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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.”

ER 4: One Traumatic Event

Job 14:22 “But his flesh upon him shall have pain, and his soul within him shall mourn.”

ER 4 - The Traumatic Event

I was doing everything I was supposed to be doing. Taking care of myself, visiting the doctors I was supposed to and life was moving along. I had a stool in my shower so I could safely shower, I now had a bedside commode because the journey into the bathroom alone was too risky as well as painful, I had the walker and cane and everything seemed to be moving along fine. 

The orthopod, Dr. Wrong, had told me that surgery would more than likely mean a total hip replacement, after looking at more x-rays that the office did and that work on my right side would be risky since it was covered in cancer, the ugly cells that spread like wildfire through my bones. I told him I was on oral chemo and he arrogantly said that he offered nothing oral here and thanks for coming. I did not hit it off with this ortho and quickly made an appointment with another, Dr. No.

The second ortho’s opinion differed from the first one and mixed signals were rampant in my head. I realized that all the little stuff the doctors and nurses put into the computers they carry apparently is for their eyes only. Your information is not shared with the medical community (the doctors you’re seeing) as it should be so that everyone is on the same page. Mass confusion ensues.

My shower that day would be the last for three months. I felt a twinge in my left thigh and I just figured I hit a nerve trying to get out of the shower from my awkward shower-stool. My physical therapist had surmised that my sciatic nerve was damaged, but the ‘know-it-all-doctors’ and their x-rays said it was my disease, munching on my bones like a beaver!

The rest of the day went off without a hitch and both my husband and son were home able-bodied and assisting. My bed was the most comfortable spot to rest my weary bones so there I went, to relax for a bit. 

After dinner, I needed to pee and the commode being inches from me seemed like an easy task but as soon as I put any weight on my left leg, pain shot through my leg like a bolt of lightning singing its target. I screamed. My husband came running. I think that was the last time I saw the sound, stable mind of my calm man. Fear gripped his face like a Hannibal Lecter mask. It covered every portion of visible skin. He was now someone else.

I squirmed and writhed. The pain was intensifying as was the need to pee. I just wanted to pee in the bed but knowing I was on TOXIC CHEMO, I would’ve destroyed the new mattress. My bodily fluids were now a danger to anyone who came in contact with them, so precaution was needed. Twenty-four inches is not a lot of room for two people to maneuver someone to a commode but maneuver we tried, I made it to a seating position on the commode and I screamed like a woman in childbirth, my thigh had dropped. It was gone, disfigured and dangling, a portion of my thigh just hung there as my knee no longer was where my knee should be. Between my legs is not where a knee should be. Something was seriously wrong.

My husband looked at my leg and just short of vomiting, he said, I’m calling 911. “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” I screamed, in pain and a not-this-again yelp.

Yes...911 had to get me out of this literal twenty-four-inch hellhole.

I want to give all of the gory and painstaking details of the next hours after this point but as harsh as it is to read, it is even harder to write. Just know, this event was the one where I found the true living meaning of gnawing and gnashing of teeth. The pain was more intense than childbirth. Considering I’ve given birth three times (two natural) you will not read this and say 'no way'. Intense, piercing pain went on for days even with the strongest of drugs they offered.

Miracles were taking place and prayer was right there in the ER with me as the nurse held my hand and we said the Our Father as an x-ray machine was brought into the tiny cubicle to get a picture of this mangled mess before them. Their faces spoke volumes. They have seen the worst of the worst in this hospital and looking at my leg, their faces drained of blood. 

I, in my natural fashion, kept the atmosphere as light as possible and made lil jokes and comebacks as they asked for the umpteenth time my birthday and the one nurse even remarked calling me a little spitfire! The Lord did not take away my humor. In the depths of darkest pain, I cried out to Him and He kept intact what makes me special, my personality.

I was wheeled to a room, obviously going to be kept for a while and with each bump in the floor, I screamed in pain, the ER nurse held my hand through it all and even went to my room with me. She made some calls that night that went against the doctors' orders but honestly, I trusted her as I had yet to even SEE a doctor. Not calls that would put me in danger, calls that would help me, like a catheter and stronger pain medication. It was obvious to her I would not be using a bedpan for days and bless her heart for making that call!

They had to shift me from the ER bed to the bed in the room, and though I’m light, my leg was so mangled and twisted it took about six people to lift, shift, slide my body to the new bed. Tears and screams flooded the room and each nurse again, stood looking as pale as if they had just seen their dead relative walk in the room. They knew and understood the damage present.

An Asian doctor (Ming, not real name) came in and introduced himself. He looked at the nurses and knew my case was serious, the color had not returned to their faces. He informed me that my Orthopod was trying to make a call on my situation without even seeing me, ‘keep me in traction until he can get in to do the surgery on Monday.’ Dr. Ming took one look at my mangled leg and said ‘No! I call dr. here on duty. You need surgery on this leg.’ I and my husband gave him permission to do what needed to be done. 

A miracle walked in the door in the way of Dr. Slim, who was a fill-in for the original Dr. Wrong Orthopod I had seen and didn’t get along with, this doctor was here for a week doing his rounds. Tall, slender and handsome, the concern darkened his raised eyebrow. His lips were perched tightly shut as he knew he had to make a split decision. After looking at this disfigured leg in front of him, he made his call, we need to operate. The doctor overrode the ‘keep her in traction’ orthopod’s decision! Thank you, Jesus!

Now to get the sleeve that the paramedic had placed on my leg at home, to keep the leg from moving, off of my leg. Yeah, all that pain I had felt was with a protective sleeve on my leg, I did not want it removed but the doctor told me my leg would set that way and it would become almost impossible to fix.

The original ER nurse was still there, holding my hand and squeezing it tightly. They all knew about my stage 4 disease and that I was on oral chemo and practically a danger to society since I was now a toxic minefield. They didn’t care, I was the patient and their first priority. Those women became MY heroes!

Dr. Slim stood patiently with my heel in his hand, as the women went on, to slowly free the sleeve, gently and cautiously sliding it under my leg, and in between screams and clenching my teeth, and darned near breaking the poor woman’s hand, the sleeve was removed. Now, to get me to straighten the distorted injured leg.

It was now the middle of the night and yes, after holding my leg/heel for an hour, Dr. Slim did eventually get me to straighten my leg but I’ll spare you more tears and screams, the thesaurus doesn’t hold enough words to describe the angst I went through that morning.

The operation was early that morning and my husband and son were there with me before I went in. My mother-in-law postponed a trip she was going on that day but she wanted to be there for us all and waited with them for the hours the surgery took. I woke, still in pain, but not the same pain as the night before. Now it was time for healing and keeping infection away. The next ten days would be a journey of a thousand hours. Pain-filled, buckets of tears, but love and miracles abounded! My God is an AWESOME God! 

...story to be continued

Rev. 21:4 “And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.”

One Ray of Hope

Pss. 119:105 (NIV) “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path.”

One Ray of Hope

That’s all I asked for really, is one ray of hope. I think it’s been less than two weeks since the Family Practice office called and asked me if I’d like an appointment to see a doctor. They just wanted to see where I was at with my treatment.

Well, I was told that my doctor GP (general practitioner) was leaving the office due to her residency being complete in July. July came and I still hadn’t made an appointment to get in there to see her before she left. Not because of me, mind you, because my husband had an eye doctor’s appointment and after that, his tooth decided to be in pain and he HAD to get that worked on, too.

So here we are in July and the Family Practice office called ME and asked if I’d like to make an appointment. She was a somber voiced woman sounding like the stress of the job was getting to her;  I said yes, taking whomever she picked for me. I thought she said I could see the PA (Physician Assistant) and we could discuss a referral maybe. I was scheduled for July 18th the woman said. 

I didn’t put much promise into the visit, all I wanted was one ray of hope. I’d say almost a month leading up to the visit were wrought with tears and angst, feeling abandoned by all doctors and just left out here to die. I think it came through in my previous posts and yes my friends knew something was bothering me.

I wasn’t sad because I thought this alternative route was failing, I knew things were working and I could feel it and literally SEE it. But I feel satan had his own plans in planting doubt and fear in my mind by the appearance of a lump in my RIGHT breast this time. Before you all jump to conclusions that my disease is spreading allow me to tell you. 

Consistency.  When I was a kid and even throughout my adult years of menstruating my breasts were lumpy Lil buggers, that is why this disease went unrecognized for so long. The lump, the cancerous one, was hard as a marble and grew over the months. The one on my right feels like a spongy little fella, moves around, making me think this is the difference in a cyst and a tumor.  

Just so you know, I SEE visual differences and this one obviously drew concern at first but then I remembered all I’m dealing with, stress, life, heat, monsters creeping under my bed. Okay no monsters, I just wanted to see if you were still paying attention. You get the picture, I know. This is not a journey I would wish on my worst enemy! But I’m barreling through like a champ and am even wondering some days where I’m getting this strength! (Trust me, I KNOW where I get the strength from.)

I’ve never lost sight of the Lord and with every tear that dripped onto the floor I knew, God was right there catching them for me. Then the eighteenth came and the doctor visit was at hand. No expectations in the least. I thought I was seeing a PA and getting a referral. I know what I had prayed for but I was willing to wait a little longer for the answer.

But it came, an answer to my prayer. You all know for six months (on the 25th) what I’ve endured, encountered, been hit with from the doctors, all of my illnesses and I do believe you all have been praying the same thing for me. When the M.D., (yup, not a PA) came into the room, introducing herself as the doctor and asked me what I was looking for I told her straight up, I need blood tests done to check for any vitamin deficiency or any other tests she could run. 

She asked me why I chose not to go the chemo route, I told her, I don’t believe in chemo, it has killed too many in my family and I NEED to try something else, I have a lot of nieces that might need to see another route to take one day. I told her, I don’t want to die from chemo and that is basically what I’d be doing if I went that route. I also said that if none of this works and I die because it didn’t work, it is MY choice, MY body and MY death on my hands, no one else’s.

She asked if I’ve done any research on this method of healing and I basically gave her the rundown of my research for the past six months, she listened, asked questions and nodded in agreement. I never at one time felt like I was off my rocker. She looked at me as an equal not down on me as if she was the all powerful Oz. Even when I mentioned CBD oil (cannabis oil) she sounded interested. I told her of all of the success stories I’ve read, about THOUSANDS of people healing and being CURED, not just hundreds.

I threw names around like The Truth About Cancer, Chris Wark of Chris Beat Cancer to Dr. Hoxsey, founder of the Oasis of Hope in Tijuana, Mexico and the Vitamin C treatments being done in Colorado. She looked intrigued and didn’t roll her eyes or throw her arms in the air once, brushing me off. Instead, she said the words I longed to hear, “I can run some tests.” Tears started to well in my eyes, but I didn’t allow them to flow over. I said, “I think I love you right now.” She chuckled then went on to tell me she’d test my B12 levels, C and D levels, bone density and liver and the other organs, and as she was speaking I zoned out silently praising God, thanking Him for answering my prayers. “…lab.” That’s all I heard, I think I was in shock.

I did hear her say it could take a few days, maybe by Friday for results. I was just sitting in shock. I know I became quiet and couldn’t believe what was happening. My husband who I took into the office for support was kind of shocked too.

She did ask if I wanted to get a colonoscopy, and all of the other internal test and I told her, please let me get to know you first. Allow me one thing at a time; this is all so overwhelming. I thanked her profusely, gave her a firm handshake and off I went to the lab with a smile on my face and a sunbeam in my hand.

I only prayed for one ray of hope…my God gave me an entire SON! 

The following verse is what greeted me this morning. All praise and Glory to Him! 

Pss. 24: 3-6 “Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? or who shall stand in his holy place? He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully. He shall receive the blessing from the Lord, and righteousness from the God of his salvation.

Abandoning The Seed Within

Jer. 2:21 “Yet I had planted thee a noble vine, wholly a right seed: how then art thou turned into the degenerate plant of a strange vine unto me?”

Have you ever felt like just giving up on God, tossing your faith and all that you’ve built with your faith right out the door? You know, because of all the pain he allows you to go through doesn’t seem worth the trials that you have to endure on a daily basis? Yeah, me neither.

I accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior when I was a young teen and life has never been the same, it’s been a roller coaster ride, going up and down ever since. There have been times when I thought (briefly) that this fight just wasn’t worth the suffering. The time, the dedication, the daily nurturing; accepting the Lord felt more like having a full-time job, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, just like having a child.

What? Accepting the Lord felt like having a child? Yes! What, do you think, you just get to utter words like ‘I accept you Lord’ and everything goes smoothly from there on out? I’m sorry friends, but if you think that then no wonder your life is all fun and games, no worries, no commitment, just playtime all the time. Be honest, that isn’t your life at all is it?

If you want Jesus in your life there is a commitment just like having a child, which you don’t get to toss away whenever you feel like. Just like when you find out your pregnant (or your wife), you make a commitment to taking on the responsibility of that child, raising him or her in an upright manner, feeding his soul and nurturing his spirit or just toss the life away via an abortion. With free will, the CHOICE is yours. If you’ve never married or know what having a child is like, the seed of God is in you also. He doesn’t abandon anyone for anything just because He feels like it and doesn’t have the time for you.

Many parents take on the responsibility of keeping the child, whether planned or unplanned but many are not seriously ready for the time and commitment that it takes to raise a child. That’s why so many births are met with abandonment after the baby is born, left in dumpsters, thrown off bridges, just disposed of because they were too hard to take care of and didn’t realize that this one time of lustful pleasure was going to turn out to be a lifetime commitment. Note: Pleasures cost.

John 15:5 “I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.”

The God cell is inside you at birth, a seed that you dispose of or tend and allow to grow through nurturing. Some people feel the seed and know it is there, others don’t know what the origin festering inside is and don’t want to know so they try and abort the kernel by putting chemicals in their body that will destroy the tiny bud or they ignore the seed completely allowing the weeds to smother the grain as it grows. We all know what happens when a weed grows, right? It takes a long time people to annihilate the seed that God planted in you at birth. You can try to rid yourself of the essence burning inside but the root is never dead.

When you accept God, it is like having a child, an embryo within you. You recognize the spirit that God planted as a blooming cluster of flowers not the false covering of weeds. You nurture the seedling with the Word of God until the foundation, with time, endurance, patience and love has become rooted, and slowly painstakingly allowed to climb the vine to flourish into a blossoming stem that grows along the Vine of the Lord. We were all meant to be flowers in the garden of life. Some allowed the weeds (satan) to strangle our beautiful bud but know this, the flower is still inside of you waiting to grow and become the beauty you see in a botanical garden. You can never abandon the seed within.

Luke 22:18 “For I say unto you, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine, until the kingdom of God shall come.”

Addicted to the Internet

1 Tim. 6: 18 That they do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate;

It wasn’t until eleven years ago when I was first introduced to the computer. My brother-in-law gave me an old one that he said would be good for my writing, and my niece came around, and hooked me up to the internet via an AOL ‘try me free’ disc. And the rest is history so they say.

Before this humming machine rattled into my life, it was a much simpler life. I gardened; I swam in my aboveground pool, relished the seasons, and cherished the solitude of living the mundane life. It was a life where the real world was all I had, good and bad, it was mine. I had my family, albeit a family in dire need of the strength I seemed to give them, I had my dog, but something was missing. I was living but something was missing.

I never owned a microwave, hadn’t touched a cell phone, I didn’t even have a dryer; I hung my clothes on a clothesline! Then it happened in 2003. The internet happened. I was addicted to solitude, then the internet came along. When one has an addictive personality, don’t we always seem to give up one addiction and replace it with another?

This post came to mind when a friend, asking for prayer, mentioned he thinks his child is addicted to the internet. He and his wife took it away, and my heart sank. I totally understood her connection to the virtual world that holds many of us in its grasp. I’m sure he and his wife have outside lives where they connect with humans on an hourly/daily basis, but me, I really conjured images of me and my absorption of the internet.

I saw me, upon awakening, turning on my laptop computer, THEN making coffee. I saw my son awakening, with his ipod attached to his hand like a third limb. I saw my beau wake, and sit in his desk chair as the desktop computer behind me hums to life. I didn’t like the images I saw. I saw three people addicted to a virtual world that they lived in, on an hourly basis.

What has become of the real world and where did it go? I get in the car and ride down the dirt road, drinking in the beauty of it all: the sky, the endless farms, cows, birds and it seems like a picture ripped out of a magazine. It doesn’t feel real.

I think of taking it away, from all of us, and I feel like we would just lash out in anger at each other until we all gave in and re-entered to zone of the web. That’s pretty sad! BUT I don’t think I’m alone on this web of suffocation.

Sure, I’ll justify my actions by saying I’m using it for writing. He’s using it for writing, and Adam is using it to connect with people that in the real world don’t give him the time of day. We all justify our actions and it makes it okay? I don’t think so!

I have to be honest, I think giving up alcohol was easier than even the THOUGHT of giving up the internet. I gave up drinking at 21, and for seventeen years after that I lived without a computer, so I know a life without one can actually take place. Adam has only had his ipod for about three years and I know he had a life before the ipod came along, and at first it was used for games and music, until he found apps that took him outside the realm. I do think beau was a computer geek since he was a young man; still, a virtually good fella. (pun intended)

On a positive note, this summer I didn’t spend much time on this thing. No writing freed me up to play Chess. Yes, I play the game that came with my computer because not many enjoy the game I love so much! My days were spent cleaning, mowing, gardening and enjoying my surroundings. My arthritic pain kept me tied to my sofa a lot, and we watched movies at night and since I would rather be on the computer than watch what the TV has to offer, the net is a safer venue for me. No ads, no clutter and I CHOOSE the good and positive I can glean from the net. Is that justification? Denial?

Now that I’m back writing, I look around the house, YouTube blasts in the background, (through earphones mind you), keys tapping an almost melodic accompaniment, Adam with his third limb goes off to his bedroom and I sit here writing and peeking in on the active frenzy of my writing friends on facebook. Picture of a perfect, loving, Frisbee playing, ball tossing, family romping through the tulips of life, eh? I live in a non-communicative household and a world of communication at my fingertips. Go figure.

 
Hello! My name is Joni and I have an addiction. The first step is admitting it, right?

Angst in Writing

Romans 8:22 For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.
***

Often times while I’m writing non-fiction, the true me surfaces. I try to write fiction but even there my characters take on my pain. It is through their windows that I peek in and let out emotional turmoil and make angst theirs instead of mine.

Writing is a healing tool; has been all of my life. Whenever I was feeling down I could always count on my pen to guide me into a poem of healing, or a story to help in the healing of others.

I never had a computer up until about seven years ago so I had to have a really good ball-point pen and many notebooks. I had a sketch pad too where I could sketch out my pain in way of a tear, or a tree, but it was my trusty pen and notebook that got me through many days and nights of sadness.

As I sit here now, with the keyboard keys tapping I realize that writing will never stop being a healing tool. I watch as my beau writes, after he has gone blind, and I do believe that this has been his healing tool also. The Drums in the Deep, is his outlet for the turmoil he goes through and as I watch and read his words I realize even more, that writing is an all powerful healing method that not only writers use, but that all should use to help in healing the pain or hurt that lurks within the sheltered walls of, you.

Many of my followers are not writers, but for some reason they are drawn to wanting to learn to write. I’m here to tell you that you don’t need to be a writer to sit down and let it out. Write your heart out and release it to the world. Even if it doesn’t get released to the world, read what you’ve written and find a place of healing in your heart that you know you’ve come to overcome.

I have a friend who went to a psychiatrist, the first thing the doctor told her was to get a pen and notebook and write it down. Write a letter to your mother/brother/sister/friend, anyone who’s hurt you. “Don’t mail the letter, just release what is in your heart,” the doctor said.

Even the psychiatrists and psychologists of the world know what I’ve known all my life without a P.H.d, writing is a medicine that is empowering, addictive, and not a drug! Drugs are used to ‘hide’ and ‘shield’ pains of the emotional kind, writing is a medicinal healer that you don’t need a doctor to prescribe.

In my writing days, I release what ails me. I don’t sit, fret, and wonder, I release it and it makes me feel good enough to take on the world and new characters. It makes me a better writer, and it makes me a better person as a whole because no longer is my soul seeking...I’ve found all that I’m looking for and I have the tales to prove it.

Write and heal...that is my motto for the day.

and a big P.S. here: I’m not advocating that you shouldn’t use meds when and if they are needed, I’m just suggesting an addition/alternative for you to look into.

Thanks and godspeed friends...