased on Amazon for under fifty bucks!

I happen to despise the smartphone and everything that it stands for. I’ll hold my ground with my stupid phone as long as I can, but wouldn’t you know it, ironically, maybe less than two weeks later since his purchase, my phone stops working. Keys don’t function, the battery barely holds a charge, and the only key that worked in the end, was a way to get my contacts before my dumb-phone went dark, never to open its eyes again. 

I cried! I wanted my stupid phone! My only active contacts on the phone were my texts to my son, a text to hubby when he was on break at work, and two calls on the weekend to my mother. That’s it! Now the phone has gone into the ether. What will this poor woman do??

Hubby snapped into action, he ordered me a phone online and it would take two days to arrive. Thank God my son has a FB messenger app that when I write to him from Facebook, it goes right to his phone. Two days not talking to him, my lifeline, would tear me to pieces. Facebook finally came in handy! The only problem? With our phone service (I have no idea what it all entails, and I don’t care to know. Technology is a blank to me, a total blank!) the only phone they force on you is, you guessed it, the Smartphone! They offer NOTHING but smartphones! 

So my phone conveniently goes up in a puff of smoke when his phone was accidentally fried. Now I'm forced to get a new phone. It’s a conspiracy. It seems everything can and is going wrong like a train derailment skidding into a stop position but no sign of slowing any time soon.
But wait all of this began happening when my perky positive self took a turn for the worse. I’m an optimist, positive sharer of love, and giver of smiles and joy, but when I knew I was going for chemo in the vein, my world toppled! TOPPLED! I lost hope, I lost laughter and joy and optimism. Optimism is what God wanted me to have but hope was veiled, I couldn’t find positivity and every single day it is a struggle to see the Light shine, and lack of sun and warmth is no help.

Also on the familial level, I feel like a forgotten soul. Do you know how hard it is to love online Spiritual Family, that actually embraces me daily, more than any other family I'm connected to? Don’t get me wrong, I love the families God has surrounded me with but it is hard to see people as caring with an every-three-month email or visit (if that) saying I’m praying for you, hope things are okay. I’ve shut down. If you want to know how I am ask ME, I’ll be glad to tell you, if you don’t ask, I won’t, it’s that easy.

I’ve written a blog for well over ten years. My family could sure learn a lot about me if they read the pain in my words but no, they’ll wait until I pass and say, “How come I didn’t know about this?” Well, you did but you didn’t care enough to read the very heart and soul of the one you claimed to have loved.

Now to turn this around into a positive! I HAVE to see positive beauty in life, the life I WANT to live and not give up on. I have a husband, a son, and a Spiritual Family that cares for me, touches me, and gives me strength every single day to go on and be the me they know me to be! I am HER!!! It’s just hard digging her out of the trenches the sandy soil has encompassed me with.

The truck still runs, the chemo might get better, we did get new phones (that’s a whole different story) and my hardy Salvias are trying to peek their heads out and show me that life IS worth sticking around for. Until I got wind of a Blizzard Warning for the end of the week. HA HA HA HA! 

I’m looking up! I need to continue writing because that is the emotional healing that I NEED. Where you all follow along, read, and support me, my family here doesn’t know much at all and is full of questions. That pretty much sets me back because my path is NOT the path they’d choose, nor would any of you for that matter, but you RESPECT my chosen path! I love you for that. 

When I say I don’t look forward to living. The family gasps! You guys reading this understand me and know that this is just a phase and offer prayer, support and strength as I wiggle my way through this setback. You lift me up and make me WANT to live! Give me a REASON to live! And just as I typed this I peeked at Facebook before posting this and here’s what greeted me. “Our thoughts and feelings have an electromagnetic reality. Manifest wisely.” 

I think my Spiritual Family actually gets this, I thank you and love you for knowing and understanding me! Manifest positivity and it powers through! Manifest negativity and everything can and will go wrong. 

Mark 1:10  "And straightway coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens opened, and the Spirit like a dove descending upon him:”

Lost: I'm searching

2 Sam. 23:4 “And he shall be as the light of the morning, when the sun riseth, even a morning without clouds; as the tender grass springing out of the earth by clear shining after rain.”

The days leading up to...

The days leading up to a chemo treatment are usually filled with anxiety. I try my meditation, my prayers, my refocusing of daily chores and hobbies, but still, I find I’m normal, in so much that, anxiety leaks through. 

I’ve been having good days filled with a lot of pain at night on my right thigh. I guess this is normal too, one of those lovely side effects. I try to understand what I signed up for but I honestly have no clue. I know I signed up for intravenous Herceptin, with no port, and it has side effects. What does it do? Well, one thing it doesn’t do is cure the Big C! It kind of sings it to sleep. 

Why do people assume that chemo is a cure? Do you not see the commercials from the ACS begging for money to help them FIND a cure? Sure they have treatments to prolong your life, but cure? THERE IS NO CURE! Just had to shout that out to those who are reading.

Here are the  COMMON side effects of Herceptin:

Diarrhea - nope
redness or irritation at injection (IV) site - well duh all needles have some pain/redness
muscle/joint/back pain - YES
stomach or abdominal pain - somewhat
Headache - not really
sleep problems (insomnia) - nope
nausea and vomiting (may be severe) _ thank God NO
weight loss - I sure hope not! Hard enough finding clothes now!
Rash - kinda
altered sense of taste - is that what that is?
mouth sores - nope
loss of appetite - still eating like a pig!
Tiredness - most definitely
cold symptoms such as stuffy nose, sinus pain, sneezing, or sore throat. - Runny nose, does that count?

Tell your doctor if you have serious side effects of Herceptin including:

bone pain,
increased coughing,
swelling of the hands/ankles/feet,
sudden unexplained weight gain,
unusual tiredness,
severe headache,
tingling or numbness (e.g., in the hands, feet, leg),
mental/mood changes, - going through menopause, so yes, before Herceptin days.
fast or pounding heartbeat, and
easy bruising or bleeding.

I don’t know the difference in BONE pain and muscle pain, I somewhat have an idea after breaking my femur. But…

THIS is the other DRUG he wanted me taking and I refused. The COMMON side effects alone scared the pants off of me! 

Common side effects of Femara include:

hot flashes,
warmth in your face or chest,
hair loss,
joint/bone/muscle pain,
tiredness,
unusual sweating or night sweats,
nausea,
diarrhea,
dizziness,
trouble sleeping,
drowsiness,
weight gain,
weakness,
flushing (warmth, redness, or tingly feeling),
headache,
constipation,
numbness/tingling/weakness/stiffness in your hand or fingers, or
pain in your hand that spreads to your arm, wrist, forearm, or shoulder.


I would hate to see what the more serious side effects are! When a trusted doctor tells you the side effects are a lot like menopause I beg to differ!!! Unless I’m a rarity among women!

This is MY choice of estrogen blocker that I showed him last Wednesday to see if he’ll ‘allow’ it in my regimen. I’m not giving him a choice.

DIM partial list of side effects:

This is not a complete list of side effects and others may occur.

One of the supplements used for estrogen dominance is diindolylmethane, or DIM, which is a natural plant-based chemical found in many cruciferous vegetables. The effects of cruciferous vegetables, such as cabbage, broccoli, and Brussels sprouts, are being studied as a treatment for cancer.[1] DIM works to create a healthy balance of estrogen and testosterone in your body and is available in capsules or tablets.

DIM Supplement warnings:
If you have a hormone-related condition, make sure to discuss DIM with your doctor, because it can sometimes block estrogen activity. Taking larger doses can be unsafe; possible side effects of using DIM supplements include headaches and nausea.

DIM Side Effects and Interactions
DIM is considered to be safe when consumed from natural sources at doses 100-200mg daily. Taking larger doses such as 600 mg each day, may cause side effects such as headaches, upset stomachs, and can cause reduced sodium levels in some people

TO ME, DIM is much safer than Femara and does the same thing in a natural way, albeit a tablet form. Yes, I’m still on a plant-based regimen! 

The Day of Dread and Doom came and looking for a chair in the chamber was almost impossible, filled with souls getting poison pumped into their systems, bald and aging, wrinkled and sagging. And then there was me with a puzzled look on my face wondering what on earth I was doing there.

The quick session was over (thirty minutes) and I was promised this one would not be as bad as the first session with the chills and pain. It was a lie as I arrived home, I went right to the bedroom cringed in pain, popping pill after pill to try and relieve some of this tension-wracked pain nursing my body and feeding the angst and desperation I never knew before.

Three hours of crying and wriggling in pain, I finally fell asleep. I woke but didn’t want to. I hurt like I’ve never hurt before. Eight years of arthritis and no meds, pain bearable but now, this pain was exhausting and unending. My mind was not accepting this. I did not in no way shape or form want to finish my life out in this kind of angst that is driving my body into the grave. My mind, almost gone. Is this what menopause is like? I don’t think so. Thank you, doctor, for bending the truth YET AGAIN!

Oh and my DIM supplement? He laughed in my face and offered me up another drug to kill me with less side effects. I said no ten times but his ears were obviously clogged so I appeased him, ok doctor, maybe next visit in three weeks.

It has been almost one week and I still feel like the crab on the ocean floor, sucking down the toxic poisons left behind. I still have my hard shell, I can still crawl and be plucked out of the water at any moment but for now, my body is filtering poison through my system and it’s not a pretty sight. Have you ever opened a crab up? Have you seen the filters and the yellow gunk that you’re told NOT to eat of the crab, just the meat? I don’t even have meat left to eat. I am a shell. My yellow gunk is on display. I have maintained my body weight since September, so I know I'm still fighting! 

My husband and son see this change in me; at their wit's end and hubby being sick with walking pneumonia, this isn’t going to fare well. Mother-in-law came out and I feel like she thinks this chemo is the cure-all I need and is good for me but then not after I tell her how it makes me feel. But then again, no one has a clue of the pain and isolation chamber I feel locked into.

I was strolling along enjoying life. Going to physical therapy three days a week when suddenly the rug was pulled out from under me and I fell, hard. Now, I get to the outside world, if I’m lucky, every three weeks for chemo. A doctor visit here and there. A stare out the window, a walk to the back door, and life going on in every way without me. I’m a shell with two eyeballs looking left and right and wondering, is someone going to get me out of here? 

I wake in the morning and don’t like who I see. I’m filled with anger, disgust, discouragement, hate, bitterness, pain and misery; all of these things are foreign to the me who just a month ago was enjoying the physical therapy, loving life and feeling God deep within every step I took. Now...it’s only fitting that during Lent, the season that is being swallowed up around me, I should be tempted and filled with everything the dark lord stands for. 

I’m here...waiting for the crab net to come swooping down. Run along now...it’s not a pretty sight.

Pss. 95:8 “Harden not your heart, as in the provocation, and as in the day of temptation in the wilderness:”

I’m hanging in here, Lord. Don’t leave me dangling...

Isa. 58:8 “Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily: and thy righteousness shall go before thee; the glory of the LORD shall be thy reward.”