The Bombardment: Doubt and Fear

Baltimore, Maryland - Fort McHenry

The Star Spangled Banner was written out there

Pss. 57:6 “They have prepared a net for my steps; my soul is bowed down: they have digged a pit before me, into the midst whereof they are fallen themselves. Selah.”

This week and last week I’ve been hit with a bombardment of emotions. I’d wake in the morning to tears, look out the window and all I saw was a dense fog, so deep there was no seeing a light, a blade of dead grass or even a winterized tree, just deep snow packed lawn, fields and a mist.

It all began as a flurry of uncertainty the minute I accepted chemo as a way to heal this crud. If you all have been with me throughout this ordeal you’ll know I’m dead set against chemo (no pun intended) as this being any form of healing. I see chemo as a death sentence and I can’t get past this unnerving grating feeling deep inside me.

At the beginning of this trial, the only family member I told was my niece. She was the only one I trusted to care. My hubby told his family also. I had expected care and compassion to crawl out of the woodwork but say the words ‘alternative’ to a conservative nation, you’re going to be met with a bombardment of questions and doubts and a sort of wall to be built that you’re not allowed over. All negativity I tried to avoid came creeping in, in unexpected ways! 

Here I am two years into this affliction and I’ve grown and have learned so much! My diet was never bad, I’ve been 125 -135 pounds since I was in my twenties. I didn’t keep that weight because I pigged out on all the wrong foods with no exercise. No, I pretty much cared for my health until about five years ago when living in a carnivorous world finally caught up to me. All the meat and potatoes could not be excreted quick enough with exercise, that’s for sure! But two years ago, with this diagnosis, I dove into research on natural treatments and possible cures for one of the deadliest diseases that in over one-hundred years has found no CURE! 

I found that a plant-based diet and supplementation could be the secret to healing and in two years, I’ve witnessed the success of MANY women going this route. No surgery, no chemo, no drugs, just the fruits of the earth to replenish their damaged body. I tried that route and was succeeding until last year when my world came crashing down. I realized I needed more than the food and supplements to get through this and it was the only reason I tried Oral Chemo.

What I was not expecting is finding a doctor I liked (finally) and being met with lies and fear tactics. The first doozy came in the way of telling me I should focus on the tumor/lesion on my brain. “OOPS, I must’ve been reading the wrong file, sorry.” There was no tumor, that was just a fear tactic to get me to jump into chemotherapy! Then there were the months he told me my markers were going down when in FACT they were rising! 

Assuming once again I’d jump into chemo, “Stop taking your meds, they’re not working!” 

I stopped taking my meds, I didn’t jump into chemo, then the disease started gnawing at my bones! I could FEEL it, chomping and weakening me. Doc says, “Now start taking your meds again until we get in here and get the poison in your veins to fight the battle.” 

All of the hard work I did at building up my strength in physical therapy was dwindling. I at one time was the champ of the place, meeting and exceeding my goals but just yesterday I came home and could hardly bend my knee. I climbed into bed and wrapped ice packs at different parts of my leg.

Last week I hit rock bottom. Feeling isolated and alone. Everyone seemingly has abandoned me except for my husband, son, my Physical Therapists and my loving Spiritual Online family. They are my anchors in getting me through this. Whether it’s through faith, religion, or just a positive presence, these people are the ones I’ll credit with any healing that takes place!  

I’ll be the first to admit, in all honesty, I even felt like God bailed on me. I’m just dangling on the end of this thread and it’s about to snap but luckily I’m grotesquely underweight that even a thread can hold me. Doubt and fear knocked on my door and like a fool, I let it walk right on in. 

I fear the chemo won’t work. I doubt that it is the cure all I seek. The doctor tells me of a lady who has been on Herceptin for TWENTY YEARS, and she’s still alive. And I’m supposed to find hope in that? I don’t! I will not be on this poison for one year let alone ten or twenty. That’s ridiculous! I’m concerned that the chemo, as I’ve read in all of my research, will destroy my immune system. For two years I have worked to build up my immune system! As I watch friends get sick month after month with a cold, flu, and any other illness, I’ve been the picture of health except for this one debilitating illness. I actually care about living and work my tail off to secure my strong immunity, now is chemo going to come in and destroy all I worked to build up? Am I going to lose MORE weight? How much can this tiny frail body take?

Again, feeling abandoned, I prayed. In the wee hours of the morning, for hours, I prayed. I woke to this message:

Prov. 13:12 (ESV) “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life.” 

That is exactly what happened with all the talk about chemo. It brought in negativity that I didn’t know how to deal with. I’ve shunned negativity for so long when it beats me over the head, I think it’s personal and wants to fight. I think that’s the city girl in me, always ready to battle. Chemo knocked all my hope out the door. 

So what is my desire? To live! I don’t want to live until I’m ninety, but a good seventy-five - eighty would be nice. There’s my hope, right there! 

The realization of HAVING to go the chemo route is this. My diet and exercise can only save so much of me. I live within one-hundred yards of a substation, an element that cannot be removed from this healing equation. Move? Not an option, it’s Nebraska, substations are a part of life. Money would help too, then I could move. Then there are crop dusters, dropping poison on the crops to save the crop from bugs while damaging humans in the process. Such is life, I’m surrounded by fields and fields of crop dusters. I also have dealt with black mold for the ten years here. Then there is the chronic illness I’ve had all of my life and that is psoriasis. Sure supplementation has put it to sleep over the years but I do deal with flare-ups on occasion. 

I’ve been back on my plant-based diet for about three weeks now. I will continue exercising as long as my broken body and weakened limbs allow. I'll continue to meditate and pray. I’ll waltz down the organic route, the non-chemical use of body lotions and sprays, shampoos and soaps. I’ll pursue doing my part of the healing, God will do His part in protecting me, and my family will continue doing what they do, live in a toxic world right along with me.

I will wake every day and see hope in the hopeless. I will pound through these doubts and fears. Next week will come and instead of tears, I will hold hope instead of kleenex. A smile in place of a frown. Joy instead of sorrow.  I heard yesterday someone say that the simplest form of bravery is choosing to wake and take a step. How true is that?

May God bless you all in the steps that you choose to take.

Cowardly Lion

Joshua 1:9  “Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.”

The Cowardly Lion

I’m sure you’ve all seen the Wizard of Oz right? When I think of a coward I think of the Cowardly Lion and how he reacted to everything. Was there a reason he feared all of the time?

Dorothy: My goodness, what a fuss you're making! Well naturally, when you go around picking on things weaker than you are. Why, you're nothing but a great big coward!

Cowardly Lion: [crying] You're right, I am a coward! I haven't any courage at all. I even scare myself.

Cowardly Lion: Look at the circles under my eyes. I haven't slept in weeks!

Tin Woodsman: Why don't you try counting sheep?

Cowardly Lion: That doesn't do any good, I'm afraid of ‘em.

The Cowardly Lion may not have been a coward, he just didn’t have any faith in himself to tackle anything thrown at him. He was probably always led to believe what others told him, and they are the ones who instilled fear in the gentle giant. It wasn’t until he was told he held the power within him to be a royal King could he ever give courage the chance to shine. 

When I used the word coward the other day I didn’t mean it in the harshest sense of the word. I do not think people are cowards who choose the easier way to their problems or illnesses. You had the courage to go to the doctor and you took what the doctor said as solid gold. Why? Because we were raised and conditioned to believe that the doctor is always right and could never be wrong. That is not cowardice! It’s just a different route, a tried and true acceptable route to millions, but not a route for ME.

Just as the four characters on the yellow brick road in Oz soon found out the truth about the Great and Powerful Oz, he was just a man and didn’t hold the power he claimed! Do you remember all that they endured getting a chance to even SEE Oz? I’m sure you’ve also heard or read about the symbolism of the great movie. 

This movie very well could have been written with every intention of all the symbolism but we are conditioned to see the beauty in the movie. I love the symbolism of Toto, the little dog of Dorothy. He stands for the little guy, interestingly enough, not much unlike myself standing up to the Great and Powerful Medical and Pharmaceutical world. I would’ve rather been Dorothy, but no, I’m much smaller than her. No one likes ‘that little dog’.

I’m not into politics but going against the medical field kind of ties one into the political aspect of all that the government does to see us little people stuck in the trap they set for us. From forcing vaccines, to the overuse of pharmaceuticals, from food rationing, to aid after a storm, everything in America is tied in some way, shape or form to the political arena. And that is just what it is, an arena,  a win or lose battle.

I in no way meant to demean your decision in going the slice, dice, medicate route. That journey holds its own kind of bravery and you’ve earned the Victory of Survivor in your own right! I’m just CHOOSING a different path because it is my right as a human being. So my government and all of their spin-offs (pharma., Drs., etc.) leave me in the dust it just makes my journey a little more challenging. I don’t get a parade; I don’t get unending charitable donations; I don’t get much support from the Big C community (only from the small groups on Facebook that I join). I certainly don’t get medical or political support. 

Failure is not in my vocabulary these days. While many people fear and cower I push on, right or wrong. Funny thing is, I won’t have an inkling if I was wrong until long after I’m gone, I’m that optimistic on this path I’m on!

My body is working FOR me not against me. We’ve been told for years when faced with a diagnosis of the dire kind, that our bodies are working against us. We believe Dr. Oz to be right and we think we need drugs. We dance our way down the Yellow Brick Road and end up in the poorhouse, not at the Emerald City where the movie leads the characters.

Our bodies were created to fight FOR us, not against us! Our immune system is so intricate that the Creator has in place the ability for our system to attack invading illnesses. Our systems were not built to recognize drugs in our system, that is when we become like the Cowardly Lion. When we believe that our bodies are attacking us, do you know and understand the negative connotation that goes along with that belief? Your body begins shutting down believing YOU’RE the one giving up on IT! They tell you your lymph nodes need removal but that is taking away your very defense mechanism in your DNA make-up!

To counterattack, you need to BELIEVE you have the ability to FIGHT any invader in your body and do something to change your line of thinking and winning. Don’t be led down an imaginary path, don’t believe everything the Great Oz or your doctor tells you, question everything! Ask the right questions and find a Naturopath in your area. In the end, you won’t wind up in a fairytale city, you’ll find yourself Somewhere Over the Rainbow, a picture of health and beauty! 

Courage!

Cowardly Lion: What makes the dawn come up like thunder? Courage! What makes the Hottentot so hot? What puts the "ape" in apricot? What have they got that I ain't got?
Scarecrow,Tinman and Dorothy in unison: COURAGE!
***

Every time I hear the word courage, I can not help but think of the cowardly lion with his portly round face, long black whiskers, bouncing curly mane, holding the end of his tasseled tail in his hands saying, “I am a coward! I haven't any courage at all. I even scare myself.” Crying to Dorothy over and over, you could almost feel sorry for the poor thing.

But we know that Lions are the king of the jungle, right? And they're fierce hunters, always coming out on top. That’s what writers need to be, courageous to a fault. We can’t just sit back and diminish all of our hard work. We can’t sputter around repeating, I’m no good, I haven’t any courage to be a writer.

When you start off with that mindset, your essence of being begins to believe those very words. They cling to you like gum on a shoe. I’m telling you, the more you doubt yourself, the stronger and stronger the pull will be to keep you from ever becoming all that you were meant to be as a writer.

It is never easy being courageous, the easy way of the timid mouse is much easier, crawling in a hole, sneaking out for a bite of cheese. Is that the kind of writer you intend on being, a cute little country mouse? I don’t think so because those writers might have their one story of fame like Harper Lee, who wrote one book To Kill a Mockingbird, sold millions, and left two unfinished novels in her wake. She never felt good enough I imagine, even after the acclaim.

I don’t know the secret to courage. I do know courage is a scary thing that means facing fear head on with your chin UP. Walking into a burning building to save a child, jumping into icy waters to save a dog from freezing and dying, running into a flaming tower while it’s about to collapse, that all takes courage. Here, all I’m asking is for writers to write and brave the storm of rejection. Think about it, it doesn’t really take courage but it might be considered as such if writing and submitting is your fear.

Writing takes courage because you’re putting your heartstrings on a page for everyone to read. As I’ve said, pieces of your are woven throughout your writing, and your reader is going to see, the uninhibited exposed you.

Door mouse or Lion, your choice. The hunter or the hunted, the small or the big, the one who fears or the fearless? You remember the Wizard of Oz, don’t you? The cowardly lion had the courage the whole time, he just needed someone to say he had it. And think of how good he felt after realizing the fact.

Writers, you’ve got it! Now WRITE!

The Wicked Witch of the West very last words: Oh what a world, what a world. How could a little girl like you destroy all of my beautiful wickedness?

Very easy I say....SHE HAD COURAGE!