A Milestone...Changes ARE Happening

Isa. 60:19 "The sun shall be no more thy light by day; neither for brightness shall the moon give light unto thee: but the LORD shall be unto thee an everlasting light, and thy God thy glory."

A Milestone

I wanted to share a bit of a milestone that really came out of nowhere. You remember that for years I thought I had MS and that my unbalance may have been a symptom? I have posted numerous times telling of my pains in my back, knees and everywhere else. 

I know I have one friend that remembers the intimate details I displayed for you all here on my blog. If you’re a follower, you know my story. If you’re not a follower, there are previous posts links over there to play catch up.

Being unbalanced left me either sitting or standing and holding onto the wall but never could I stand and put my pants on in about four years now; it was just too uncertain.

Yesterday it happened, I had to go into my bedroom and get pants. Without even thinking, I stood in the middle of the room and put my pants on, one leg at a time. No wobble, no uncertainty, no holding onto anything, nothing. After pulling them up and buttoning them, I stood there and thought, ‘did I just do that’? A tear came to my eye because it had been four years since feeling like a somewhat normal human being.

My body is changing for the good. Apparently, a healthy lifestyle is what I needed to regain my balance. Not only has the loss of thirty pounds made a significant difference in my wardrobe (115 lbs and holding), the adding of pertinent supplements and healthy eating all around has made a difference in my showering, the way I dress, the way I walk and just about everything in my life. 

This week though, I’ve been on the defense in so many ways. I’m thinking October 29th, the second anniversary of my dad’s passing is taking a toll on me that I never seen coming. I am at peace with his passing but I do have to contend with my mother, very much alive who misses him terribly on a daily basis. She says she can’t figure out why she was kept here alive and I told her point blank, maybe it’s for ME! I think God is going to keep me alive for HER as well.

My mother has no idea I have this ugly disease, she would become paranoid (as usual) and worry too much and try to instill fear in me so I think her NOT knowing is for her benefit as well as mine. I think God has kept her alive for me since she is really the only family that I’m in touch with on a daily basis, my grounding so-to-speak. I’ve always been very close to my mother and not physically seeing her for over ten years has its own stress factor but to hear her voice daily helps relieve the stress immensely.

Another milestone is the tumor itself. I’ve been feeling some sharp pains here lately and instead of fear and panic I kicked into research mode and conferred with ladies experiencing the exact same thing as I, as we are all on an alternative path together. I’m going to get a little (a lot) personal and graphic here, if you’re a man, turn away now. 

The tumor is in the rapid cell die-off phase. Without a doctor, you might be wondering how I know this. Well, let me tell you. The tumor is big. I’ve already done immeasurable research on this and have found that the tumor is not cancer. The tumor is a result of the cancer, a reaction if you will, it is NOT the cancer itself. Back in January when the disease was discovered, I went to the doctor with a C+ cup size of my left breast. I, my life since teenage years, have been a very comfortable B size. 

With my diet change and weight loss, I’m bound to lose breast size so that isn’t the telltale sign I’m looking for in healing, no, the pains are. Over I’d say this past month (since a miraculous herb literally walked in my front door) or two I’ve had a reduction of breast size on the LEFT side. No longer a C+ or even a C, I’m fitting comfortably back into my B cup! You might see that as no big deal, but visually it IS a big deal because I SEE the healing taking place! The tumor is still there but if the pains are a telltale sign of rapid cell die off, I’m winning this battle, a little pain at a time!

I have to share this graphic tale with you as I move toward the continued healing part of my journey. I’m still edgy and defensive but hey, maybe a lack of sugar and carbs is having that effect nine months later. I still have my sense of humor, I took a six-week writing course, and while a little stressful for me, I took it as a challenge to stretch my writing muscles even further. I’m still maintaining strict eating habits that I’m coming to enjoy, I’m still walking and exercising, still loving life and still have problems with my defensiveness. I can work on that though. I’ve done so much work this year that finally I’m seeing the results of my labor. A little defensiveness is nothing to tackle.

All my praise and glory goes to my God on most high! I could not and would not be where I am today without Him holding the reins! My supportive friends are very much an aspect of this healing too! Thank you, and God bless! 

It Strikes Me...

Prov. 31:25 (NLT)“She is clothed with strength and dignity, and she laughs without fear of the future.” 

It strikes me…

Well, it hit me again, I was walking through Wal-Mart and it strikes me as odd at a number of people not even paying attention to what they’re buying. They just look, grab, and place the merchandise in the cart. Me, I’m scanning every label, reading every ingredient, more times than not replacing the product back on the shelf, even when it says organic.

Now that I know what I’m looking for at the store, it sure makes shopping much easier, because I can avoid the aisles with stuff I don’t need and if hubby wants something, he goes off on his own to get it without making me venture down the ‘toxic aisles’.

Then something hit me this week. I rounded the bakery section and was heading to the checkout and it caught my eye, a pink shirt with the decal on it ‘FIGHT FOR THE CURE’. As I got closer to the shirt, touched it, looked at the bold lettering and the pink ribbon, tears began to well up in my eyes, but I didn’t want to cry in Wal Mart. I knew what the shirt was saying, I knew all too well. 

You see, I always looked at those things and just became saddened for other women who fought, were fighting, or had lost someone. But for me? I never associated the pink with me. I never saw myself as a ‘one day that’ll be me’, no, I never let it cross my mind, I never grasped that straw.

And here I was gazing down at the pink shirt, touching the fabric, running my fingers over the letters and realizing it is me. That decal is referring to me. I’m one of them; one of the hundreds of thousands of women who this pink ribbon stands for. I felt small, I felt like an ant in the middle of the store with all the big humans passing by not seeing me carrying the heavy crumb. They were passing by not giving me a second glance. I was nothing on their radar. They were hurried and rushed and I stood there just looking at this shirt.

I let it go. I didn’t want the pink, I didn’t want to associate with what the shirt stood for. I in no way wanted any part of it. Just like the disease that is running through the very cells of my body, I don’t want any part of it. I seek normal, I just want what I deemed to be normal back and yet as I run my mind through the reality of it all, I have to let it go. Normal will never come back and this new lifestyle is the new normal for me. I have to accept that.

As we were driving home I asked my husband what the shirt said. My brain to me said FIGHT THE CURE, and my husband said no, it said fight FOR the cure. So as I held that pink shirt in my fingers, my mind was telling me a truth FIGHT THE CURE. That is my reality. THAT is the shirt I want to wear.

To me fighting FOR the cure could mean giving the oncologist their rights in filling innocent women with poisons. It is putting your support behind the victimization going on and treating everyone like little gathering ants. Give them a crumb here and there but don’t you dare give them wings! Ants can’t fly and by allowing them to think they can is going to start an entire new breed of ants! Fight FOR the cure could also mean that there has been no cure found. The oncologists give you pacifying drugs but chemo is in NO WAY the cure, so we women must FIGHT FOR THE CURE to be found.

And to me FIGHTING the CURE means just that, fight the very thing that doctors are feeding millions of women. Fight what truth they believe and set out to find your own leg to stand on. Fight everything they hold like poisons to be the ‘cure’. Because as I’ve learned over these past eight months, the doctors are only selling you what the pharmaceuticals are selling them. I could be 100% wrong, but again, all that I’ve learned in the past eight months tells me that I and thousands of other people are feeling the same thing I am and trusting their instincts and finding what works for them!

Our bodies were created with an immune system. That immune system is in place as a healing mechanism that the human body utilizes. To me, not trusting God’s creating abilities, is in a sense not trusting God at all. When you look at a DNA strand, do you realize how intricate that strand is and all it stands for? The strand is God in an intimate shower within you.

Hebrews 4:16, “Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.” (NIV)

When you were little, didn’t you come to depend and trust your father? You looked up to him and held him in the highest esteem and trust. When he told you something, you believed it to be true and to this day, I can almost guarantee you utter the words from time to time, “My daddy always said…”
Why would we think that our Heavenly Father is any different than ‘our daddy’? 

If truth be told. God is our daddy and we can trust Him as we walk. Just like your earthly father, He will never lead us down the wrong path. We’ll stumble, we’ll fall but he’ll see to it that his gentle loving hand lifts you back up and sets you on the right path again. We just have to trust Him like we trusted our daddy all of our lives. He did NOT give me this illness, that’s like saying he led down the wrong path like he made me destroy my body. Nope, we all know where sin comes from and my torturous life led me to this illness, not God. 

It strikes me as kind of odd that people put more trust in a human than the intricate, intimate Creator. Maybe it’s just me; maybe I’m the odd one. I separate myself from this disease so it doesn’t own me. I face the enemy with the Sword of Truth. I strike the lies before it strikes me!

James 4:8, “Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.” (ESV)

Doctor Appointment: Take Two

out my front door before the meltdown

Luke 1:30 “And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favour with God.”

Doctor Appt.: Take Two

Well, I’ve been in kind of a funk this week, not a negative hate-the-world kind of funk an ‘oh well, deep sigh’ kind of funk. It kind of has had my days in a cloud and I can attest to the fact that this morning, the heavy veiled visible fog has my mood affecting my outside physical world.

You see, I was really looking forward to a much-needed Doctor’s appointment on Monday. I slept a good nine hours on Sunday evening so I was raring and ready to go come Monday morning to go and see the doctor.

I can also attest to the FACT of God’s timing never being OUR timing. We make plans and expect them to go off without a hitch because for some odd reason the majority of folks feel like they are in control of their own lives. I imagine in non-Christian households when plans don’t go their way, they chalk it up to coincidence or just bad timing. Whatever the case may be, I’m on the God Plan so…I sort of expected Monday to turn out the exact way it did.

Let me start by saying hubby had a scheduled eye doctor appointment and that is the reason I made Monday’s breast check-up appointment for myself. He was off of work, and I was ready in every way to see what path the Lord had set for me with the much-needed exam but it was not meant to be.

The winter weather advisories started streaming in well in advance of the storm. I made an appointment on the 11th I believe and on the 12th, four full days before my scheduled appointment, the murmurs were rippling through the airwaves “Ice Storm Jupiter could wreak havoc on motorists come Monday.” 

Great, another named storm ruining my plans. Weathermen have been totally wrong before so here goes optimistic Joni, holding on to hope and wishing to breathe the storm AWAY! Didn’t happen. My plans are not His plans. Instead, I woke to evidence of Jupiter (the storm) playing mental anguish with my mind. 

On Sunday, (yes Sunday) my husband’s doctor had canceled his Monday visit to our area; the doctor and all of his assistants come in from Omaha, heard the severe storm reports and canceled. They called on Sunday to inform us!

I have to admit, I was holding out hope for my visit but one look out the door basically shattered any hopes of making it into town. This was my view of the storm that day:

“The petrified tree branches are creaking with the slightest breath of wind. Weakened limbs snap and fall missing the electric wires and the beloved truck. Littered is the lawn with limbs gone by. The darkened sky speaks to my heavy heart and the tears from the clouds erupt into ice pellets that are attacking everything in its path. Blessed be His name, the Protector of all.” ~ Joni’s thoughts

More had fallen after this pic was taken

The ice storm was mesmerizing, to say the least, and opening the doors to the tomb outside awaited me. The ice had clung to the road like a wet napkin, the branches small and large were breaking in the slightest wisp of wind, and the silence of no human life was eerie. I felt I was opening the door on a graveyard where the dead were resting but the icy atmosphere was tapping out a Morse code telling me to beware, stay home, and be safe.

The call came shortly before noon that the office was going to remain closed as the treacherous roadways were impassable. I had read story after story of 18-wheelers toppling, and one caught fire after it slid into a ditch and tipped over on the highways out there. I was safe, I was inside and didn’t have to break my neck and already pained back. God protected me! 

The next day came and my mind was blinded by the sunshine and hugged by a new day, a new chance to reschedule my much-needed appointment. 

My thoughts on the 17th were something like this: “Like an ocean of diamonds, the trees are lit by the sunshine’s glare. Ice is meeting the warmth in a creaking display of sound. Ringing out through the trees are resounding sounds of hail beating a tin roof echoing with the lightest wisp of wind. Will the weighted ice give way and topple more limbs or will a subtle melt leave intact the beauty of the days brightness?” Joni is a darned good writer! I wax poetic OFTEN.

I called the doctor’s office and started to get anxious when the day I wanted wasn’t available and after a good cry and a shower I listened to what God had whispered in my ear, “Just call and take what they have!” and so I did, making hubby’s work schedule work around ME. Tuesday the 24th! Yes! It’s going to happen! The positive influx of emotions filled me once again!

And so here is where I am today, I checked the weather and lo and behold, guess what Tuesday looks like? Snow and ice, AGAIN! After the big meltdown from ol’ Jupiter with the teasing of spring-like temps (yes the upper forties is spring-like after our lovely 28 below zero windchills left us bitter.) (pun intended)

So here I am (and shouldn’t be) questioning what God is up to now! With a lighthearted spirit, I walk hand in hand with God knowing full well He will carry me through this juncture of my journey. 

The journey to continue…

Mark 6:8 “And commanded them that they should take nothing for their journey, save a staff only; no scrip, no bread, no money in their purse:”