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.”

Spiritually Speaking

1 Cor. 1:26 "For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called:"

Spiritually Speaking

The day I came home from my first round of chemo, my body felt like it was pulled out of an ice chest, set in the car, and told to go home and fend for yourself. Basically, that is what happened when the lady behind the desk looked at me stupidly and asked, “Is that all for today?” I’m not a cursing woman but I’m sure my eyes poked hers out with the daggers I was slinging at her.

Luckily, I had taken a small blanket that Steven quickly wrapped around me as he saw the chills were getting the best of me as he buckled me in the truck. Yeah, you’re at the whim of everyone when this takes place and luckily I got one of those good men that can handle taking care of me. 

But the white dove… when he made an appearance earlier in the week, I knew he was spiritually telling me that things were going to be alright. I haven’t seen him since mind you. Things just didn’t feel like they were all going to be okay at this moment as every bone jingled, every tooth chattered, and tears, well, of course, they were not in short supply, they overflowed my eyes like the Niagara Falls!

I got home, was helped into the house, helped into my pajamas (with a hefty blanket wrapped around me, mind you) and laid back on the bed. I fell asleep instantly. I woke to pee a couple of hours later, took a pain pill then it was back to sleep until the next day. 

The next day I woke to feel very stiff, hungry as all get out because a pretzel was the gist of my food the day prior, and I felt like I was in the Cone of Silence, I spoke in whispers, and no one heard. I was in a fog. Luckily Steven had off that day because I would’ve been no good to take care of myself. Honestly, a couple days passed before I can say I consciously remember what happened.  

I wasn’t hit with a ton of side effects and chills were the main thing on the day of treatment, to look out for. I was told they’d call and see if everything was alright on Friday but it was Tuesday before they called and asked if I had found the bottle of poison I passed on months ago. It was an Estrogen blocker but the side effects were worse than the chemo Herceptin and I quite clearly told her I was not comfortable with taking them. I found an alternative blocker and told her that THIS is what I’m taking, the only side effect was a possible headache. I’m okay with that.  The doc didn’t understand why I wasn’t willing to take a prescription DRUG with an arm's length of side effects including liver damage, possible heart damage, hair loss, and a lot of other losses I just am not willing to gamble with! He needs to see the bottle of what I’m taking and I’ll show it to him, next week on my second trip of a ten-year dance with chemo. (The Doc is a he, Navigator is a she)

I knew my birthday was coming up and I was so glad to finally relax and have a ray of light shine in my window after the floods and snow absorbed my mind and chemo stole my positive line of thinking. I was losing hope and this is not something I’m familiar with! It is totally foreign to me! I’m upbeat and overflowing with positivity! 

Thursday would be a Joni day! My son was coming out to see me to give me my gift, (because he’d be working on my birthday) and my mother in law wanted to come out and see me too, because on Saturday my nephew, her grandson, was getting married. I haven’t seen her since Christmas, so that would be nice. I wanted to hear how the flood affected her little town that made National News for the first time in their lives I imagine. She had not seen any of my progress since December and I’ve come along way since then. She had no idea about my choice of doing chemo. She had company the week before and I was too shaken by the events to rain on her parade so I kept it personal. Okay, my online friends knew more than my family, just so you know!

My son got me an awesome sketch pad and an extremely nice pencil set so I can get back into my sketching. I need to refocus on something more than Facebook and just writing about the Big C. I need to focus on my passions and love! My drawing, my poetry, my gift. My story, my husband and my son are number one in my life so I need to focus on caring for them, but also nurture the passions and gifts that God gave me. My M-I-L brought me a card with money (always needed and helpful) and a soft cuddly bear with inspirational words attached to her ribbon. I named her Harmony, a grayish bear with one black ear! A precious addition to my growing stuffed family.

I was slowly feeling uplifted, but I needed to be careful because one thought, one memory could just knock me down. Saturday, my birthday arrived, I was going out to enjoy my day and have Chinese food! Woohoo! I’m on a strict protocol but sometimes the strictness binds me and it gets me down. It would take a knock on my door and a beautiful flower from someone many miles away to boldly lift my spirits! Online friends who can reach your front door with acts of kindness need their own special blessing because I’m telling you, it started a snowball of an all-around good day!!! Thank you! 

At the Chinese restaurant, I got the garden medley. My goodness, green pepper, broccoli, mushrooms, onions, carrots, and more in a nice sauce, with rice on the side! It had been gray and dreary and my one wish, my one prayer was for some sun not only for my birthday but for my nephew who was getting married outside at his family's home where he grew up. He wanted a special day as much as I did. As I walked out the door to go on my adventure, the sun came out!!!  Bright and beautiful with a little blue sky in the mixture. It was going to be a great day! What a meal I had! I bet it was a really nice wedding, too. Because of my disability, I like to spare people the burden of coddling me when something more important than me is taking place. 

I was feeling hopeful but I’m telling you it only takes one thing and wham, I’m down. Sunday it would be my talk to my mother. She is so depressing. She says over and over how lonely she is, how she has nothing to live for, life is not worth living, etc. etc. NO, no one can get through to a woman who all her life was dedicated to her husband and nothing else. Of course she has nothing to live for, with him gone, she literally has nothing. It’s sad and it brings me down, and she has NO IDEA of what I’m going through.

Monday came and I was trying to pick myself back up! I woke, cleaned myself up, got dressed, exercised, ate fruit, washed clothes and I was well on my way to a brighter day, even if the sun wanted to play hide and seek every single day! Adam visited and it was a good day, exhausting but good. I needed rest. I normally set myself by the front window with my computer but I was so exhausted by six o’clock I decided to just go lay in bed and meditate. I took my computer and instead of surfing, writing, or anything else, I chose meditative sounds to help me calm my nerves and the loss I had been feeling.

I had not realized thirty minutes had passed but I opened my eyes after a relaxing prayerful meditation and just sighed. It was a good sigh and then I caught something out of the corner of my eye. Something was saying to look out the window. The curtains were drawn but a couple of slats of the mini-blind were open. I saw something white. A mound of snow? No, it moved. Must be my white dog, Riley. No, it’s too white to be her. I jumped up not believing what I thought it was, a duck, so I made my way to peek out the window.
“My dear sweet Jesus, it’s a duck!” A BIG WHITE duck and a small black one were nestled on my lawn. Just sitting there looking around as if dazed.

My husband jumped from his chair and came in to see. He couldn’t believe the white dove and now a duck? He was scratching his head too! We both made our way to the back of the house so we could see with camera in hand what we were seeing! There they were Yin/Yang I thought. A big white duck and a small black duck.

From Wikipedia: “In Chinese philosophy, yin and yang is a concept of dualism in ancient Chinese philosophy, describing how seemingly opposite or contrary forces may actually be complementary, interconnected, and interdependent in the natural world, and how they may give rise to each other as they interrelate to one another.”

Hope was speedily returning to me. Could this be the push I needed to get me through another session of chemo next week? When Tuesday came I was almost afraid the hope would be gone but it was still there. And when hubby checked the mail there was a THANK YOU from the wonderful ladies of Physical Therapy with a thank you card. I had framed a poem and gave it to them for their office and they thanked me for that ‘blessing’ and so much more, my genuine thoughtfulness, my spunkiness, and the laughter I brought to them. I had made my mark as I apparently do. 

I read something this morning by Max Lucado: When Joseph, Mary’s husband, was asked to do something for God, instead of saying NO,  “Joseph obeyed. God used him to change the world.  He does the same with us.  Be a modern day Joseph.  God will use you to bring Jesus into the world.”

I think I found my calling. I’m listening, Lord! I’m listening. 

The Chemo Journey

1 Sam. 1:15 “And Hannah answered and said, No, my lord, I am a woman of a sorrowful spirit: I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but have poured out my soul before the LORD.”

The Chemo Journey

Preparing for the inevitable chemo Herceptin was an anxiety driven road riddled with potholes. First with the, “We need to see if your heart can handle this drug,” to “Come in the day before treatment to have your blood drawn.” All while having to say my goodbyes to the wonderful young lady who brought me this far in my Physical Therapy recovery and her team that I had grown to know and love over seven months.

A rollercoaster of emotions that I’m still not sure I’m doing the right thing but I was powering through like a champ. The heart test was tedious; take my blood, wait thirty minutes, put my blood back with some kind of drug that would identify if my heart was pumping. Into a tube after putting those lovely sticky nodule things on my chest and into the tube for twenty minutes of picture taking. I wouldn’t find out the results until chemo-day.

Even the day of drawing my blood was filled with anxiety as the lady who drew my blood was not the regular lady and it kind of hurt this time with the wiggling of the chair's arm. My arm was at an awkward position, thus the needle hurt going in and when she was done, she pressed on some cotton that didn’t feel too good but again, I was pushing through the day. Test results wouldn’t be available until the next day, chemo day. 

Chemo day arrived and my anxiety had hit an all-time high. There was no form of meditation or prayer calming me that’s for sure but again, trudge through, rain and all. I did want to go to the Mall and the Pretzel Palace where they make fresh soft pretzels. The day before we went there and met up with my son and he said he'd like to do that again on chemo day if I didn’t mind. Mind? Hubby, son and a soft pretzel equal heaven to me! And an FYI, NO, I'm not supposed to be eating it but at least I passed on the melted cheddar cheese that you could get with the pretzel. It was definitely comforting food for me in a hard time.

This was also the day the flood waters began to show signs of keeping us from getting out of the house. Hubby had been having troubles with his truck and hadn’t driven it much this winter and there was no way our already previously flooded out driveway would allow our car through. The water was rising, the substation across the road was covered, surrounded by water as I’d never seen. I was ready to cancel.

Hubby, determined to get me the doctor on Chemo Day, tried his truck, it started right up. He revved and revved, turned it off and on a couple of times and he was good to go! I wasn’t ready but he and the truck were.

As we swerved around the bend to slosh our way to the entry of our driveway, we saw what we were in for. The water around the substation was now crossing the road. The truck stalled, rev it up, stall. “Let’s go back,” I said anxiously. But instead, the next rev of the engine had us swerving on our way, up the muddy dirt road, where the ditches were almost level with the road beside them. On we went.

I had texted my son that we were on our way and would meet him at the mall at the Pretzel Palace. A relaxing visit that eased my anxiety and found me not in tears heading off to the Chemo that I was still against but trudged on anyway.

Arriving at the set time, slumped over and sad, I could feel my smile was a frown. I was not happy to be there and the thoughts of being a small child being led into a gas chamber weighed heavy on my mind. The weigh-in was grim. The hellos were stilted and the waiting for someone to come in and tell me what was next was like waiting for a dentist to yank out a wisdom tooth! I was so glad to have my husband by my side, but I could see that he too was tormented with confusion and uncertainty.

After a forty minute wait, the twenty-minute idle chit chat of the PA sent me off to ‘pick out a chair’ and they’ll set you right up. The room with the chairs was like looking at coffins to pick out. All looked like nice comfy recliners with chairs beside them for guests, but the recliners themselves looked like a deathbed. I feared that room from my very first day of diagnosis and now here I was, a victim to be sat in ‘the chair’.

As I, with a head of thinning hair sat and looked around, there was elderly bald folk hooked up by a port to get their poison. A thin young bald guy awaited his blood to be drawn and another lady waited for a shot in the stomach. Oh, the torture. I was about to cry when my doctor appeared saying he had a cold so he wouldn’t be shaking my hand today and asked if I was okay and had any questions. I had hundreds but shook my head no, tears now brimming my eyes. More idle chit chat that I didn’t hear and the nurse appeared with a needle. “You don’t have a port?” She asked quite shockingly like why are you here?
I told her no and she proceeded to stick a needle in my ‘bony arm’ and the juice flowed. For ninety minutes, with my back already in pain, I would sit as the poison flowed into my veins. I was now a victim of chemo. Outside the window, the sun briefly shone. Days on end of clouds and rain and here I was on my deathbed and the sky opened up and let the sun out to dance for a while.

After the ninety minutes were up, the nurse came back to flush something in my arm and I’d be there another ten minutes. This was almost a three-hour visit! I was hooked up to a blood pressure machine also, as this form of chemo affected the heart and they wanted to monitor me. I watched my blood pressure go from 115 to well over 140 by the time I left.

I rose to leave. Weakened, I almost dropped. My back in utter pain. Walker in hand, I made a beeline for the door, with my husband in hot pursuit. Walking past the front desk smiley receptionist says, “Is that all for today?” I wanted to tell her to go… nevermind… “I’m fine, thanks.” And walked out the door to be met by dark clouds, a chilled swift breeze and a mist starting to fall from the sky. The sun had run away too!

The chills, the pain, the anxiety, the sadness, the fear, the glazed watery eyes, the mud-puddles pretending to be roads all made their presence known. I will wallow in self-pity and figure out what I do now. Where does one go from here? 

TO BE CONTINUED…

There will be the REST of this story.
Please, no harsh criticism.

Pss. 18:4-5 The sorrows of death compassed me, and the floods of ungodly men made me afraid. The sorrows of hell compassed me about: the snares of death prevented me.

OPTIMISM: A New Day

Pss. 34:4 I sought the LORD, and he heard me, and delivered me from all my fears.

Optimism: A New Day

For the past two and a half weeks I’ve been walking around in a veiled fog. My brain couldn’t wrap itself around the simplest of things. I knew without the Oral Chemo I would start to fail. I don’t know why the nurse assumed, two weeks ago, I would jump right into the chemo Herceptin, she knows me and has been working with me for seven months but she went ahead and stopped all further shipments of my meds and didn’t, it sounds to me, get the doctors okay. He wanted me back on what I had left here at home, pronto! And as soon as I started taking it again, my body, muscles, and brain all connected, finally.

I was angry and bitter at just about anyone I came in contact with. I put up a good front (or not) but I muddled through each and every day. If you’ve been reading my blog over the years, you know I am an optimist at heart. I take everything to the Lord and listen ONLY to Him. Not my husband, son, doctors or family can tell me anything, I listen to God and wait for what He has to say ALL of the time.

This instance was no different as I told you last week. I prayed, I heard, and I listened. I also told you I didn’t like the answer I got and for that, I became bitter and disgruntled and in all honesty, ready to pick out my urn! Just an FYI: I want the cover of Dark Side of the Moon on it. Inscription will say: "I'll see you on the dark side of the moon."

Pss. 34:6 "This poor man cried, and the LORD heard him and saved him out of all his troubles."

God wants me to go the Herceptin route and for the life of me, I cannot conceive why. Why would He do this to me? Why can’t I just be healed like everyone imagines how healing is done? You don’t have to answer that I already know the answer. GOD DOES NOT WORK THAT WAY! 

With all of the healthy eating and supplementation, my body was being prepared to handle what the damaging poison would do to my system. It’s a fact that chemo destroys, it’s a fact that we have the power within ourselves to heal so we need to step up and take action to see healing through. I worked hard to build up my immunity and it may just be time to see if it is strong enough for the poison while the poison attacks the C cells. A science project in motion, if you will.

My body was ready for the Oral Chemo. After sifting through the lies that the doctor told, I had no idea the Oral Chemo was a short term route. I was led to believe ‘that I would see ANOTHER Christmas’. Well, if I don’t go the Herceptin route, I might not see another Christmas!

I have said over and over and over again, this illness is not like a cold. You eat some soup, take some vitamin c and you’re all better. There is no clear indication that just changing your diet to an organic plant-based and taking supplements is the secret to healing the Big C! I’ve NEVER EVER said that or misled anyone to believe that. I made it perfectly clear that there is an entire chasm of healing tools and chemo is NOT the only way to go either! And also, cancer is NOT the death sentence that doctors would like you to believe it is, it’s an enemy of your system, but it is YOUR system, your body, your healing, no one else can heal you but God and you!

The women I see healing alternatively have money, the choice of fine doctors at their fingertips, chiropractors, have been to the clinic in Mexico, have access to the UV saunas, have within their reach the ability to afford all the crazy organic Plant Based food, and many live in states where Medicinal Cannabis is legal. They have family supporting them and maybe they’ve never had a life of trauma. Yes, I know, we’ve all had hard lives but again TRAUMA is different than losing a dog when you were a kid or being whooped because you were bad. TRAUMA is stress that needs tender loving care to get through and it doesn’t happen in a meditation session, or on a psychologists sofa, or with drugs! There are elements to healing this disease that the poor impoverished person has a much deeper struggle to contend with.

So with that, yesterday I woke with an answer. Optimism! I’ve had a gung-ho attitude through all of this but in recent weeks my pep pooped out! Today, my poop got pepped! Ewww. Wait. Today my perk got prepped! Yeah, that sounds better. God said to me if I go into chemo thinking it’s going to destroy and kill me, by all means, it will. If I go in with the optimism that this is just another supplement (albeit a poisonous one) needed in my healing then we’ll find success, then so be it! We’ll find healing! 

God is not a God of fear tactics and scare traits. He wants me to see this as a love potion to add to all of my other healthy eating, exercising, and supplementation. This is just an odd leg of the journey that I did not want to accept. You heard me right, I didn’t like what God wanted me to do! After asking for forgiveness in my doubting Him and asking Him to hold my hand and lead the way, He shouted, OPTIMISM! We’ll walk with optimism so I can see a new day every day and see many more Christmas’! 

I don’t have to do what the doctor says, I’m in the passenger seat of this vehicle and God is my Almighty Driver! The doctors fear tactics have me on this Herceptin for years, ten to twenty. Look, people, I’m not a prisoner doing ten to twenty years for something I didn’t do. I am going to show the world that this disease can be licked, all wounds healed and scars tended to. Years down the line, the scars will be minimal with caressing, rubbing, touching, acknowledging and coming face to face with what brought them to me. 

My mantra will continue - I am HEALED, I am Healthy and I am WELL! 

All praise and Glory to my God! 

Pss. 34:1 "I will bless the LORD at all times: his praise shall continually be in my mouth."

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.

A Dove Tale

In Texas, my dove visits

Josh. 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."

A Dove Tale

I know my friends think I’m crazy, that’s a given. I’m always ranting and babbling about holistic and alternative treatment as if it is the Holy Bible of the medical world. I sure hope I never gave that impression. The first impression I like to leave you with is for you to go to God in prayer and see what He has to say about your situation. He DOES listen! He WILL answer!

Now the second thing I’d like to leave you with is timing and patience. We all go to prayer with wants and needs, OUR wants and needs. While God is all about our wants and needs too, with Him, it is all about in HIS time and not ours. Meaning sometimes we’re not going to like the answer we receive, or when we receive the answer.

When I was first diagnosed I went to Him first and listened to Him. Now you’re probably saying, “And He told you what you wanted to hear, right?” Well shockingly enough, yes and no. I had no intention of doing port chemo and when God gave me an option, alternative treatment, I listened but went for a second opinion from a doctor. It was obvious no doctor was going to hear me like God, or pay my thoughts and opinion one piece of mind. Nope, they were all about drugs and money, point blank! 

So, on I went for a year and a half listening, praying, loving, learning and healing. During this time I really tuned to the animal and plant kingdom. Whether it was my dog (who was still alive at the time), the stray dog who is still here four years after wandering onto my property, or the birds and squirrels. They are all a part of God’s kingdom and the kingdom I live in most of the time. Man has let me down on major levels throughout my life, so I have to have someone, some THING to turn to, I trust the animals. The squirrels, the Cardinals, the Doves, the Owls, the deer, the wandering wild turkey, and the Falcons; the signs, the wonders. There are more things I look for, if you can imagine, from God himself. I listen, good or bad, I have to listen, this is who I am, this is who God shaped me to be. He didn’t fashion me out of false clothing that I put on every day to prance around and show you, no I received the straight up Value Village clothing to walk around in and proudly display because this is who God created in ME!

I was recently hit with oncologist lies. I don’t know what to do with that. This is my third oncologist (I don’t have a variety out here in the middle of nowhere) so I go where God leads me. This doctor is doing an okay job, but he likes the fear tactics and scaring me and in my weakened state, I fall prey to what he offers. I’m alone and abandoned out here, I only have my husband, son, and my God. Yeah, that’s a lot to me! Besides my Spiritual Family, everyone else is just voyeurs along for the ride. 

1 Peter 5:8 “Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.”

The Big C is nothing to mess with. I know in the deepest depths of my soul that this can be beaten on an alternative level but funds are needed for that route, funds I will never hold in my hand for say Vit. C therapy, Cannabis, UV therapy, a chiropractor even and so many more treatments but out of my reach. So I have to go with what I’m offered, cannot afford, but is covered.

The doctor wrongly assumed that by scaring me back into his office a week after my visit that he’d devour me with fear and I’d jump into Chemotherapy, the port chemo that he’s been pushing all along.  He hurried me in to tell me my markers had gone up, and unknown to me, had been going up all along, he LIED! He lied when he told me they were going down, they went down once, in Oct., then went up in Dec. Jan. Feb.! And here I was two visits in February. Of course I’m going to be scared. I trusted him! 

He didn’t know that his Navigator nurse had already canceled my oral chemo from being delivered. She had called the day of my blood test and told me to stop taking the toxic drugs and that is what I did, the doc was not prepared for me to say NO to port chemo. He wasn’t prepared for me to ask what the rush was and why couldn’t it have waited until my next scheduled visit. He mumbled and babbled but I was not ready to completely give up, just meet him on MY terms, not his. I agreed to the intravenous chemo drug Herceptin. Toxic and debilitating and I knew I’d need prayer and guidance on this one. Lord, don’t fail me now. This to me is not a courageous route. They won.

I agreed only if, by my next scheduled visit, my markers were still rising. I told him I’d wait around for the results and not wait to get home to be scared. I’m also going to ask for a printout of the graph that visually shows me my red, white and C cell counts. He didn’t know the nurse had one printed for me obviously because again he lied and said my red and white cell counts were rising also. I hold the graph in my hand and it shows no such thing. My red and white cells were still dropping. So we’ll wait and see. Do I go on or do I TRY and find another doctor. I can’t keep toying with my health! I run out of choices.

Prayer upon prayer, tear upon endless tear, decisions to be made, give up, give in or trudge on. My doctor also assumed I meant that I’d sign on for this drug and it would be in my arm like the next day. I said, no, I want another blood test before my hookup and he said he needed to schedule a test to check and see if my heart can handle this toxic drug they’re going to pump into my veins. I told him I work on my husbands' work schedule, not anyone else’s. We NEED food to eat and he NEEDS to work, I have to finish up my Physical Therapy and I’d see the good old liar in three weeks.

In these weeks I’ve prayed. I had to weigh the pros and cons. I shared with my husband and son and listened to their opinion, I prayed, because I already knew what ‘I’ wanted but I’d listen for God…..

I woke on a cold brisk morning, my feeder aflutter with my usual winter birds. For a week or two, a female cardinal had been hanging out with the sparrows and I asked her, “Where is Red? You get him back here!” Red is the male cardinal who only makes special appearances since he was chased away by the Blue Jay family. I needed to see him, I needed my ‘other’ family and that is the ones of the animal kingdom. 

On this morning he was hard to miss, his rich red color against the white snow as he scurried around for some stray seed. It’s funny when they seem to stop and look right at you, and slant their little heads, then go on about their business, but sure enough, Red made his appearance this day, no sign of Bell his lady friend.

In the following days as I waited to discern answers to my prayers, I enjoyed the bunnies at the feeder in the morning before the sunrise. Four bunnies, all of which I thought had moved on because I hadn’t seen them all winter. Tracks in the snow told me they were around but I never saw them until this morning when I turned on the outside light to see if it had snowed. To my surprise, there was snow AND bunnies! As the sun came slowly cresting over the horizon on this rare event of a day, (we never see the sun these frigid, gloomy days of winter) my birds along with the squirrels all started making their appearance.

This day was different, I could feel it but couldn’t put my finger on it. Then it happened, a dove came fluttering down with his mate, then another and another. They always come in pairs but recently the six-pack was only five. I don’t know what happened to the sixth dove. These were just your every day Morning Doves. Then the fifth dove appeared and I said good morning to them all. I know my husband thinks I’m crazy but hey, it’s all I have these days! Wait, what is that, a sixth dove, a WHITE dove! WHITE! Tears were brimming my eyes and I couldn’t say nothing for fear of scaring him away but I whispered, “A white dove! Honey, a white dove!” I was full fledge crying now, in all my years here I’ve NEVER seen a white dove! 

My husband jumped out of his chair and slowly went to the kitchen window after peeking out my window and seeing what I saw, a white dove! Through tears I asked him, “Please tell me you see him. Please tell me I’m not crazy.” 

“He’s there! I see him too!” 

A sigh of relief. I’m not letting God or my family down if I go this toxic route. Let me tell you in all honesty, I wanted God to tell me no, don’t do it! That would’ve been MY answer, but I have to listen. I could spin it and say God doesn’t want me to go this chemo route and twist His answer to meet my needs but that would be dishonest, that would make me as small and little as my doctor.

I was told to give it a try, if it has bad side effects that my body can’t handle, then stop, no matter what doctor liar says. This is my body, my temple for the Lord and I will only do what He leads me to do. If at the last minute my markers miraculously go down instead of up, I pull out of this chemo crud. I just feel there are too many obstacles that can’t be beaten with diet and supplementation alone.

Back to Square One… the will to survive.

P.S. In the following days, no Red,

only one dove, and the normal

sparrows and squirrels attend

the feeder. Just so you know.

This little fella visited me last year

Crossroad to Confusion

Exodus 4:11-12 (NIV) “The LORD said to him, ‘Who gave human beings their mouths? Who makes them deaf or mute? Who gives them sight or makes them blind? Is it not I, the LORD? Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say.’” 

Okay, so here I am reopening my blog writing again and you might be asking yourself why. Well let me tell you my story, yet again. The Big C came into my life on a black horse carrying with it fear and uncertainty. That was January 25th, 2017 when I got the official diagnosis. Now in all of my research, I learned that the C cells were awakened seven to ten years earlier when they were as small as a dust mote and no possible sign of them being seen even with the finest equipment in the 21st century!

I’m not going to rehash the entire story, you can read it here with this link and all of 2017 if you wish but fast-forwarding to 2019, after I was told I was stage 4, that the C cells had metastasized, meaning they spread to my bones, my liver and I have no clue where else. Doctors are funny that way, they tell you snippets of what THEY want in little increments of fear, so you stress and worry yourself, literally to death. But I have something no doctor has and that is FAITH in the Lord my God!

Yes, I know some doctors have faith but I can assure you, they think they are doing God’s work for Him. Maybe they are and maybe they are not, that is not for me to judge. They are NOT the God I listen to. In my heart and my soul, no doctor’s fear penetrates me so much that I override what the Lord tells me and says for me to do.

Around the time of my femur break, I was placed on (OC) Oral Chemo. That is not the same as chemotherapy, being hooked to a machine pumping poison into your system. This poison targets the estrogen positive cells going crazy in my body and attacks the little wanderers in other places.

My markers were extremely high and the doctor really didn’t feel like this OC was going to work but after a month in the hospital, the pills, often not taken on a regular basis until I got home from the hospital, were showing signs of working. The oncologist who visited me in the hospital for the ten days that I was there kept pushing for me to do the port IV Chemo which I AM firmly against. I know it, God knows it, the doctors know it! But Dr. Biscuit, a colleague of my current Onc., was astounded that the little time I was on the OC, my tumor was shrinking and the markers were sliding DOWN the sliding board at record speed!

Markers are blood cell counts. White, red, and C cells. They tell the doctor what is going on inside the body. Dr. Biscuit didn’t want to agree with me that my strict diet adherence is what made my body accept the OC so well when thousands of women across the country were falling sick with vomiting, skin problems, diarrhea, and other side effects. I was an exemplary guinea pig if you will.

Miracle after miracle, my markers, month after month was going down. August-September they were at an all-time high of 2711 dropping to 350 by November. What my doctor failed to tell me was that December and January there was a slight increase in my C cells, not my White and Red ones, so I guess it didn’t draw concern at that time.

During those months I thought I was home free. My current oncologist told me to eat what I wanted to get my weight up and like a fool, I LISTENED to the doctor! As I sit here in February all the junk food, meat, dairy, carbs all toxins I hadn’t had for almost two years were in my body doing a little dance, unbeknownst to me, with my cells! I weigh the same that I weighed when I entered the hospital back in September. So the doctor was wrong in telling me to eat what I want.

I was told to stop my supplements back in September but was allowed my Vitamins A, B12, C, D3, and E. I stopped all supplementation except two that I felt were essential, Green Tea/Curcumin, turmeric/black pepper. The doctor on many occasions LAUGHED at me and made fun of my supplementation. I let it roll off my back because I took jabs at his bald head, so touché.

Also in these months, I’ve been attending Physical Therapy to regain the mobility that I lost when my femur popped out of my leg. Yeah, it was not a simple break, it was a total disaster and they really didn’t think I’d walk again after repairing the damage, but again, miraculously, I PROVED THEM WRONG! I’m walking with a walker and often with just my cane! 

The other day was my oncologist visit. It was the first time they’d seen me NOT in a wheelchair. The one assistant squealed like a little girl in amazement! 

“JONI! What’s this? You’re walking!” Squeals of delight and smiles from the other nurses as I passed and little murmurs of “Way to go!” could be heard as I was led into the docs office. Even the doctor smiled and said, “You’re looking good!”

In the room, the talk began, the banter if you will. Him making fun of me and me listening to his rhetoric on chemotherapy and how people die without it. THIS is when he mentioned my C cells rising. The OC had done its job and can do no more. This is also the time, six months later, that he tells me the OC was only supposed to work for three months. Here I was five-six months out, still looking good for a stage 4 patient. My white and red were ‘plateauing’ as he put it, an evening out.

I got home from the visit sad, not my peppy self when the phone rang as we walked in the door...

“The doctor needs to see you again. Your markers are up.” PA says to me. I said a Wednesday visit would be okay. 

I broke. The tears that had been stored up for a few months all unleashed when the floodgates opened. I had been doing so good, I’ve been soaring, walking, healing, feeling great and BAM! Slap me in the face kind doctor! 

I was angry. For the first time in my spiritual life, I was angry at God! I lost two children and didn’t feel the anger that swelled up inside of me at that very moment. I was not as well as I was led to BELIEVE I was. 

“WHY,” I cried, “why is all of this happening again. I just wanted a break, a reprieve from the stress of healing! I thought I was. I was being misled down a path?” The tears filled the trashcan to overflowing with Kleenex.

That night I did what I always do, I prayed. I apologized first and asked what He’d have me do. No answer. In the morning on Thursday, I prayed as I always do and talked with Him. I had said in jest that if it snows on Wednesday (or snow inhibiting my visit) then my answer was to just say no, to chemo! I looked at the weather and while snow was forecasted for Friday and Saturday, three to four inches, it was sunny and clouds all next week. A deep sigh left me still praying and wondering. What was I to do?

I was told by the docs office to not take any more pills and they called the pharmaceutical place and stopped delivery of further shipments. Great, I’m dangling out here, alone. HA! The jokes on them! I AM NEVER ALONE! I have an Almighty God! An intense faith in my spiritual life! It surpasses anything in this physical realm! I know my friends think I’m crazy, surely the doctor does too, but I have an AMAZING Healer in God! I cannot and will not lose my faith!

I woke Friday morning feeling eerily good. Two days in a row of PT wore me down, the doc visit shredded me to pieces and here I was Friday morning, snow blanketing the fields, and I’m feeling pretty good. Wednesday I tossed the drugs in the trash and resumed right then and there my supplementation. No more meat, back to the strict protocol that OBVIOUSLY worked FOR me and not against me!

On to reading my morning devotional emails. I was going to read ‘Verse of the Day’ first but I inadvertently hit Encouragement for the Day. In it was a story of a woman who had in-vitro fertilization and was told by her doctors that these last four embryos were ‘inferior’. In his YEARS of study, knowledge, and experience told these hope-filled parents that inferior embryos don’t ‘hatch’, so to speak.

She was on the sonogram table listening to THREE HEARTBEATS! From the email: “As I lay on that table, looking at the glowing screen, those three fluttering heartbeats told me what a doctor had labeled “inferior” was exactly the kind of thing God uses to accomplish His will.
Our doctor briskly entered the room, breathless and looking perplexed. “I really don’t know how this happened!” He exclaimed.”

What message was I, little Joni, getting from this? Let’s look at the accompanying scripture and you’ll see/read for yourself.

TRUTH FOR TODAY: Deuteronomy 31:6, “Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the LORD your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.” (NIV)

Exodus 4:12, “Now go! I will help you speak, and I will teach you what to say.” (NCV)

I closed down my writing because I thought I was done, I could move on. As you see...God is not done with me yet! A look at next weeks weather? A 70% chance of snow on Tuesday. 

All praise and Glory to a Wonderful and Amazing God! 

Just in case you were wondering, this was the other message received today. Our God is an AWESOME God! From Charles Stanley: In Touch
Pss 23:1-6

The Story Continues: A Ray of Light

Ezek. 37:1 “The hand of the Lord was upon me, and carried me out in the spirit of the Lord, and set me down in the midst of the valley which was full of bones,”

A Ray of Light

Darkness had fallen upon the nursing home after my husband and son left, when from around the curtain to my left rolled in a woman. 

“Whatcha doin? My name ith Ray, I’m your roommate.”
“Hi Ray, nice to meet you.”
“What time do you go to thleep?” she said in her lispy voice.
“About nine.”
“Me too. Do you like it dark?”
“Yes, I don’t mind the dark,” I said with a smile.
“I like the curtainth clothed, do you?”

Ray was a bit older than me at sixty-three but had the mind of a child. I’ll say a fifteen-year-old because she did have some intelligence as I got to know her over the next ten days. She too was immobile and needed a mechanical lift to get her in and out of bed. She had bulging blue eyes and the electric smile of innocence. Her gray hair was manly, tight and straight but well kept. She told me over and over how she loved purple and everything purple as she pointed to her pajamas. She would be one of the elements of light that God shined down on me. 

The first night I was there my dinner came at seven-thirty. To me, it was almost time for bed but I was hungry. I had not eaten since lunchtime (twelve o’clock) that day. I think my first meal was Salisbury steak with a biscuit and mashed potatoes and a small glass of water. Water, water was scarce for the next couple of days.

I brought with me a big thirty-two-ounce cup of water from the hospital. The hospital gives them to patients and well since I was so toxic, it isn’t like the cup could be reused. I took little sips because I did not look forward to peeing in this place. I could not yet put the dinner tray over both of my legs, so it was at an awkward slant over my right leg. The trauma of anything touching my wounded leg scared me to bits. I didn’t cover it in a blanket because the slightest brush of anything left me with a tinge of pain. 

My medication was due at seven and had not yet arrived and at eight-thirty when Ray pushed the button for the nurse, I asked when I would be receiving my meds. The young nurse said the ‘pill tray’ was on its way down the hall. I asked if she could help me to the commode after she was done with Ray and she said yes, finishing up placing Ray in bed with the ‘lift’, she said, “I’ll be right back in a minute.” And she left the room. 

She came back to the room at nine-fifteen with another young nurse and they were both wearing yellow protective coverings and gloves, in one hand was a gait belt. The gait belt was placed around my waist and it was used to help lift my tiny eight-eight pound body. One nurse to my right and one to my left hand, both had hands gripped on my pained hips in a two-foot space, they lifted. I always counted so we could be in sync. One, two, three, lift, small grunt, and pivot. Imagine three women in a two-foot space trying to pivot. The gait belt was a necessity so as to avoid liability in anything breaking.

“Please, hold the belt until I’m completely seated. This is how my left femur became broken, a sloppy seating on the commode.” Tears began running down my cheek as the tragic incident flooded my mind. Embarrassment, pain, vanity, all danced around in my head as I was gently seated. They removed their gowns and left the room for me to urinate. I was pushing the nurses' call button as fifteen minutes on the commode was leaving my limbs numb. They returned, put on a new set of yellow gowns and gloves, and lifted me, pivot, and I sat on my bed and was ready to just sleep. I jokingly thanked them for the dance. It was my sense of humor and personality that kept these young ladies smiling as they took care of me for the next week.

Curtains were drawn lights out. I cried quietly because I honestly was afraid to be alone. My husband had spent the ten days at the hospital with me and this place barely had sitting room for my two guests. I was alone, except for my prayers and my roommate, Ray.

“You okay?” I hear in the darkness, it was Ray.
“Yeah Ray, I’m just lonely.”
“I get like that thumbtime. Itth okay to cry. What time do you get up?”
“About five for me.”
“Yeah, me too. I go to dialithith.” I drifted off a little as she continued talking, ever so lightly, but it was comforting in the darkness. “Okay, goodnight.”
I opened my eyes a second and whispered, “Goodnight, Ray.”

I was startled awake at about one o'clock as the bright lights came on and Ray was being tended to. I called out, “Can someone get my pain meds for me and I need to pee, too.” 
“Sure Joni, let us take care of Ray first okay?” 
Okay, thank you.” 
She went and got another nurse after calling down for pain meds for me. They gowned and gloved up and came around the curtain to help me. 

I was on twelve-hour oxysomething but allowed ‘2 booster pills’ for pain if needed. And being startled awake and moved around, I certainly needed the pain medication still at this juncture of healing. It had only been eleven days since surgery. The pill lady was a different nurse, she was called the ‘charge nurse’, I guess because she was in charge of the pills? Maybe the nurses too, I don’t know. She took my vitals while she was there at two o'clock so she didn’t need to wake me at three to do it all over again. Everything normal (except me) and with a ‘I hope you sleep well’ after shutting the lights off and closing the door, she was out of the room.

“That feelth better,” I hear Ray say on the other side of the curtain.
“Yeah, it sure does,” I whispered.
“Okay, goodnight.” 
“Goodnight Ray”

Jer. 29:11 “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.”

My Story Continues: The Nursing Home

Pss. 136:1 "O give thanks unto the Lord; for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever."

The day came where it was time for me to be transported to the Nursing Home/Rehab center, I cried for more than one reason, I was losing all the familiarity I had for ten days, the closeness of the nurses and physical therapists was something I hadn’t expected. I think that was the reason they changed nurses every single day. The rotation of nurses didn’t allow for intimacy to grow between patient and nurses/physical therapist etcetera.

The Tuesday morning came when I’d await the arrival of my ride to the nursing home. No gurney was necessary because I was now semi-mobile in a wheelchair and I was commode mode so setting me loose was what my insurance called for. My husband and son were not allotted the time to look around at rehab places because conveniently a room had opened up for one woman, at St. John’s, I would be the one woman that the insurance insisted I take. 

Sadness, anxiety, and fear had all crept into my being as I was loaded on the van lift and taken to the nursing home/rehab across from the hospital I had called home for ten days. Gone were the days of very regular delicious meals that arrived between six and seven a.m., twelve and one p.m., and the dinner at five to six. Water refreshed and medication, always on time. The hospital was now a thing of yesterday.

My husband and I were escorted to the entry hall of the Home. A nice carpeted room with overstuffed chairs lining the walls, a fake fireplace was the central focal point and it looked cozy enough at a glance. We were met by a small older-than-me woman with tight curly blonde hair and a nurses uniform hugging her petite body.

“Welcome, Joni, let me get your vitals and we’ll wheel you down to your room.” 

I sat silently gazing off into space wondering just where it was I was being left. The vitals were fine and off we went, down a crowded hallway with patients lined up against one wall and equipment lined on the other wall. The patients looked helpless, hopeless and immobile, looking at me as if I was an alien that landed smack dab in their territory. 

I’ve been in nursing homes before so I knew kind of what to expect, but I honestly thought that there was a rehab wing that separates the long-term patients from us short-term patients that were just here for rehab. This was not the case. You’re not in Baltimore anymore, Joni. Back home my grandmother was placed in a similar facility but the long term/ short term patients were not together. The nurse I’ll call Bird because to me she resembled Big Bird but much smaller, she was the one who was in charge of the nurses on staff, her office was where we came in the door at and she met us there. 

I was wheeled down the hall as Bird explained that they were building a new wing to the home and for now the patients were being doubled up in rooms until construction is completed. Lucky me. Room number twelve is where we paused and she announced it as my room. Outside the door had a name and the picture of the tenant and below her was my name with no picture, just the note on the wall CHEMO PATIENT! Chemo protocols necessary. Gait belt needed.

I was wheeled into a tightly packed room of the current tenant. The room was about twelve by twenty-four, and I was wheeled back to the window where my bed was set and a side table all in about six feet of space. A commode was sitting against the wall where there was a bureau with a television on it. The home did not reek of the normal nursing home odors, for now anyway, so that was a plus.

My husband looked at me with pain in his eyes. He was horrified of the place where he had to leave me, where we had no options. This is the place where Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome, also known as PTSD would set in. There were two metal chairs in the corner and I thought, at least I can have two visitors. I was already traumatized by the whole broken femur and surgery, now this. The story continues.

My husband went to work in getting my flowers from his truck to place in the window for me and to bring me my blanket that the church ladies made for me, he wanted it to feel as nice as the hospital environment but knew full well, this was not the environment neither of us envisioned. The comforter that currently covered the bed looked old and wrinkled and the sheets had a clean but well-worn look also, but I wasn’t here for sheets and blankets, let’s move on. 

“Will you be dining in the cafeteria this evening with the others?” Bird lady asked.

“No, not tonight, thank you.”

She went on, “Dinner is served at six in the cafeteria, and if you eat ‘in-room’, you have to wait until the others are back in their rooms. About seven your meal should arrive.” She was looking at her clipboard, “I’ll let you get acquainted and come back.”

Eyes filled with brimming tears I whispered, “Thank you.” My date with hell was beginning.

My son entered the room. He was finagling his time between work, moving into his new place, and visiting me often at the hospital. Husband and son were both trying to get back to a routine of working and visiting me after work. My husbands only problem was that he needed to be home before dark since he cannot see at night to drive. My son would stay until seven maybe, if he could, then it was me, all alone in what felt like an asylum. 

My husband ran off to the store and came back with a new quilt for the bed. He was not leaving me in that mess. Both husband and son went to work to make the place comfortable for me as evening was drawing near. My commode was set next to my bed on the left in a tight space with the curtain of the other tenant pressed against it. On the right of my bed sat a nightstand and the wheeled tray? That barely fit in front of the nightstand. 

I was still basically immobile, I could not bend my leg and the pain was still evident with each move. I did wonder how well I would be taken care of here. The tears...puddled the floor only to be dried by the sheet hanging down off of my bed. 

The night was closing in and the goodbyes were the hardest thing any of us have ever been through in our lives together. I would be alone. Alone in the dark, only sounds of the echoing hallways would be heard and all that the hallways held in them. I would be strong for my two guys. I would be out of here in no time. Right? I have to be.

the story continues...

"My heart is steadfast, O God, my heart is steadfast! I will sing and make melody!” Psalm 57:7 (ESV)